My C30 – Now nicknamed Moosenstein… started life as a Prefacelift SE LUX T5, manual. A previous owner then decided to swap in parts to make it R-Design Spec, I got my hands on it and quickly converted the car over to a Facelift R-Design using a donor car here in the UK.
I’ve had the car a few years but this is not my first C30. I’ve owned 5 in some iteration or another. My last one was a camo-bagged T5.
Anyway, I digress.
I managed to find a Manual V50 AWD for sale, cheap. The one problem – the car was in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, some 8 hours away by car and 2 hours on a flight. Needless to say a deposit was paid, and a big gamble on the parts from a LHD car fitting on a RHD car was made.
I count myself lucky, I was able to get the donor car and get it home for £2000. 2 years worth of searching on European sales sites had paid off. Holland has a great export system where you pay 150 euros and that exports the car, insures and taxes it for 2 weeks. After 8 hours of driving (with no stereo, and a huge windy hole on the front of the car ) we were home!
I won’t bore you with the details of stripping the car down. We completely stripped the V50. Both subframes front and rear along with their components. The same story for the C30. Here’s some main points:
- Please be careful when removing the fuel tanks, we managed to break the neck on the AWD fuel pump – an expensive replacement.
- Some early cars Gyro / YAW sensor (under the front seat) has a different plug to later cars. You can as I did, use a FORD KUGA 4WD one from a similar year.
- Swap over the front subframes, the AWD uses a bushed one, 10mm lower than the C30. This also uses different subframe bolts.
- Strip the main wiring harness down from the V50 too, great for spares and wiring in the AWD system later on.
- Pull the C30 engine and transmission out too, makes life way easier for getting things back together.
- Cut a hole above where the AWD fuel tank pump sits, you’ll thank yourself later when you need to get at it without dropping the AWD system
- Gearbox mounts can differ between the two cars.
- Change the Flywheel and Clutch – I opted for the C30 T5 Flywheel and an XC70 D5 AWD Clutch (thanks to Sam Arnold for this – handles massive torque!)
- LHD parts do work on an RHD car – I also used the original C30 Steering Rack without issue.
Props to Michael (MyNameIdeasWereTaken) and his super helpful here’s what I did video. The wiring diagram saved me a hellish amount of time.
Here’s where it gets interesting for those who’ve done the AWD swap before…
I’ve been using VDash for a long while and after having a browse realised this would be fantastic for this project – after decoding the CEM pin, you can make countless changes to the CEM in the car enabling most, if not all features for the P1 platform.
From the configuration menu, I changed the CEM over to M66 AWD gearbox and most importantly, 4 Wheel Drive in the Driveline menu.
Once this action has been completed, VDASH now communicating with the modified CEM will now look for the Differential Electronic Module (DEM) which means you can check the Canbus wiring is good to the DEM
After doing this, you’ll have a Dash Light and Error from your Brake Control Module (BCM) stating faulty configuration – this is because the BCM still wants to talk to a 2WD CEM and not the 4WD one you’ve created. This is an easy fix, head into VIDA and follow the options to Reconfigure the BCM. Once this is done the light and code will go away and you’re BCM will now be happy with 4WD.
One of the main things to plague AWD conversions is the lack of a working fuel gauge. VDASH remedies this, but you need to make sure you have the Donor Pump module installed on the rear bench. Once you have that, change the fuel tank capacity to 58L (AWD Size) and then, a working fuel gauge! Edit – both FWD an AWD modules the same
V50 AWD Fuel Pump module You can use the original one of these
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I have an XC90 Haldex to go in the car, sadly I think it’s in an error state so won’t communicate. I will be sending this off to a Haldex specialist here in the UK to see if they can virgin the unit and try again!
Turns out Volvo changed protocol on the cars throughout the C30 build window – you need to match a GEN3 DEM protocol to your cars protocol too. See SS post with information here:
Oh, and I made a little badge for the front… ‘People have tae knooow’
Hopefully, this helps anyone looking to do the swap. Fire any questions and I’ll attempt to answer 
Cheers for reading.
Edited 030624 with info on DEM swap and Fuel Gauge learnings