So I'm at the point where I buy my first car. I haven't settled on anything yet, but it has probably got to be a 1998 Volvo V40 1.9T. I want to gain more power as soon as possible, even though I know it sounds stupid. Many people will say something like "it's not the right car if the first thing you do is upgrading it". But if you lived in Norway where everything above 200hp is expensive and unavailable, you would understand. I also really like tinkering around with cars, computers, bikes, etc. so that's another reason to upgrade. I'm not talking about making this a drag car or anything stupid, just add a little bit of power to make it that more fun to drive.

So out of what I've understood, the 1,948cc engine comes with a TD04 turbo stock (may be wrong though), which makes fair enough power low down but lacks high end. What would be the best used/new turbocharger to replace it? It would be nice with a turbo from a known brand, not just the usual ebay crap. I'm thinking about the IHI VF34 turbocharger, but it is a little bit more expensive than my preference.

The first priority is to swap the turbo and basic supporting mods to make it work. After that, I'll figure out if I want to change exhaust/intake/other parts if needed. ECU remap to finish it all off.

No suggestions are dumb

Thanks in advance

 

the TD04 refers to the family of Mitsubishi designed turbos. For the turbo there's two things to consider - the housing (ie how the flange is designed to hook up to the manifold and the down pipe) and the compressor/impeller. The impeller can have diffent designs to pump or or less air within the TD housing so there's a secondary designation, ie in the US, the gen 1 S40s came with the TDO4L-12T, aka the "light pressure" turbo designed for fast spool up but smaller maximum air flow. Some gen 1 S40/V40s in Europe came with the TD04L-14T, which is capable of producing more boost but with a slower spool up (ie more turbo lag). If your car's engine code (there's a plate on the firewall to show this) is the B4194T, you have the high pressure 14T, if its the B4204T you have the 12T. So if you have a 4204, you could look for a used turbo from a 4194 and swap out to get the larger turbo. With that said, you won't get more power without the ECU reprogramming. The ECU is what limits the maximum boost so even if you own a 4204, reprogramming the ECU will add 30-35 HP bringing it on par with the 4194T engine. In order of priority, I'd say first is the ECU reprogram, second is to add a larger downpipe / free flow catalytic converter, then if you can find a 14T swap that in. If you already have a 14T, you already have the desired turbo and doing the ECU and exhaust will put you in the 230-240 HP range! That's when it will be time to upgrade brakes/wheels/suspension.

One final note - in Europe, the 1.9T badge was used to designate the high pressure/200 HP model and the 2.0T was for the low pressure. In the US only the low pressure model was imported in 2000-2004 and it was badged the 1.9T. Thus my suggestion to find the engine code to be sure...

 

All the V40's on the Norwegian market are 2.0T 160 horsepower engines. So it is definitely possible to upgrade to the 14T. But when I'm first going at it with having to swap the turbo (+ probably many other parts) and remap the ECU anyways, I think I want to drop in something bigger like a VF34. That way it is going to have decent fuel economy at low rpm and a insane kick of boost when I want to push it.

The first step is just to get the car, make sure everything is in decent shape and so on. For doing an upgrade like this, mostly done by myself I will have to use many months on planning and researching. The main priority for upgrades is just to throw in lots of power right away though. I obviously also want to get handling parts, but that will be later as I have my priorities straight.

Really appreciate your response, I'm not very familiar with the volvo engines so you commenting definitely puts me on the right track