19T turbo?

[foggyjames]

The 18T and 19T are very similar in size, but they are a certain amount bigger than the 16T. It's true that there's not night and day difference...so perhaps Stuart is trying to protect you from spending money you don't need to?

Personally, I'd not bother with the lightened flywheel...it seems OTT given the rest of the spec.

cheers

James

[carpy]

Originally Posted by foggyjames

The 18T and 19T are very similar in size, but they are a certain amount bigger than the 16T. It's true that there's not night and day difference...so perhaps Stuart is trying to protect you from spending money you don't need to?

Personally, I'd not bother with the lightened flywheel...it seems OTT given the rest of the spec.

cheers

James

Well yes I think that was what Stuart was getting at - that £2000 or so on a 19T / downpipe / remap simply isn't worth it when he can get almost the same from my 16T with one of his custom maps & a BSR exhaust / air filter etc.

The lightened flywheel was something Staurt said wasn't compulsory but this was pretty much thrown in as a bonus price wise so it made sense to do that too.

I wish there were some independent dynos who tested the same car with different maps / mods from different places! At least then people like me would know that we are comparing apples with apples if you know what I mean.

It seems to be a bit of a minefield and trying to ask questions / find out some figures is difficult without upsetting someone along the line. I give up!

[don kalmar union]

Good morning Carpy,

I really dont know why it would be an improvement to change a perfectly good Miltek cat back for a BSR equivalent, or for that matter to fit a BSR air intake which takes warm air from inside the bonnet.

Volvo's own original inlet tract is very well designed and efficient and can be improved very slightly by fitting an aftermarket panel filter over a standard one: the most important thing is that it draws cold air from outside.

Much depends really on how long you intend to keep the car and what are sensible, economic changes to make in terms of your budget and where you want to be in the end.

Certainly, if your clutch is pretty shagged, then replacing it may be a consideration sooner rather than later and for road use the Volvo standard package is more than adequate. A lightened flywheel, although maybe costly in itself, would not add much to the labour cost of a full clutch change. A lightened flywheel is not a usual mod for a road car, but is effective in that it reduced the mass and slightly helps acceleration.

The addition of a good quality downpipe with special cat will help your 16T to achieve its potential, but some consideration must be given to the condition of your turbo.

I have a spare ECU for your car with MTE software in it, you are very wellcome to swap it and see what you think of it....

Regards, Don.

[pyaap]

How much power are you after Carpy? From my experience, that is the main determinant of the hardware you are going to need, and you need to be reasonably specific about your target.

[carpy]

It's very hard to put a figure on it. My car has been dynoed at VT with 235WHP and when driving the car even though it is extremely quick compared to most cars on the road, I am always wishing the car had more power when I want to stretch it.

I would imagine that once up at around 300whp it would be more than fast enough for a big estate like the Volvo but like everything you don't know if you'll want more when you get there. I would say that if I wanted more than 300WHP I would probably change the car and move to something more agile / suited to this.

I just don't know how to achieve that kind of power though with the Volvo.

The thing is, when I started enquiring I was told by one garage the 19T and downpipe would achieve between 290-300WHP and that to me sounds like the power I am looking for, but then when I investigate further I find more than one source telling me the 19T route is good for about 290bhp @ crank and no more. Such a large discrepancy but it puts someone like me in an impossible situation because you end up not believing anyones figures etc.

[Nuisance]

Good evening!

It's always dificult for a new user to fall into a thread like this, but I do understand what carpy is going through having recently gone through it myself.

I do see a lot of 15''s 16's 18's and 19's being thrown arround here, with the odd 28 and 30 thrown in for good measure, with a lot of conflicting info, and random bhp figures here and there.

If Don got confused then what hope does carpy have...LOL

I got to the point of understanding that any bhp figure was just a instantaneous power peak, and not really that useful as a vehicle performance comparison. (more useful for bragging)

I was lead more to belive that it is more the shape of the power /torque curve, and the higher overall average (within reason) that would produce the better car.
Also, that the turbo was only a part of a more balanced system, and in order for it to perform well the whole system had to be able to deliver.

It was explained that the different characterisics of the various turbos would produce diferent curves, and for diferent durations. And as Don said near the start of this thread, a small amount of work by a turbo specialist can drasticaly improve the output of certain units. {clue}

Flow restrictions needed removing as best as possible, so a high performance downpipe / exhaust was a good idea.

Significantly pumping up the air pressure had to also be balanced with an adequate supply of fuel, which needed suficient fuel rail pressure and injector flow rates.

Then finally the software needed a custom mapping to take into account this whole bunch of work.

Rather than running around grasping at random turbos, off the wall bhp, and iffy dyno spec's I found it better to find someone who could recomend a balanced package, and use a combination of parts that worked for them.

I would recomend carpy that the better line to take would be as I finally did, (after a recomendation from a friend that works for a major auto manufacturer) tell a tuner what you want from the car and your budget, then see what they can achieve for you with the parts that they think best. Peronally I'm not one for telling an "expert" what to do.

There are obviously cost limitations that will play heavily on what you will end up with, bearing in mind what car you are setting out with, It's not the most developed of the B5234 engines or ECU, and is of a fair age, so more expense will be incurred for the higher performances, than say if you were starting with a P2 V70 / S60.

I've ended up with a car that I'm happy with, it has enough power, and a fabulously wide and flat torque curve, spool up is quick, and it pulls right up the rev range. It is very driveable, and great fun. I dont care if so and so's gets a higher peak figure on suchabody's dyno, but I do like the fact that it makes me chuckle, at the reaction of others when it "goes for it"

Also worth remembering is that pushing any car hard has it's risks, but especially with the older ones, it's not unknown for rods to be bent, or a couple of pistons to have melted due to the modifications (especially if you're the first one with that mod), so choose your tuner carefully, see if anyone else has had similar work done, and see what sort of customer service they'll give you. After all you wouldn't want to be in the situation of throwing about 5 grand away would you????

Best of luck

[foggyjames]

First off, some of VT's dyno figures seem to be optimistic. If you're bothered about getting a true picture of your car's output, I'd get a run on another couple of dynos and average the results. Alternatively, you could simply continue to use VT's dyno, and get relative power figures...even if you have to take the actual figures with a pinch of salt.

Originally Posted by carpy

I just don't know how to achieve that kind of power though with the Volvo.

Easy - More boost (and possibly raised RPM operation...but 300whp should be easy with a 6500 rpm limit). For reference, the three main ways of increasing power output are to increase displacement (i.e. engine size), combustion pressure (raised compression or boost) or volumetric efficiency (better combustion chamber & cylinder head design).

The tricky question is which turbo setup will most efficiently supply this. I'd suggest getting something larger than a 19T for 300whp. However, a 19T is a tried and tested method (even if it may not be the best) for getting 300bhp at the crank.

Originally Posted by carpy

The thing is, when I started enquiring I was told by one garage the 19T and downpipe would achieve between 290-300WHP and that to me sounds like the power I am looking for, but then when I investigate further I find more than one source telling me the 19T route is good for about 290bhp @ crank and no more.

That is fairly easily explained, actually. With suitable supporting modifications, a B5234 with a standard rev limit and about 1 Bar (~15psi) of boost will typically make just shy of 300bhp (crank). Some tuners will undoubtedly run more boost than this, and get higher power figures as a result...whereas some are wary of using a relatively small turbo to deliver high boost pressures into a good sized engine. We could get highly technical here, but I don't think it would be useful!

What few people seem to have done is fitted a turbo which is larger than a 19T, but smaller than a Garrett GT3071 or similar. That might be a good middle ground for 300-350whp (rather than 400-450 from a 'built' engine). I don't really have a suggestion to make regarding what would be suitable...other than perhaps one of the 'large' GT28xx units, or a 'small' GT30xx? That's just a hunch off the top of my head, and you'd have to look at the specs before actually chosing a turbo.

cheers

James

[carpy]

Originally Posted by Nuisance

I would recomend carpy that the better line to take would be as I finally did, (after a recomendation from a friend that works for a major auto manufacturer) tell a tuner what you want from the car and your budget, then see what they can achieve for you with the parts that they think best. Peronally I'm not one for telling an "expert" what to do.

Thanks for the post. The thing is people like me tend to research the forums thoroughly and make our choices based on what's on there. So from my research I chose the 19T & downpipe route based on the fact that it costs around £2000 & gets you 325ish BHP. Power wise you'd think well that's probably another 50bhp on top of what I have now so should be quite nice.

So then you put in the phonecall to the tuner & find out that you won't get that kind of power from what you've chosen so then it all falls down!

I guess what I should do is choose a power level (say 350bhp) and see what I need to get me there. But then again I would imagine that requires internals uprated anyway, so might as well head for 400bhp or so?

[bobcat]

Ive posted this before,

this car has a 19t with some other goodies:

http://www.swededemon.com/850html/The850.html

and i believe elliot got 316bhp from an s60r kkk

so as mentioned the above figures do suggest that vt's claims of 340 from a 19t seems a bit optimistic, especially as no one have independently verified it.

Id stick with a 16t, a good stage 0, exhuast, filter and a custom map.

[carpy]

Originally Posted by bobcat

Ive posted this before,

this car has a 19t with some other goodies:

http://www.swededemon.com/850html/The850.html

and i believe elliot got 316bhp from an s60r kkk

so as mentioned the above figures do suggest that vt's claims of 340 from a 19t seems a bit optimistic, especially as no one have independently verified it.

Id stick with a 16t, a good stage 0, exhuast, filter and a custom map.

Thanks for that! The thing is even sticking with the 16T and doing the exhaust / filter & remap would probably mean new clutch required & then the total cost would be nearing 19T territory anyway!!!!!! Argghhh