Hello All - New members Needs Some Info

Hi All, I've recently purchased a MY98 V40 T4 SE. It's a pretty old, sad version but it drives pretty well. Anyway, I've been doing some research to learn about this car, and I'd like some information on the following:- It has the B4194T engine, is this model intercooled, if not is this a recommended step for getting a little bit more power out of the vehicle? Also, in ambient temps above 30 degrees c (90 F) there seems to be a fair drop off in performance, is this normal? Also, the car seems to only come on boost from about 3,500 rpm, would this be correct? Apparently they make peak torque from 2,400 - 3,600 rpm, but there's no way thats the case on this one as it wont hold speed up hills in 5th gear at 100kph. Can anyone maybe give me some pointers as to things I should have checked to make sure the engine and turbo are all in good working order? I would ultimately like to squeeze just a little more out of it as it's rather weak but I want to make sure it's in good order to be slightly modded first. Does anyone have a graph of boost vs rpm for this engine stock? That might help me sort out whether or not I'm losing boost at low rpm. Anyway, otherwise I think the car is pretty cool, so I just want to check it out properly. I look forward to chatting more with everyone over the coming months Cheers Steve

Hi and welcome. All T4s have intercoolers and you do see some drop in performance in the summer due to the air being thinner. The turbo should start to boost about 2800rpm and when it should be boosting hard by 3500rpm. Its a relatively large turbo on the T4 so needs to be reved to get the power out of the engine. Part of the fun of the T4s is the way the power is delivered in a massive lump higehr up the rev range. As for checks really just make sure the car isnt burning too much oil and give it regular services.

Hi Steve, Welcome to the forum and congrats on your new purchase! Indeed the car has an intercooler and its a pretty good one too. The car will definitely lose power in high ambient temps, as all cars do, particularly turbocharged ones. I would say the best thing you could do at this stage is to fit a boost gauge and see what boost its making. In addition, the one thing I noticed about Phase 1 cars is they really do require fairly wide throttle opening when compared to Phase 2 ones, to make similar progress. You should be getting reasonably good pull from the engine (at 0.9bar), from around 2500rpm up to around 5000rpm, which is when it starts to run out of puff. I would also recommend contacting the company below and speak to Mark, he may be able to give you a few more pointers: VP Tuning PO Box 2002 Seaford Vic 3198 Australia ph: +61 (0) 403 81 45 45

Thank you thats great. Is Mark a bit of a Volvo expert? That is definitely what I'm after. Interestingly, when looking through the service history, there's twice been mention of ECU fault codes... ...It does seem that I have an ECU error in that the DSA doesn't work...at low speeds the DSA light flickers on and off randomly...I don't mean when I'm accelerating, just tooling along, for instance parking in a car park. I think I read that part of the DSA is traction control, so I did a hard take off last night to check the traction control and sure enough the front passenger wheel lit up like an Xmas tree, therefore no traction control. Holding down the DSA switch to turn it on/off does nothing. So I'm wondering if there's an ECU fault if it could be causing the car to run richer in warmer conditions to protect the engine, as not only does it feel extremely flat when warm, but it uses insane amounts of fuel. I will have to go somewhere and get it checked out. Beyond that yeah I'll put a boost guage on it and check it out, and have the intercooler flow tested and the exhaust and turbo checked for leaks etc. I just want to make sure everything is up to spec before I race around chasing a bit more power.... I'll let everyone know how I get on Cheers Steve