ok, so i just got my 1996 volvo 850. its bone stock, automatic, non turbo. i love this car but i wanna do stuff to it, its red so underglow wouldnt look so good and i just need suggestions on things i should do. new exhaust maybe? thanks for helping...

 

Can we get a picture or two of the car so that we can get a better feel of what it looks like, and what modifications would look good on it?

 

yea, i cant tonite because its already dark outside but tomorrow i will.

 

Don't do underglow despite what color it is, doesn't look good. Since it's a non turbo, stick to cosmetic mods, i.e. suspension, wheels, tint, you get the idea. There really aren't any performance mods for non turbos.

 

i mean i want performance parts, is there anything i can do to help the turtle?

 

Sell it and get a turbo. Turbo spells performance, non-turbo spells good 'ole safe, dependable Volvo. Don't waste money trying to make that car fast.

 

Unfortunately no, because what you have is a turtle, you can encourage it all you want, but it's not really going to speed up. Not to sound mean, but the only thing you can really do is exhaust and an air intake with minimal gains, definitely not worth the money. (Ugh, I feel like I've said this a million times). I heard there are tunes available for NAs, but I'm going to guess that with all of the performance mods you can do to an NA you'll maybe be close to even with a stock 850 turbo.

 

thanks for the help
i was thinkin of finding a turbo 850 online but moneys kinda tight right now

 

If I were you I would focus on cosmetics. I have seen a ton a 850 N/A's that look better than turbo'd ones. Unless your dead set on having a kind of performance car, then I would stick with what you have and work with it.

 

well at first i was like, i wanna performance car, then i got this volvo, got it for cheap, thought it was crap, fell in love with the brand, now i want a performance volvo, not hard, but i have to find a turbo 850 for sale.

 

There is not a whole lot you can do to a NA Volvo, but one of the things you might want to consider is a manual swap - it makes the car a lot more fun and it feels faster (technically, it isn't)

 

Manual swap -- you can do that? That's one of my main beefs with our new 850 is that it's an automatic. Is there a thread that shows the process?

 

it would take a lot of time but i say you could

 

If I were you, I would just drive the NA Volvo the way it is and then save your money to buy a turbo model. Then sell the NA and used that money to make the turbo model faster.

 

If you love the car why would you want to change it? I have a 96 850 bone stock with 215k on it that I drive 150 mile a day and it "just simply" amazes me. It's 13 years old, all of the door seals are perfect. It's comfortable, quiet and safe. I still slam the pedal to the floor and it doesn't throw my head back but it still pulls me along. The thing is I always feel like I'll make it home and "I think"...... that's alot to say for a car with 215k on it.

So, my advise is to cherish the finer points of your car and after you put 100k on it and it costs you only $0.05 a mile, you have a bank account full of money and it still works, you'll love it even more.

 

im new to the volvo world, i just traded a 92 civic for a 93 volvo glt, after reading what yall posted on here, would it be worth it to build my inline 5 cyl. and boost it?

 

Yes, you can do manual swaps, people do it all the time, I am going to do it, but generally, they're only done on turbo models, doing a manual swap will cost you at least half, if not all, of what a turbo 850 will cost. A manual swap costs about $1,500, and that's if you can do all of the labor yourself. Don't spend that kind of money on an NA when you can put that towards a turbo 850 if your looking for performance.

Unless your car is already turbo, which it isn't, because 93 only had the GLT model, then no it probably would not be worth building your motor and boosting it, your looking at ~4k to build the motor, give or take, and then probably close to another 1k to add a turbo, plus the 93's use different parts than 94+ 850's. There is someone who turbo'd a 93, but I don't even wanna know what he spent on it. If you have the funds and you plan on making a mean car, then go ahead, but you would be saving a lot of money by buying an 850 Turbo/R.

 

ok thanks for the input, so i shoulda went for a 94, i dont know anything about volvos, i always built hondas.

 

93 was the first year for 850's, so they are slightly different than the 94+, usually parts aren't interchangeable between 93s and later models. If you have the time and money, you can do anything you want with it.

 

Our 850 is a turbo! Is there a thread on this, or other resources available (websites etc)?