1. 4 in lift. 2 inches from springs. Front XC90 springs on XC70 struts (I noticed as I compared parts at the junkyard that the XC70 struts have about 2 in more travel, so I stuck with them. XC90 struts are beefier however with a larger diameter shaft.). Rear Bad Swede springs. 2 more inches of lift from self-fabricated parts. Up front there are 2 in strut top spacers made using salvage strut bearings and 2 in of pipe. In the rear, I made brackets to lengthen the shock by 2 inches at the bottom. They’re removable, so they can be transferred to the next set of rear coilovers. I didn’t want to weld to the shock because they’re from FCP Euro and exchangeable for free.
2. Cut and lengthened the rear trailing arms by 3/4 of an inch by welding in new metal. This is so the rear hubs could relocate rearward thereby allowing fitment of the larger tires. This is much easier to explain with a drawing, but let me try. If you look at the suspension design, the rear trailing arms are really short, which means as the suspension articulates up and down, the hub is pulled forward quite a lot as the trailing arm moves in its arc. Short arm = large front and rear movement of the hub as the hub moves up and down. When you lift the XC70, you push the hub downward relative to its normal location. That causes the new “resting” location of the hub to be forward of the original location and so the hub is no longer centered in the wheel arch. If you couple the off-center hub with larger tires, the tires will rub the forward part of the wheel well. With trailing arms that are 3/4 in longer, I can just barely fit the 30 in tires. About 1/4 in of clearance at rest from the forward part of the wheel well, but I do get the occasional rub when the suspension moves while driving.
3. Removed front and rear sway bars. Yes, I run without any sway bars. Actually, I just removed the links up front. In the rear, I removed the entire bar because I thought the bar ends might hit the control arm as it articulated causing unwanted noises.
4. Aluminum subframe spacers front and rear to drop the subframes down and correct some of the driveline angles. Front, 1.5 in. Rear, 1.125 in. Still, the hubs are pushed down 2.5 in (front) and almost 3 in (rear) relative to stock. No doubt, the half shaft CV joints are going to blow up at the worst possible time.
5. Couple of small things needed modification due to the front subframe drop. 1. The brackets from the top engine mount to the strut tower crossbar were too short with the engine dropped down 1.5 in, so I picked up another set of brackets at the salvage yard and made one longer pair from the two. 2. Under the rear of the front subframe is a plate that bolts to the bottom of the body across the driveshaft tunnel. I guess it’s a small skid plate to protect the brake lines that are clipped to it. Normally, the plate mounts flush to the body, but the lowered subframe clashed with the plate, so I had to weld some stand-offs to that plate and use longer bolts. 3. The boot for the steering shaft where it passes through the firewall was severely deformed because the steering shaft was way out of its normal position. The bearing popped out of its location in the boot, and the rubber boot rubbed on the shaft causing a loud metal-on-rubber creak when turning the wheel. I made a large relief cut with a razor blade about 180 degrees around the top of the rubber boot. Yes, there’s now an opening in the firewall, and I get a cold breeze on my feet in cold weather, but the squeaking is greatly reduced. Not eliminated, but gone most of the time. I haven’t put much thought into how to close it up, yet.
6. XC90 front axles
7. 5 15×6.5 Volvo wheels from the salvage yard from a 1998 S70 and a 2000 V70 with 30×9.5×15 all terrain tires for non-winter use. Cleaned up the wheels and sprayed them with black Plasti-Dip. The tires I got, Kumho Road Venture AT51, are actually 3-peak snow rated, but I’d rather use chains in severe winter weather. The 30×9.5’s don’t leave enough clearance for chains, so I kept my 16 in wheels with smaller tires (215/70/16’s, 28 in diameter) for winter use.
8. 1.25 in wheel spacers from Cross Country Performance. Necessary for clearance for the 9.5 in wide tires.
9. Swing away spare tire carrier. The hinge and latch mechanisms were purchased as separate components from 4xinnovations.com, and the rest was fabricated by myself.
10. On board air system. Air compressor and 2.5 gal tank mounted in the spare tire well.
11. Light bar. It’s removable. I only mount it for trips when I expect I may be traveling off road at night.
12. IPD aluminum front skid plate.
13. Aftermarket transmission cooler with a thermostat, external spin-on filter, and fluid temperature gauge.
Brett