First of all thanks in advance for the input! I am the proud owner of a 2000 s70 glt lpt (yeah it sucks!). stage 0 has already been done. and now i am looking for more power. where should i start? exhaust? turbo upgrade? ecu upgrade? looking to get about 250-300 fwhp. and how do i raise the stock boost? what is a safe level? if i use a aftermarket turbo will i have to change the downpipe? who sell a good affordable 3 in downpipe? any other info will be appreciated!

 

1. What is your budget?

2. What is your Hp goal? I see 250-300 Hp, good.

3. You Stage Zero is done. Do you have silicone vaccum lines? Silicone turbo hoses? A boost gauge that can read at least 25 In Hg and 25 PSI? If you do great, if you don't get on this right now before you mod anything.

I suggest you get a stock dyno done first. This will give you a good baseline of what you have to work with. Also with this dyno get A/F ratios as well. These will be important to the ECU tuner.

Since you are a 2000 you are running ME7. So you will not be able to use a MBC (Manual Boost Controller) to raise your boost level. ME7 hates MBC's. The ECU upgrade is the only way to raise your boost level. However I suggest holding off on your ECU upgrade till you have done all your other mods. As then the ECU can take into effect all the mods you have done to the car. Because if you do an ECU upgrade first and then you do mods it will not take into effect everything you have done and wont take all the potential power you could be gaining.

I suggest you start with a Turbo upgrade. A 16T would be a decent upgrade from the tiny 13g you have on your car now. This turbo should be good for around 250-275 Hp or so. Your 13g might be an angled outlet turbo or it might be a straight outlet. Check this before you buy a 16T or any other turbo. Reason being is that if your angled and you buy a straight your stock downpipe wont attach to it and vice versa. Now if your going to do everything at once it really wont matter because if you bought a straight 16T and were going to do the downpipe at the same time then you would just buy or have a downpipe built that would match and fit. Which really if you do a FMIC you will have to do the turbo and FMIC at the same time. There is someone selling a used 16T on Volvospeed right now for I think $250 shipped. Which is an ok price for a used 16T.

Exhaust system next. I suggest a 3" mandrel bent downpipe. You have some options but not many and they are all exspensive. You can buy one from EST (EuroSportTuning). They run around $795. Viva Performance also sells downpipes now and they run around, $1,049 yeah I know exspensive as hell. I would suggest finding a local muffler shop that can mandrel bend and having them build you a 3" mandrel bent downpipe. Should be a lot cheaper then any of the ones mentioned above. Also since your upgrading your turbo you want to go with a full 3" mandrel bent catback system as well. This will take full advantage of the potential power from the larger 16T. You also want a FREE FLOWING straight through design muffler. An example of this would be a Magnaflow. As turbo cars want a free flowing exhaust system to breath easier. You DO NOT want baffles or other restrictions in your exhaust system. Also there is a member of Volvospeed who makes downpipes for Volvo's. However his are $800-$1000 as well. His work is great though, but IMO isn't worth the price tag. Look into it though. Catback systems can be had from EST (EuroSportTuning) also Viva Performance sells some catbacks as well. IPD also offers a few catback systems. They all run around $625+.

I would look into an intercooler upgrade as well. EST (EuroSportTuning) sells a drop in replacement. However it is also over $1,000 and from people I have heard it isn't too good of a design, but is somewhat better then OEM. However I suggest you build your own FMIC system. Front Mount Intercooler, that is what FMIC means. This will all be custom made as there are no kits available for Volvo's. This shouldn;t cost you more then about $500 to build. You will gain some nice Hp from this mod as well and it will also look cool to boot. Also you will get more air flow by moving the intercooler to where it can get more air. Since the OEM is sandwhiched between the radiator.

Next is your ECU upgrade. You do have some options here. I DO NOT suggest going with the cheaper ECU tuning companies. Your adding all these nice parts and gaining more power thusly you want a good ECU upgrade to handle it all. I would look into RICA and IPD and also BSR. These companies have what is called a softloader. Where you hook up to the OBDII port and hit a few buttons and their ECU upgrade downloads into the system and then your ready to go. Also you have the ability to revert back to the stock ECU by hooking up the programmer again and hitting a few buttons. This can be done anytime. Also RICA and IPD might have regular ECU upgrades as well for your car. Also you can look into the cheaper upgrades which come from Upsolute, SpeedTuning USA and Inmotion. Again I suggest going with RICA and or IPD and BSR.

A safe level on your car would be 15-17 PSI of boost. Unless you plan to do internals etc.... DO NOT go over that amount. And 15-17 PSI is a lot more then what your running now which is between 5-7 PSI. And since your ME7 a MBC can't be used so the only want to raise your boost pressure is by the ECU upgrade.

Also please click the second link on my signature. Not the one that says "MODS" the other one. There you will find many many many links that will help you out with this project.

 

This is not a cheap hobby in the Volvo world.

-16T turbo expect to pay anywhere from $250 for a used one and $800 for a new one.
- 3" downpipe expect to pay anywhere from $795-$1100 and if you go custom from a local shop I would expect $300-$800
- Same thing goes for the catback system premade about $625 or so and for custom expect $300-$500.
- Intercooler expect $500-$1000
- ECU upgrade $200-$1000 something. Again don't cheap out it will reflect on your performance gains.

$4400 give or take. Not to mention installation fees.