1998 V70 XC ARD Tune

[Klausc]

I have never used ARD, but read of many others who have had great success with ARD. It is a small shop, but they seem to stand behind and in front of their work.
I came across a long article by Benjamin Hoff in the Portland area : http://benjaminhoffauthor.com/volvo.html

Near the bottom, a section labled May 30, 2013, Benjamin goes back to ARD to have his 400bhp 854T tuned for fuel efficiency without compromising his super car. 27mpg around town and 38mpg highway on regular gasoline!! So it can be done, you can have your cake and eat it too.

[j-dawg]

i'm skeptical about getting 27mpg in the city on any 400hp car running on 20-year-old engine management technology.

the dash computer calculates MPGs by estimating how much fuel it's pumping, which i believe most cars know by how long they're firing injectors. as far as i'm aware, the entire engine management system thinks of fuel in terms of injector pulse times, not mass or volume flow rates. swapping injectors, as he did right before his reported MPG improvements, will wreck the dash computer's estimates: to get the same amount of fuel in the cylinder, injector pulses are shorter, but the dash computer has not been informed. it only knows that pulse time has been reduced, which it translates into very low fuel consumption. i'd guess that's where his estimate of getting a billion MPGs out of 400hp comes from.

the article also has a few.......engineering approximations (eg "Horsepower is only one factor in the performance equation. That’s especially true for a front-engine, front-drive automobile because, as anyone who’s used a garden cart has learned, it requires much less muscle to pull a load than it does to push it."). i'd take his numbers with a grain of salt.

EDIT: someone correct me if this is all wrong. it's based on my experience with engine tuning, which is not extensive. i also notice that he states ARD adjusted the fuel consumption display to reflect the changes in the tune and injectors, which would make everything i say invalid, but i still think he can't be getting 40mpg.

[Klausc]

With that much BHP, he probably goes from 1st to 3rd gear around town

I agree, without going a full tank on the highway it will be impossible to calculate better mpg. But, even with my rescued 854 with the 2.4L and no turbo, I got 29mpg with the cruise set to 74mph. I can only wonder what I would get following a semi at 65mph!! Besides falling asleep at the wheel...

[Matty Moo]

The best I ever did with my green tune was 27mpg on a trip from Michigan to Maryland. I was trying hard to stay out of boost but the mountains killed that idea.

The rest of the time was me basically driving like a 16 year old in a borrowed car. Both of us got stopped twice in the Platinum when we had the tune in it.

[babelfish]

ARD Green here, and I did 30mpg over ~300 miles this past weekend on my way to the IPD Garage Sale. That was according to the on-board computer. I filled the tank a hundred miles later, after driving around Portland a bit, sitting in a traffic jam for an hour (did maybe 20 miles that hour?), and adding another few interstate miles. When I filled up, the on-board computer said I was at 28.1mpg, and when I did the math, I'd gotten 28.1mpg, so I'm inclined to believe the 30mpg figure. That was me, one passenger, and luggage for the weekend, so an average sort of load.

But I didn't get the tune for the mileage. I can't honestly say it's increased my mileage. I'd seen 30+ mpg for brief stretches on I-5 before, but never had the chance to fill the tank when I was still in that range, so I could never say it was accurate.

What I got the tune for was fun. And, by golly, it's been FUN! 100% worth it.

Oh, and the service? Lucky and his wife are great. Excellent communication via e-mail, great turnaround on the shipping, and I've never had a problem with the tune. I had a problem with boost going too high in first gear for a while (it started well after I'd gotten the tune), and Lucky helped me troubleshoot that one, too, though it wasn't his fault in any way.

[Ben850]

You said, "By golly". That is great.

"What I got the tune for was fun. And, by golly, it's been FUN! 100% worth it."

What was at that garage sale like by the way? I am only a couple thousand miles from there, so I can only imagine the fun.