Tuning the Volvo S70

"Tuning guide to the most effective Volvo S70 modifications."

The S70 is a awesome tuning project to fill your spare time. With the right mods your S70 can be transformed into a stunning project. Don't waste money, do your homework and follow our unbiased guides to each performance upgrade so you don't waste your money.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Improving the handling for DIY mechanics first priority in your S70 tuning project.

We found that most S70 factory suspension setups need tweaking, a few degrees of toe out for cornering or toe in for stability, , and a tiny bit of negative camber will greatly improve your cornering and handling.

Drop the car by as much as 21mm - 38 mm. and fit modified stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Turning our attention to the S70's engine we need to get a bit more power out of the top end.

The best power gains come from larger engine sizes. The more you start with the bigger the return on investment so engine swaps are good value mods for small engined cars.

Engine Tuning.

The following modifications are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you begin.

Getting the right performance upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 motor sport mods just won't work well on the road making the car difficult to drive.

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Modifying to Stage 1:

 Alloy wheels, Lighter flywheel, Suspension upgrade (drop 21mm - 38 mm.), Remap, Sports exhaust, Panel air filter.

Modifying to Stage 2:

 Ported and polished head, high flow fuel injector, fuel pump upgrades, Power/Sport clutch, Fast road cam.

Modifying to Stage 3:

 Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Competition cam, Engine balancing, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Sports gearbox.

Your goal when modding the engine should be a nice flat torque band. You don't want all the torque to be at the top end of the rev range unless you are creating a competition car.

The point of our pointers is to give a little insight into the world of modding mods and point you in the right direction, our forum is best place to go if you need more detailed advice and tips on your tuning project, the best sport kits and all aspects of modding cars.One of the best mechanical performance mods you can do on your NASP engine is to fit a fast road cam .

It improves the intake and exhaust durations and increases the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a reflashed ECU. We'd also caution you not to go with a motor sport cam as this affects the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

Don't forget to pay attention to the fuelling when you are increasing the power - it makes the car more thirsty.

If you find you get flat spots and surges after your performance parts you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. To get sufficient fuel you may need to increase the injectors on your engine.

Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned S70's uprated injectors.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Air induction kits only help to increase performance if your cars air intake is struggling! Adding an induction kit to most stock engines will see LITTLE LOW END POWER GAIN AT ALL. If you have heavily modified your engine and it's need for air INCREASES DRAMATICALLY then an induction kit is the answer and will help remove this restriction.

Derestricting the flow of air into the engine is a primary goal of tuning so get a better flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean only if you find the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound fun but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not really increase power and actually rob you of power on most cars.

Sports exhausts generally help improve air flow through the engine but do not go too wide or you may end up will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches for best results.

Head work including a gas flow and 3 or 5 angle valve job will really help to release the potential of the engine. A good heavy duty fast road performance clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never cut corners or assume a standard OEM clutch to cope. The best mods that we recommend for your S70 are remaps, sports camshafts and induction improvements.

Turbo engines are just asking to be Reprogrammed. You will see significant power gains on most modern turbo charged cars including diesels making a remap one of the most cost effective and significant modifications for your money.

We've also come across some owners experimenting with twincharged conversions and making some impressively high power gains.

Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NASP engine will give large power gains. Superchargers are usually easier to add than a turbo. Turbos give boost in exponential proportion to th engine speed and this can make mapping difficult.

The nice proportional boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them easier to map. Alternatively you could install water injection to cut down knock.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels can help the brake cooling and are generally less heavy than steel ones. Further improvements can be made to your cars handling with the addition of track legal slick tire. The downside to large alloy wheels on your S70 is that you're changing your final drive ratio so this will have a negative effect on performance.

Due to this aim to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the standard factory sizes. In all cases we do not recommend going larger than 16 inches.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss S70 options in more detail with our S70 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Volvo tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

Please help us improve these tips by sending us your feedback in the comments box below.

We love to hear what our visitors have got up to and which mods work best for them on each model of car. Comments are used to improve the accuracy of these articles which are continually updated.

This article was written by Waynne Smith on TorqueCars, and I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Volvo. You can leave a response below or join TorqueCars forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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