Bumping this thread as it’s been a while and wanted to see if there is any better feed back yet. Their pricing seems reasonable enough.
I have owned my ’98 V70R since June of 2010, nearly ten years. I bought the car bone stock and steadily began modifications. At that time I worked at iPd and had access to their in-house tuner, Marco Alsterfalk and MTE tuning out of Sweden. As an employee, this access made it a smidge easier than an everyday customer for me to get custom tuning on my car, particularly after I swapped in an M58 manual transmission and then subsequently began engine and turbo upgrades. At that time nobody offered remote tuning options for M4.3/4.4 engine management systems, so I would wait for Marco’s yearly or bi-yearly trip to the US for him to tune my car.
MTE Tunes:
Tune:
– Canned 18t “Stage 3” manual tune. (By the way, someone above on this thread a few years ago mentioned that the iPd/MTE Stage 3 tune with the 18t makes 320 awhp- it most certainly does not. At best maybe 290-295 fwhp.)
Result:
– Bent connecting rod
Tune:
– Custom tune for stock B5244T5 (first ever US-based B5244T5 swap into a P80), green injectors, K24 turbo. No VVT control/ utilization, solenoids left unplugged.
Result:
– Cracked cylinder sleeve (#5, IIRC)- 81mm bore engines crack sleeves, too when engine detonates due to poor tune.
Tune:
– Custom tune for built (h-beams and forged Wiseco pistons) B5244T5, DW300, 650cc deatchworks/iPd injectors, iPd 4T4 turbo (first US-based iPd 4T4 turbo installed on P80). No VVT control, solenoids unplugged, but cam timing advanced on both cams by 12 degrees.
Result:
– Cracked sleeve (#4/5 cylinder)
Dejected, I replaced the broken built motor with another stock B5244T5 just so the car would run.
At this point I began to doubt Marco’s ability to properly tune my car with the modifications I had performed. Marco, to be fair, spent a great deal of time with each of the tunes he prepared for my car. Each tuning session would take hours- one time he spent 8 straight hours tuning my car, doing data logs, then returning to tweak the tune. It wasn’t that he was hurried or uncaring, I was just beginning to think that his tuning abilities for 4.3/4.4 were perhaps not as strong as his ability in tuning ME7 cars. I dug and found some *old* threads on some European forums where Jan (JC Viggen, a legend in P80 world) eviscerated Marco’s tuning ability. This made my own reservations and suspicions feel a bit more grounded. At this point I decided there were a few glaring “tuning holes” that I wanted to address:
1) Cam timing and what to do with those uncontrolled dual VVT cams flopping about in there. Ok I’m being flippant here (pun intended), but those cams- left uncontrolled- do fully retard immediately once the engine is running. This was why I attempted to manually advance the cams, so as to offset their natural retardation when VVT was unplugged and provide a more robust power band.
2) Coil-on-plug (COP) conversion so as to actually have proper ignition control. ANYONE looking to make serious power on a P80 should consider COP conversion a must. Even with the MSD ignition amplifier the stock ignition system is lacking in appropriate resolution.
3) Ability to remote tune.
4) E85 compatibility
At this time, maybe 3 years ago now?, VAST was beginning to provide all of these tuning options so I reached out to Aaron and kind of explained my journey, current setup and limitations, and goals. A few months later, Aaron was in a plane out to Oregon to spend a few days working on car. I did the COP conversion myself before he arrived, and he then helped me to change my MAF setup, get the VVT solenoids wired into my harness, and to complete some wiring upgrades for my fuel pump. Then, the tune. I really wish I had been more thorough in documenting before and after, but it was night and day. The VAST tune in combination with E85 fuel, COP, VVT control, and proper MAF setup finally gave me the results I was looking for. The MTE tune with the 4T4 gave me 293 AWHP and 325 AWTQ on a dynojet dyno. Aaron’s help yielded 388 AWHP and 426 AWTQ on a Mustang Dyno:
A year later I then trailered the car out to Denver for Aaron to build the new B5244T5 motor using my old rods and pistons, replace the iPd 4T4 with a Gen 2 Garrett GTX3071R, larger injectors, custom tubular exhaust manifold and downpipe, a bigger MAF housing, and larger injectors. This setup yielded 484 AWHP and 598 AWTQ on a Mustang Dyno (E85).
One year later, my car is now ( as of Thursday ) back in Denver to put in a new engine: Darton Sleeves, 143mm rods, 10:1 compression ratio and actual engine displacement of 2.56 liters along with ENEM stage 2 cams. I am keeping with the GTX3071R for now, I *really* love this turbo for the street and am less interested in peak Hp than I am usable power for a street-driven car. The compression, displacement, and cams should really improve the low-end power and reduce the relative lag in my current setup.
So, I wanted to answer your question thoroughly and in the context of my experiences of modifying my car from a stock 2.3 with a 16t to what is currently the highest horsepower m4.4 P80 AWD in the US, if not the world… at least for a few weeks until Matt (Simply Volvo) finishes his AWD swap!!.
Aaron is very knowledgeable, not only in terms of tuning but the whole p80 caboodle. His understanding of 4.3/4.4 engine management is second to none, and he only continues to hone his ability. He is incredibly easy to work with, always respectful, honest, and courteous to his customers. There is nobody else, at least in the US, who approach his ability with motronic 4.3 and 4.4, and for P80 Volvos in general. In terms of price, tuning is not where you want to cut corners or pinch pennies, IMO Aaron’s pricing is very fair for what you get in return.
Thanks Aaron, thanks VAST.
– A satisfied customer.