So this is V3. The main thing aesthetics wise is the car wrap which is an Inozetek Metallic Midnight Blue wrap that I had installed by a shop (I got frustrated when I tried to do it myself) followed up with a ceramic coat from AvalonKing. Unfortunately, when I was heading to the shop to get the car wrapped, my sunroof window flew out (and thankfully hit no one; I ended up getting sheet metal to rivet onto the opening to keep it shut):
I felt like V2 was still lacking in performance, so I reached out to Aaron once again and wanted to take it as far as I could with the factory 16T. I installed a Do88 intercooler and the Snow Performance Stage 1 WMI kit. During datalogging, it looked like my MAF was on the way out (it was as I had to run MAFless for a weekend) so I purchased one from the dealer. It was at this point when I found out that apparently, Volvo MAF’s that are produced now for the P80’s max out at a 4.1V signal instead of a full 5V which is what is seen from the OE Bosch MAF’s. I did some digging on eBay and found a Bosch MAF that was able to provide the full signal. We were also troubleshooting a weird fueling problem that was producing some amount of knock – Aaron concluded that one of my fuel injectors was not flowing as well as the others. I changed out the original injectors with blues and he was able to bring my boost up and advance timing even further. The tune was finalized with an alternate “eco and limp-mode” mapset that allowed me to utilize an underpowered map in the event that my WMI is not working, and also had some economical fueling so I could go a slightly farther distance on less fuel in case I needed to really stretch my fuel supply. At this point, I could get the wheels to chirp pretty loudly and the reactions I’d get from some car folk in the Bay Area would be hysterical. I felt somewhat content and happy with the power I was making and how the car was performing at this time, but I still felt like I wanted more.
Some months passed and unfortunate for me, I had to go through a sad, but inevidentable life event with the passing of my mom who I was her caretaker for 5 years. Definitely went through all of the emotions and had a hard time getting out of the depression I was in. Funny enough, given some thought, I realized how much working on my car was a bit of an escape for me throughout the past few years. So once things settled down for me and my dad, I used my hobby of working on my car as me-time and therapy. This brings us to the current iteration:
This is V4. Getting to this point for me was kind of a way of rewarding myself for how I was able to navigate through my personal life in the the first couple of months without my mom as an only child, and as well be an emotional anchor for my dad, as well as navigating through my professional life with finally getting into a post-grad science program that my mom was always hoping I could get into. The only aesthetic change is the light up emblem that you see. I worked on the suspension again, this time installing BC coilovers with 9KG springs in the front and 5KG springs in the rear. For performance, I wanted to take the engine as far as I could reasonably take it, so all of it was centered around a rebuilt and slightly upgraded K24 turbo that I took off of a Volvo performance shop in Santa Cruz:
Again, reached out to Aaron on recommendations for refreshing the turbo. It was sent to GPopShop for what they considered as a heavy duty rebuild, inclusive of full cleaning, balancing, a 6+6 billet wheel, 9 blade turbine wheel, and machining of the intake and exhaust housings. Additionally, I had Mamba hardware installed for the CBV and the wastegate actuator, all of which I got Aaron’s approval on. I took this time to change out the exhaust manifold since the K24 turbo swap is quite invasive and requires swapping out many more parts than just the turbo as well documented in Yolo’s thread that I didn’t know existed until months after I completed this endeavour:
Originally when I did this swap, I had an R manifold and was impatient – FCP euro sent me 4 out of 5 exhaust manifold gaskets, so I reused one of the older gaskets that visually had the least amount of wear. It ended up leaking exhaust fumes, so a few months down the line, I used it as an excuse to swap in a Japanifold that I found on eBay later on. When I switched to the Japanifold, I also used the additional space I had access to for changing out the rear engine mount because I was getting a lot of vibration and shaking when the car was cold. With the Japanifold and turbo on, I now provide you the most cringe part of this upgrade:
As you can see, I’m running hardline for all the fluids on the turbo except for the oil feed line because, for the life of me, I’m having a ridiculous time trying to bend the original K24 hardline to get it to fit on the N engine with the oil squirter access panels preventing it from being a direct bolt on. I reached out to both Yolo and Robert Spinner on how to do it, but with their instruction, I just couldn’t get it to fit right regardless of how I bent the line. I caved and got a Mamba SS line. Aaron told me it should be okay, I don’t exactly trust it. I’ve ran with it for 5K miles at this point and I haven’t gone up in flames yet. It’s secured to the coolant feed with AN hose separators as a means to prevent it from flinging around in the engine bay at speed and at high load. I also installed heat shielding as a further attempt to mitigate failure as a result of high heat exposure.
With the K24 turbo installed, I needed a new OTE charge pipe made because the old pipe interfered with my oil cap, and the fit of the original snabb inlet pipe ended up causing it to rub on the previously repaired ABS module and destroyed it after a few test drives, probably due to repeated tapping of the pipe onto the module caused from engine vibrations. Also took this time to change out the iPD short ram intake and put back an OEM looking 99+ X70 air cleaner box, just in case a police officer pulls me over for speeding and asks me to pop the hood open lol. Somewhere in this mess, I also spent the time to do the VAST Catch Can PCV mod. Since I was no longer a rookie to working on my car at this point, I did the PCV myself and found that the shop I brought the car to a few years back ended up using URO parts, a big no no. Here’s a pic of the catch can (the OTE pipe in this one is the older one, you can ignore it):
When I was doing the PCV, I also swapped the alternator out because the old one was going out. Took this time to also install an aftermarket oil pressure sensor and redo the wiring of the factory oil pressure sensor as it rotted out and failed:
For the exhaust, I went with the 3″ maximizer exhaust system on eBay (back when it was like $800, and not the $200 that it is now) and also had installed a valvetronic muffler so I could control loudness if I needed to. The exhaust shop I took the car to has it installed at an angle due to lack of space:
I didn’t take pictures, but I also changed out the blue injectors with DW650’s and had the MAF housing changed to the bigger diameter 960 MAF housing. With it fully tuned, Aaron believes that it’s making 315 WHP (granted, that was with the R manifold; probably making a little bit more with the Japanifold on now). Regardless of the power, the car is plenty fun to drive around. If I could do it all again, I would’ve stayed within the TD04 family for my turbo upgrade, but despite that, I’m very happy now with where the car is. I first got the car with 158K miles, now it’s sitting at 216K and it’s plenty strong.
I hope this write up wasn’t too disorganized or too long and that you enjoyed the pictures and the story this car has. Definitely a labor of love… and of anxiety, stress, and back pain LOL