Hello,
I am a fairly new Volvo owner, I got my 2005 S60 about 4 months ago and have since acquired a 2004 XC90 (for the wife and kid) and I just got a 2005 XC70. The XC70 was too good of a deal, its an AWD 2.5t with a warped head, so I planned on pulling the motor anyways. The guy also gave me a 2003 XC70 engine but I don't think it will work with the electrical.

My question is what engines would make a good swap? I like the 2.5t, but I have seen the type R engines and it looks very tempting. Would something like this be doable, and how much of a headache would I be looking at? Would it be safe to push the 2.5t block with a larger turbo and a tune?

I have also heard of V8 swaps, any thoughts? Thank you

 

A blown head gasket/damaged head is usually fixed with a head straightening/valve job -
2005/2003 engines. - they should be the same. (they should both be b5254t2 engines)
Many have modded their 5 cylinder engines - The 04-07 R cars had 300hp from the factory - achieved with extra intercooler and stuff. Also known to crack cylinder walls when pushed too hard!
Volvo has put their V8 in the s80 and xc90 - so it fits in a s80 body - with enough money I guess anything can be done.

An engine swap or engine build will end up costing much more than the car will ever be worth - So you have to want to do that for fun -

If you want a faster Volvo - the easy way to do it is purchase something with the 3.0T6 engine used until 2015. (s60/xc60/xc70) Those engines are 300 hp stock. ~325hp/354 torque with polestar tune and I think~350hp in a special version.

 

the main engine variances for the I5s are high pressure turbo and low pressure turbo designs. the 2.5T is a low pressure design - smaller turbo for faster spooling better low end torque, T5s are HPTs for more boost and top end HP. The Rs are a "tuned" version of the T5 to allow for more boost. The LPTs and HPTs have different ECUs so if you swap the engines out you'd need to deal with the ECU. With that said you can also simply fix the head on the current engine, install a bigger turbo (ie go from a 13T to a 16T) and install an ECU tune to get you to about 240 HP - on par with a stock T5. If you can add a bigger intercooler and a bigger downpipe you'd probably get 250 HP, without compromising the reliability

 

Welcome to the forum