Volvo 940 front suspension upgrade
 

Hi all,

This is my first post on the forum, so please be gentle with me. :regular_smile:

I'm wanting to upgrade my front suspension of my 25 year old 940 and looking at previous threads on the forum my options appear to be:

Bilstein B6, Koni or Gaz

If I've missed any other alternatives I'd be much obliged to hear about them.

Two questions I have are:

1) Which is the best option in terms of value for money.
2) Recommendations as to where to purchase them from. Preferably somewhere in the UK.

Many thanks in advance for everyone's advice.

You would be better off changing the bushes for polubushes first as chances are if you haven't changed them the spaceship bushes will be shot, the arms will be full of corrosion on the spaceship bush seating area and depending on the mileage the strut rod and track control arm bushes will be tired if not perishing. The ARB pin bushes are probably like mushrooms and splitting badly too.

The most common option that people go for are Bilstein B4 dampers with lesjofores 40mm lowering springs.

Like Luke said, the most common upgrade is 40mm lower Lesjofors springs (Lesjofors were OE suppliers to Volvo and many others) and Bilstein B4 dampers.

However, when you say you want to upgrade your suspension, what exactly are you looking to achieve? If you want to simply improve handling without compromising ride quality, fitting new bushes (as Luke suggests), new standard springs and converting the rear to standard springs and dampers then fitting uprated anti-roll bars front and rear will improve the handling and roadholding a lot.

However if you intend to use it for fast road use a lot, the -40mm springs and stiffer B4 dampers, preferably with the uprated ARBs would be the way to go but would compromise ride quality.

The best thing you can do to start with is to optimise the existing set up by renewing any worn bushes (the space ship aka lower control arm to radius arm bushes have a huge effect on keeping the front end going where it's meant to) and have the wheel alignment checked, make sure the tyre pressures are correct and preferably the same tyres all round.

That will give you a starting point to decide which areas you want to improve.

940 tic auto 1995
 

luke 360 BEAST has just done excellent job of replacing my front bushes . i see he's a bit far away from you though . please keep us informed of your progress there should be help and advice here !

I recently refreshed all my front end suspension. I went for 40mm Lesjofors lowering springs and Bilstein B4's. Very happy with it. I polybushed the spaceship and used genuine Volvo rubber for the other front bushes. As Luke said it's the spaceships that really wear and will give the most issues.

Lesjofors from PFV online and Bilstein I got from Demon Tweeks.

I would disagree that this compromises ride quality. I have this setup on my car and it doesn’t feel much different from standard, just feels more “modern” - bit less roll, more composed. Slightly firmer - maybe? - but it still feels relatively smooth and comfy compared to my new Ford.

If your suspension is shot anyway even replacing with standard stuff will make it feel better.

B6 shocks are for fast road and I wouldn’t recommend them for standard road use as I have read they are a lot “racier”.

Replacing all the rubber bits will make it a lot better, they are probably a bit worn now anyway unless they’ve been done recently. They can be really cheap as standard so it might be worth just getting new standard items first if your budget is limited.

Don’t buy cheap coil overs. Just don’t. It isn’t worth it.

One thing which I thought would make a massive difference was changing to 17” wheels, but I never felt a massive difference to be honest (I kept the same rolling radius).

If my wife didn’t drive our car I would drop it 80mm and have some thinner tyree on 18” Oceans but she’d destroy the car on the first road with speed bumps..... 😂😂

Where did you get the spaceship bushes from?

I used Superflex and got them direct https://www.superflex.co.uk/products.php?cat=422

I don't find the B4's and -40mm harsh at all.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but thought I would ask the question on here.

The general consensus is 40mm lowering springs, but does anyone run the lowering springs from Classic Swede? Seems to have a few more options 50mm, 60/40mm, 70mm which I suspect is probably too low on a 740 daily?

Just thinking about future options.