98' v70 xc turbo advise

Alaskav70 · Post by **Alaskav70** » 25 Jan 2020, 22:10

Here's the deal, I've got an automatic 1998 v70 xc awd around 200k miles but well maintained. It's just my summer beater with a heater while I'm at work in Alaska 6 months of the year and gets driven maybe >10 miles a day unless I go for a drive. Turbo has started making some noise so step one of course is slap in a cheap oe replacement and fix whatever the reason for failure might of been if it wasn't just age and sitting for a year after a drive from Colorado to Alaska before I purchased the car. My actual question is this, if I were looking at eventually doing a turbo upgrade say to a t16 or t19 what are my tune options? I'm in a smaller town with no one local to do a tune. I'm not looking for super high performance, just some more power, fun and turbo noises. I'm definitely confident with cars and my own mechanics but haven't done much in terms of turbos and tuning. What's the best affordable rout? Do I send out the ECU for a tune, purchase another already tuned ECU, is there a program available for a basic tune I can do myself or like a chip or module like the diesel guys use like a bulldog? I've found options for sending out my ECU if I know what turbo I'm putting on but would like some advice from Volvo guys with some more experience than myself. Thanks in advance for and info guys and I'm loving the site!

Post by **scot850** » 26 Jan 2020, 09:06

There is a thread running currently by bmdubya on changing and tuning a car with a larger turbo.

Neil.

Post by **matthew1** » 26 Jan 2020, 09:35

Here's the 1998 V70 GLT big power build thread.

Alaskav70 · Post by **Alaskav70** » 26 Jan 2020, 18:33

Thanks for the hook up on the thread, lots of great info and more affordable upgrades to go along with the swap. Still just missing some help on the ECU tune options, recommendations of tuners or pre flashed ecu's, chips or modules?

Post by **matthew1** » 26 Jan 2020, 19:04

Another: viewtopic.php?t=51736

IPD is the gold standard for tunes https://www.ipdusa.com/products/7758/11 ... mte-115120

Post by **erikv11** » 26 Jan 2020, 19:11

Option one: swap in white injectors, 16t turbo and a factory T5 ECU. Completely plug and play, very cheap.

Option two: swap in white injectors, 16t turbo and flash yourself a T5 equivalent ECU. ECU flashing requires a Windows machine and a few accessories to get set up (https://m44.fandom.com/wiki/M44_Wiki). Currently standard tune files are freely available and plentiful. This is a fun option because you can adjust other parameters like emissions etc to get more control over the CEL. And you could modify the tune just a tiny bit to a lot if/as you learned more. And this option is cheap.

Option three: Buy a tuned ECU, to match an injector/turbo combo. Reliable vendors include Beust tuning and more recently Calvin Sonniksen. There are other vendors, member bmdubya1198 here is a good source on that.

If you want to modify the exhaust too, or something else, options 2 and 3 can accommodate that.