Hello,

I just purchased my first Volvo, a 2007 V70 2.5T. I am looking for recommendations from this group on my first performance modification? After reading alot of the post on the board there appears to be alot of knowledgeable people that can provide some good advice to a first time owner.

The car came with 17 Orpheus wheels, but I am considering upgrading the the 18 Pegasus wheels. Any recommendation on tires from the group? Looking for a quiet tire with a decent life, hopefully 35K miles before changing. I was thinking BF Goodrich KDW's? Thoughts?


Thanks In Advance,
Josh

 

After dealing with my tire situation...17 inch wheels are plenty for me. I like my Michelins and they came highly recommend here......

 

Well you have to answer some questions for us to better help you.

1. What is your budget like?

2. What do you want more? Power or handling?

Sounds like you want handling right now because your talking about rims and tires.

- 18" Pegs would look great on your ride and you should probably run a 225/45-18 tire.
- Sway bars are a great handling item for our Volvo's. The best suspension mod out there. IPD USA is the only place that sells them.
-Sway Bar endlinks. Upgrade to QBM's Extreme endlinks.
-Lowering springs
-Shocks/Struts

With these mods you will be handling very nicely.

 

Thanks for the advice guys. The budget is not very large since we spent most of it on the car. I am really just looking to get some ideas of where to start.

I thought I would start with the wheels and tires and then work my way towards the performance.

For performance I thought I might look into a larger downpipe, exhaust system, and a ECM flash upgrade (RICA or IPD?).....anything else?

Suspension probably not looking for much here cause I don't want to degrade the ride quality to much, since it is my wifes car.

Thanks,
Josh

 

Wheels and tires are a great way to start modding your car. I suggest going with 17's and or 18's. There are some nice brands out there for our Volvo's and they mostly look decent some do look horrible though. DiscountTireDirect and TireRack are two place you should start your search for rims and tires. A 3" downpipe is where you will see the most gains when doing an exhaust upgrade. And since your not going to upgrade the turbo stick with a 2.5" catback system. Mandrel bent of course for both the downpipe and the catback system. Also you want a free flowing exhaust and that mean a muffler without baffles. An example of one is a Magnaflow. Do these two mods before the ECU upgrade.

IPD and RICA are two of the best ECU upgrades available currently on the market for Volvo's. I would personally go with RICA as they can custom tune to what your mods are. You will have to provide a dyno sheet with A/F ratios so that they can better tune your ECU to the mods you have and if you dyno in stock form it will give them an even better idea of how to tune your car. To see the difference between stock and upgraded.

And if you upgrade your suspension you wont degrade it any at all. You will only improve it.

On a side note before you do any engine upgrade do STAGE ZERO. This can be found in the second link in my signature. Also get a boost gauge that can read 25 In Hg and 25 PSI.

As far as performance goes you mentioned some great ideas.