Volvo VEP4 Tuning

"All you need to know about tuning the Volvo VEP4 engine!"

In this article we look into VEP4 tuning and provide tips on the best modifications for your car. Volvo VEP4 are popular engines and with carefully picked sports mods like remaps, turbo upgrades and camshafts you will noticeably enhance your driving fun.

History, Power & Specs of the Engine

The VEP or Volvo Petrol Engine 4 came as a 1.5L or 2.0L  engine

  • T2 122 PS (90 kW)  turbo. From 2016
  • T3 152 PS (112 kW) turbo. From 2016
  • T4 190 PS (140 kW)  turbo. From 2016
  • T5 245 PS (180 kW) turbo. From 2016
  • T6 320 PS (235 kW) turbo and supercharger. From 2016
  • Polestar 367 PS (270 kW) turbo and supercharger. From 2017
  • T8 320 PS (235 kW) turbo, supercharger, and rear electric motor developing 87 PS (64 kW). From 2016

Tuning the Volvo VEP4 and best VEP4 performance parts.

Best VEP4 tuning parts

Just because particular mods are are common on VEP4 it doesn't mean you should fit it, so we'll best mods that will give your VEP4 the best value for money to power increase.

Significant gains on the VEP4 can be made from camshaft upgrades. Altering the camshaft profile alters the intake and exhaust durations on the engine and can dramatically change the power band and power output.

Fast road cams tend to raise the torque through the rev band, you could drop a little bottom end torque but the high end rpm power will be lifted.

Competition cams, raise the high end rpm power band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

A Motorsport cam won't do well if driving in heavy traffic.

You should ideally match your power band to your usage of the car so for a road car stick with a fast road VEP4 cam

Some VEP4 engines respond better to less aggressive cam durations so view each engine as unique.

The map and fuel pump and injectors also have a large bearing on the torque gains you'll achieve.

Altering valve durations can alter the torque band and on most engines the exhaust and intake durations do not need to match, although most cams and tuners use matched pairs there are some advantages to extending the intake or exhaust durations.

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: Intake manifolds, Sports exhaust header/manifold, Remaps/piggy back ECU, drilled & smoothed airbox, Fast road camshaft, Panel air filters.

Typical stage 2 mods often include: induction kit, Sports catalyst & performance exhaust, high flow fuel injectors, Fast road cam, Ported and polished head, fuel pump upgrades.

Typical stage 3 mods often include: Crank and Piston upgrades to alter compression, Competition cam, Engine balancing & blueprinting, Adding or Upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Internal engine upgrades (head flowing porting/bigger valves), Twin charging conversions.

Review your options and then buy your parts and set yourself a power target to avoid disappointment.

ECU flashing helps unlock the full potential of all the tuning parts you've done to your VEP4.

(In some cases, as the factory ECU is locked flashing is not an option, so an aftermarket ECU is the route to take, and many of these will outperform factory ECU's but make sure it has knock protection and that you get it setup properly.)

It will usually give you around 30% more power on turbocharged vehicles and you can expect to see around 15% on NA (naturally aspirated) engines, but your results usually rely on the tuning parts you've done and the condition of your engine.

It is the whole point to any performance tuning task to shove more air into the VEP4 engine

Intake manifolds transmit the air during the suck phase from the air filter and allow it to be sucked into the engine cylinders with fuel for the squish phase.

The size of bore and shape and flow rate of the Intake manifolds can make a big change to fuel atomisation on the VEP4.

Commonly we find the intake are needing performance upgrades, although a few makers provide decently flowing intake.

Fitting big valve kits, carrying out port work and head flowing will also increase torque, and significantly will raise potential for raising the torque increase on other mods.

Turbo upgrades

NA (naturally aspirated) engines need quite a lot of work when you add a turbo, so we have a separate guide to help you take into account the pros and cons of going this route on your VEP4

The more air you can get into an engine, the more fuel it can burn and uprating the induction with a turbocharger upgrade makes excellent power gains.

When an engine is turbocharged, upgrades are going to net you a larger power gain and most turbo charged engines use strengthened components.

There are weak spots for every engine, with some being over specified and some only able to handle stock power

See where you'll find these restrictions and install stronger pistons, crank and engine components to survive the power.

We've seen car owners spending a loads on turbo upgrades on the VEP4 only to watch the car literally blow up just after it's finished.

Big capacity turbo chargers tend to suffer low end lag, and small turbo chargers spool up really quickly but do not have the peak end bhp gains.

Over the last 20 years the world of turbos is always improving and we are seeing variable vane turbos, permitting the vane profile is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end power.

Twin scroll turbos divert the exhaust gases into 2 channels and push these at differently angled vanes in the turbocharger. They also improve the scavenging effect of the engine.

You'll commonly see there's a restriction in the air flow sensor (AFM/MAF/MAP) on the VEP4 when loads more air is being drawn into the engine.

Going up you'll find 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor sapped bhp at a much lower level.

Adding a supercharger or additional turbo will make large torque gains, although more challenging to install. We have this guide to twinchargers if you want to read more.

Fuelling

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so should pay attention to the fuelling when you start extending past 20% of a torque increase.Most tuners we speak with say to be generous with your injectors flow rate.

As a rule of thumb add 20% capacity when fitting an injector, this accounts for injector deterioration and allows a bit of spare capacity should the engine need more fuel.

We think this one is common sense, but you'll need to match your fuel injector to the type of fuel your car uses as well.

All the following flywheel power targets will assume an injector duty cycle of 80% and a base of 58psi of fuel pressure at idle.

4 Cylinder turbocharged engines

  • 58 PSI 340cc/min 200hp
  • 58 PSI 511cc/min 300hp

4 Cylinder NA (naturally aspirated) engines

  • 58 PSI 285cc/min 200hp
  • 58 PSI 426cc/min 300hp

4 Cylinder supercharged engines

  • 58 PSI 312cc/min 200hp
  • 58 PSI 468cc/min 300hp

Exhaust

You only need to improve your exhaust if your exhaust is actually creating a restriction in flow.

On most factory exhausts you'll see your flow rate is good even on modest power gains, but when you start pushing up the power levels you will need to get a better flowing exhaust.

Sports exhausts can help balance the flow of air through the engine.

But if your exhaust is too large, ie: over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a lot of the exhaust flow rate and end up losing power and torque.

Typically exhaust restrictions can be located the catalyst and filters installed, so adding a higher flowing sports alternative is the answer. This keeps the car road legal and will flow much better due to it's higher internal surface area and design, so has the added benefit of keeping your car road legal. The alternative decat should be considered an off road only mod, as removing a catalyst is illegal in most territories and regions for road registered cars..

Weak spots, Issues & problem areas on the VEP4

The VEP4 engines are generally reliable and solid units, as long as you follow the manufacturers service schedules, and use a good quality oil to ensure longevity. Few problems should happen as long as they are regularly serviced and maintained.

Carbon build up in the head, particularly around the valves which will sap power or create flat spots, this is a larger issue on direct injection engines but should be looked out for on all engines. We have tips on removing carbon build up.

Some of our members have had issues with flat spots or glitches after applying mods and upgrades or tuning, this is not usually related to this engines design, so instead see our article on diagnosing flat spots and problems after tuning which should help you get the bottom of this issue.

Regular oil changes are vital on the VEP4, especially when tuned and will help extend the life and reliability of the engine.

If you would like to know more, or just get some friendly advice on Tuning your VEP4 engine please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss tuning options in more detail with our VEP4 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased 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 parts work best for you on your car. Which helps us keep our guides and tips up to date helping others with their modified car projects. Your feedback and comments are used to keep this page up to date, and help improve the accuracy of these VEP4 tuning guides which get regular updates and revisions.

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