Now that I've finished my head swap on my car, I'm looking toward the suspension. This will be something that I gather parts for slowly, as the head job wasn't cheap, even with me providing all the labor

I recently picked up a set of gently used bilstein HDs, and my car has Nivomats.

Do all Rs have Nivomats in the rear?

It appears the way to use the HDs in the car is to put in rear springs from any other 850 without Nivomats. Is that correct? Do I need to change the upper shock mounts or anything else?

I'm considering IPDs rear overload springs, as I often carry cargo. Not thousands of pounds, but a couple decent sized rear passengers, or a few hundred pounds of tools in the back or whatever. I'd guess I have at most 500# in the back of the car as cargo or passengers at any given time.

I've considered going lower, but it's not a requirement. I'm more concerned with handling than going lower.

IPD stocks an Eibach lowering spring set, but doesn't say how much it lowers the car.

I see FCP has a couple options as far as lowering springs, which they claim won't hurt the handling of the car, but I find that a little hard to believe.

Does anyone have experience with either choices? Curious how the suspension performs and how low it goes. If you have pics, please post them!

I will, of course, be inspecting the other components of the suspension, making sure I get everything else that may be worn in the process. I know I'll need spring seats etc in the process.

I'm right at 130k, and imagine it may be time for control arms, etc.

With the control arms, what is good, and what is bad? I see Meyle, Lemforder, Febi and OEM Volvo are options. I remember reading once if I got control arms off an older car, I could just change the bushings and ball joint in them, instead of changing the whole thing - but I don't recall the specifics.

I'm not looking for the lowest overall cost on any of this - but if there's a case where something is equivalent to OEM quality at a lower price, I definitely want to go that way.

 

The deal with the Nivomats is they are like a combination spring/shock so you can replace or convert but if you convert you'd need all the matching bits (easy enough to find - ie springs/shocks/mounts - you'd want to do the shock mounts just since you are in there anyways). To be sure of the bits, you can use a site like Tascaparts.com and look at the part numbers for the 850T and 850Rs with/without Nivomat to guess compatibility. Also if you do the front struts, consider OEM or heavy duty spring seats (ie from the XC) don't go cheap on that part either - its another common fail point.

In terms of the control arms, you can remove the arms and press out the rubber bushings with the proper tools (machine shops will do this with a bushing press) but all you're doing is recycling a used ball joint. I'd stick with the higher priced OEM or top replacements since most of the cost is in the labor. I had cheaper replacements (Febi?) need new bushings after 60K and wound up back with OEM.

In terms of lowering springs, the springs may be progressive, meaning the end of the coils are softer than the center so they can blend straight line ride with handling. My opinion is the Volvos are fairly hard sprung (thus all the blow out issues) so if you want to improve handling use the IPD sway bars and use stock 850T springs (unless you see in Tasca that there's an R option for non-Nivomat). I'm not sold on the diff for Bilsteins - I did those as well and when the fronts failed at about 100K miles I went back to Boge Sach OEMs. I have the IPD bars on my 95 855T and think that's a great compromise. Invest in wheels and tires if you want the next step up. Using stock springs has the benefit of retaining OEM suspension geometries.