Volvo V40 Tuning

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We review V40 tuning and summarise your best performance upgrades.

Volvo V40's offer good returns when tuned and with a few sensible sports mods you can increase your driving fun.

The fantastically designed V40 sits in Volvo's lineup as the small family car and was produced from 2012.

It has proven to be quite popular, thanks in part to the wide selection of engines, and the great build quality.

The V40 is a good car tuning project to carry out. The key to V40 tuning is finding the right mods - a lot of money can be wasted if you do it wrong.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are often a priority for the V40.

We found that most V40 factory suspension setups need tweaking, a few degrees of toe out for cornering or toe in for stability, (1-1.5 degrees) and slight negative camber will greatly enhance your cornering and handling.

We would go to a maximum drop of 22mm - 35 mm on most models. You risk rubbing on the arches if you go lower than this.

Turning our attention to the engine we need to get a bit more bhp 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 mods.

This list of the stages and motorsport parts are usually installed by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you get started.

Getting the correct grade of sports mods for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 motor sport mods just won't work well on the road difficult in stop start traffic.

Please watch our video which covers the 5 principles of tuning your car. Be sure to keep up with our latest YouTube content and subscribe.

Best Engine Mods for your car

1. Engine Tunes - engine tuning/remapping provides the most advantage in terms of cost savings,  aftermarket ECUs, and piggyback ECUs are all alternatives.
2. Fast road cams are one of the most significant mechanical changes, but they must be installed by someone who knows what they're doing and they are not always easy to source but you might find a local firm to regrind a stock camshaft.
3. Intake and Exhaust - Note that on their own these mods will NOT ADD POWER in most cases, but they can help enhance power after other mods by removing the restriction.
4. Upgrades to turbochargers and superchargers - forced induction is the most efficient approach to increase air supply, allowing you to burn more fuel and make more power. It is one of the most costly upgrades but provides the best gains.
5. Head work - The goals of porting and flowing the head are to get air flowing into the engine while removing flow restrictions and turbulence.

Typical stage 1 mods often include: Sports exhaust, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Panel air filter, Alloy wheels, Engine Tunes/Remapping, Lighter flywheel.

Typical stage 2 mods often include: Ported and polished head, Power/Sport clutch, fuel pump upgrades, high flow fuel injector, Fast road cam.

Typical stage 3 mods often include: Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Engine balancing, Competition cam, Sports gearbox, Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger).

There were quite a few engines offered, and we hopefully have them all listed here.

Petrol engines

• B4164T3 2012–2015 150PS (148 hp) 240Nm(177 lbft) @1600–4000
• B4164T4 2012–2015 180PS (178 hp) 240Nm(177 lbft) @1600–5000
• B4154T5 2016–2019 122PS (120 hp) 220Nm(162 lbft) @1600-3500
• B4154T6 2015–2019 152PS ( 150 hp) 250Nm(184 lbft) @1700–4000
• B4204T38 2015–2019 122PS (120 hp) 220Nm(162 lbft) @1100-3500
• B4204T37 2015–2019 152PS (150 hp) 250Nm(184 lbft) @1300–4000
• B4204T19 2015–2019 190PS (187 hp) 300Nm(221 lbft) @1300–4000
• B4204T41 2015–2019 248PS (245 hp) 350Nm(258 lbft) @1500–4800
• B4204T11 2015–2019 248PS (245 hp) 350Nm(258 lbft) @1500–4800

Diesel engines.

• D4162T 2012–2015 115PS (113 hp) 270Nm(199 lbft) @1750–2500
• D5204T6 2012–2015 150PS (148 hp) 350Nm(258 lbft) @1500–2750
• D5204T4 2012–2015 177PS (175 hp) 400Nm(295 lbft) @1750–2750
• D4204T8 2015–2019 121PS (119 hp) 280Nm(207 lbft) @1500–2250
• D4204T9 2015–2019 152PS (150 hp) 320Nm(236 lbft) @1750–3000
• D4204T14 2015–2019 192PS (189 hp) 400Nm(295 lbft) @1750–2500

Interestingly Volvo used the same VEA engine across the range, so a D2 and D4 shares the same components, but the D4 has better turbocharging (twin) and better fuel injectors. So the lower power variants are quite easy to push up to the higher power levels with simple off the shelf bolt on upgrades and ECU tuning.

You should keep as much low end torque as you can and aim for a long power band across the rev range rather than a narrow top end power hike.

The point of our guides is to give a brief overview of car tuning upgrades and point you in the right direction, our forum is the place to go for detailed advice and tips on your modified car project, the best sport upgrades and all aspects of modding cars.A fast road cam typically is one of the best NASP power modifications you can do with a single part fitted to your engine.

The intake and exhaust flow play a large part in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car difficult to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a camshaft upgrade with other mods and finish with a performance chip to fully realise your gains.

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to increase the fuelling.

If you find you experience flat spots and power surges after your sports kits you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Uprating the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.

Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned V40s uprated injectors.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Please note that WE DO NOT FIND IMPROVEMENTS WITH INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car extensively and are finding that the standard air intake has become limited.

Derestricting the air feed 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. Induction kits can sound great but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not really increase power and actually rob you of power.

Sports exhausts can usually air flow through the engine but do not go too big or you could very well end up with a reduced flow rate. So generally speaking, keep to 1.5 to 2.5 inches as a rule of thumb.

Getting the cylinder head gas flowed will further help more air into each cylinder. This is definitely a job for a professional with a flow bench. In nearly all cases of V40 tuning your clutch will start to fail and this should be improved - read our overview on clutches for more information.

The best mods we recommend for your V40 are a tune/remap especially on a turbo, a fast road camshaft and sports exhaust, with a good air intake. Remaps offer massive power gains on all turbo charged cars.

On NA (naturally aspirated) engines the benefits are doubtful. However a chipped ECU on a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods. The most significant power gains for NA (naturally aspirated) engines usually involve the addition of forced induction.

Turbos are often harder to add than a supercharger. With a turbo the power curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it difficult to map fuelling with.

Superchargers, however will give a boost which is correlating to engine speed so is simpler. Adding forced induction will generally require a lower compression ratio or water injection.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Due to the fact that alloy wheels are less heavy they improve performance and they can help to cool the brake disks. Further improvements can be made to your cars handling with the addition of soft compound tire. Large V40 alloys can decrease performance. If you get big alloys you will be changing your final drive ratio.

Because of this we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 18 inches, although we know some of our members have with bigger wheels with no problems. We really rate the handling of the car on 16's - they seem to suit the V40 really well. 18's are prone to tramlining and don't carry well over road bumps and undulations.

If you would like to know more, or just get some friendly advice on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss V40 options in more detail with our V40 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.

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