'96 850 R - ARD Green Tune

Post by **ojdorson** » 10 Jun 2012, 16:53

Here's my experience with my latest upgrade - an ARD Green Tune.

It was a real pleasure to deal with Lucky. After a few quick e-mails, I decided to go with his recommendations - ARD Green Tune with M44 conversion. The ECU was shipped very quickly and the installation process is fairly brainless. I lost one of the stupid metal clips from the ECU box, but that's nobody's fault, really.

The learning process was simple, but hard to execute. The throttle runs it calls for lead to some really high speeds really quickly. But, I followed the procedure as best I could and the boost is really there. The car behaves quite normally under moderate throttle and then really flies when the boost comes on. There's a much greater thrust when in boost - when my daughter reaches for the radio buttons, I can just downshift and push her right back against the seat!

Overall, I'm really happy with it. I haven't seen much of a mpg improvement, but I haven't lost anything and IF I manage to keep the throttle light, I've seen numbers an mpg or two better at the pump. I'm taking a very long family road trip later this summer and I really hope to keep my mpg numbers up and see if I can do well. The best I ever did pre-tune was 24.5 mpg on a long highway trip. On single runs into the city from my house (about 26 miles) I've seen measurement above 26 mpg that will then get ruined as soon as I'm off the highway.

If there's anything to complain about, it's the lack of power below 3500 rpm. I don't think I'm down anything from the stock ECU, but I feel like my boost used to come on closer to 3000 rpm. From a stop, I'd like a little more oomph, too. Of course, I adjusted the cam timing and waste gate pressure pre Lucky's recommendations and I might need to do some adjustments there.

I've found a local place to do SS mandrel exhaust from the turbo-back and I'm just trying to find time to bring my car there. I'd really like this done before my trip as I think the stock exhaust is really holding my mpg numbers and low-end power back some.

If you've got any questions about the ARD Green Tune I've got, or whatever else, just shoot...
Otherwise, chalk this "review" up to "another satisfied customer" for Lucky's ARD tunes.

RobTarD · Post by **RobTarD** » 11 Jun 2012, 10:47

Did you adjust your timing? I'm interested to see what difference that would make in how the tune performs.

Post by **ojdorson** » 11 Jun 2012, 11:34

Based on my e-mails with Lucky, I think I ended up with -6 on the intake and -2 on the exhaust. Maybe there's room for adjustment there... I've found it really hard to get absolute numbers. Like, with the cams centered and the sprockets timed correctly (marks where they belong relative to the crank), "set the intake to -4 and the exhaust to +2." No one anywhere has published a "start here" setting. Oh, and I have N/A cams, so, you know, that makes things more complicated.

from e-mails
"As for cam timing, the N/A intake cam opens 4 degrees sooner than it's turbo counterpart so I'd be sure to retard it that amount, additionally once that is done then you can consider retarding the cams together another 2-3 degrees depending on where you want the power band."

from the ARD website
"For ARD Green tunes, cam timing is recommended to be
set at -3 degrees intake and -3 degrees exhaust for stock
cars. For cars with downpipe, catback, and intake or FMIC,
set the exhaust cam to -2 degree.

For cars with N/A cams follow the above recommendations
with the following changes; advance the exhaust cam
2 degrees and retard the intake cam 2 degrees."

JordanW · Post by **JordanW** » 11 Jun 2012, 23:01

I've been running ARD's Green M4.4 tune for about four months. I've been quite happy with it. I have the stock 15G, but I have several bolt on mods. I did not adjust my cam timing yet - I just recently purchased the IPD tool to do so. I do not have any issues under 3K RPM and it mostly it feels like the gas pedal is the boost pedal.

When you get your exhaust done, post an update. I'm looking to do a custom SS exhaust and I'm not having much success in my area finding a shop that can do SS mandrel bending.

Lucky was and still is great to work with - an asset to the Volvo community!

Post by **ojdorson** » 12 Jun 2012, 10:31

Adjusting the timing is really easy with that tool. Have at it!
I didn't mean to suggest that there's an "issue," more that I now feel the turbo lag and I didn't before. I swear boost used to start closer to 3k rpm. It may just have been because there wasn't as great a distance between boost and non-boosted.

Post by **matthew1** » 12 Jun 2012, 12:13

If you ever have an hour or two to kill, measure your 0-30 time then swap a stock ECU back in and measure your 0-30 time.

Whatever the case, the four-speed automatic transmissions were simply too tall in first gear to get off the line quickly, except in the LPT cars where the quick spoolup comes on so low in the revs that it balances out the tall gearing somewhat.

I'd like to do a manual trans conversion on my 850 one day. Solve that problem once and for all. Also the conversion would solve the infamous "300-hp limit" the AW50-40 and AW50-42LE auto transmissions.

Post by **ojdorson** » 12 Jun 2012, 13:37

I'll try to find time to do that. I'm okay with the 300HP limit - this car is really very fast at everything but from a dead stop. Once the boost comes on, I think I'd pull ahead of anything that had caught me lagging off the line. Of course, I don't race or anything, so it's all really just for highway fun. I'm hoping the exhaust will allow boost to come on a little earlier and more smoothly. As for manual, most of my driving is my commute into the city... I just don't want to shift through all of that.

ARD-Lucky · Post by **ARD-Lucky** » 16 Aug 2012, 00:20

Glad you're pleased with the tuning and thanks for taking the time to post up your experiences!

As for sub 3500rpm boost, that's a common experience from a stock to tuned car but wastegate adjustment can really help account for that as the base settings the ECU relies on are really important that they be set correctly. Since boost mapping is obviously more aggressive with a tuned ECU than a stock ECU the wastegate setting must also be adjusted to match for optimal performance.

Either way thanks again and happy motoring!
-Lucky

csbrianp · Post by **csbrianp** » 26 Jun 2013, 00:14

Adding an high flow exhaust will only make your cars accelleration worst. Oh once moving it'll be faster than now. I have a 96 850R and I put an exhaust on thinking it would make my car really run. What it did was move the powerband up instead of coming on at 3000 rpms it was 3300 rpms and even then it was terrible to drive around town, no power. Where I once could cruise at 80 mph and barely give it gas, and have the car dart forward, to having to down shift the car to get the rpms up to achieve the same results. Mileage suffered also.
I fixed mine by retarding the cam timing, made the car real smooth to drive and it was tolerable.