It’s a 1998 Volvo S70 T5 with the M56 manual gearbox. It was an OSD car, first delivered in Georgia. I bought it from a fellow SwedeSpeed member in Colorado in 2011. At the time the car had 105k miles, full service records since new, and was in immaculate condition. Here are the first shots of the car when I got it:
The previous owner had made some small modifications to it: 17 inch Pegs, 302mm brakes, TME springs with Bilstein Touring struts, IPD TCV, Snabb short shifter, K&N panel filter, E-code lenses, 15% tint, R door sills and R gauges (just the faces swapped on the original cluster). Car also had the PCV replaced, the oil pump replaced (to this day, I still don’t know why…), and the turbo drain seals changed.
Car drove beautifully, but soon I noticed a strange whine on cold starts coming from the belt area. Even though the timing belt had been changed at 70k miles, I decided not to risk it and had the timing belt, tensioners, water pump, and serpentine belt changed at 112,000. That’s when my mechanic informed me that the tensioner and pulley were original and had never been changed, despite official documents from one of the Denver Volvo dealerships showing that they had been changed at 70k miles! The dealer cut some corners there…
Anyways, the noise didn’t go away. After eliminating some other culprits, I deduced it was the spring on the oil cooler thermostat. 40k miles later, it’s still making the groaning noise early in the morning. Oh well.
In 2013, I moved to Minneapolis. Since then, I’ve made small modifications and kept up with maintenance. Mobil 1 oil changes every 4k miles, same as what the previous owner was doing.
– Found a cheap 850R rear wing, which I painted and installed myself.
– Installed a VDO boost gauge.
– Installed a Snabb intake pipe.
– Found an early TME catback exhaust and had that welded on – very quiet, but possibly made it breathe a little better.
– The K&N panel filter killed the MAF, so I got a replacement and switched to the aFE dry-flow filter. Much better.
– Changed the iPD TCV for a stock Pierburg unit.
– Spark plugs and wires at 135k miles – sparks still looked good.
– I removed the 15% tint and switched to 50%. The cops didn’t like it :/
– New 302mm rotors and Akebono pads at 140k miles. Switched to stainless-steel braided brake lines – the previous ones were original to the car and were cracking badly. Someone hadn’t put the longer lines required for the 302mm conversion!
– Installed Depo Jewel lenses. Night and day difference.
– ABS module replaced at 140k miles (the replacement unit was failing after 70k miles. Previous one was installed by the same Denver dealer who did the timing belt. They installed a non-TRACS unit on a car that had TRACS originally…)
– Found a set of non-delaminated door panels in my 3990 interior color. They are perfect.
– Installed a S90 front lip.
– Had the oil-cooler lines replaced at 145k miles.
The car is now closing in on 150k miles. No check engine light, no dash rattle, SAS pump still working (amazingly…)
A few more pictures of the car in its current state:
