Making a Volvo 940 handle

[Iain]

Is there a definitive guide on making a 940 handle OK? It's a 1996 2.3t estate and it's the boatiest thing I've ever owned.

I've read about twin rear ARBs, but don't want to make it step out easily, just reduce roll and give me a little more confidence.

Ideally I can't be lowering it too much as I've bought it for a practical load lugger and trailer tower.

[steveg]

Mine gave me a bit of a shock when I first had it the front end just seemed to drop away if you tried hard round corners.
I looked into what was available for the front spring wise and apart from shorter springs the only standard option was springs off a diesel. According to the aftermarket specs I found 740 diesels had stiffer front springs but I couldn't find any. I did find some 940 ones though and to be honest although they were about 2 coils taller the wire they are made from was only slightly thicker. I fitted these to the front minus a couple of coils along with some gas pressurised shocks, I think they were Boge ones.
You can get ARB kits from IPD in the US and these are 25mm diameter both ends. I found that early 960's had 24mm bars so I fitted one of these as well.

At the back I had Nivomat self levelling shocks. These were past their best and cost a huge amount to replace. I went for HD springs and gas pressurised shocks. My estate didn't have a rear ARB so I went with the thickest standard one which is 19mm.

All this along with a few polyurethane bushes and some more negative camber have helped things a lot. Bigger wheels with decent tyres help a lot as well and allow bigger brakes.

The end result looks very standard and means I can still get in the multi story car park in our local town center without ripping the exhaust off !

[Iain]

Great thanks, I've read about the IPD ARBs but don't want to go spending hundreds yet. Mine has a rear ARB so I'll measure the diameter, along with the front.

I wasn't sure if 1 coil front and back would help the roll but retain some ride height? Yours looks quite stock, nice one.

It's got decent tyres on little 15s, and to be honest they do an alright job and I can actually manhandle it around corners, it just feels like I'm going to scrape a wing mirror!

[steveg]

I considered cutting the rear springs but they won't really sit very well in the suspension arm if you do.
Have a look to see what rear shocks you have. The nivos I mentioned come with soft springs as the shocks do a lot of the work in holding tha back of the car up. If they are worn out the back will sag down a lot even after driving it.
If you can get away with going a bit lower then a spring kit and some height adjustable rear shock might be the answer if you can find some.
New shock on the front will help a lot as they will slow down how quickly the car rolls to some extent.

The Volvo Owners Club Forum is a good place to read up on things.

[Iain]

Cheers, non-SLS on the rear, but nothing to say someone hasn't swapped the shocks and left the soft springs at some point I guess.

[minininjarob]

I haven't done this to mine yet but have a google for the "camber mod". Apparately the camber isn't quite right as standard and the mod was something that Volvo actually did in their dealers I think to rectify it.
It's a simple mod but it stops the tyres wearing on the outer edge and apparately really transforms the handling. I've seen lists of must do mods for 940's and they always start with the camber mod as it reportedly makes a big difference.

[steveg]

My main aim was to stop my car eating the outside edges of it's passenger side tyre. Volvo list the mod although I can't put it up on here at the moment. This is a link to Turbobricks website though with describes how to do it.
forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=230362

To do it properly you really need to know what the camber is to start with although I did my car this way and even with the 205 tyres on it and home set tracking the tyres now wear quite evenly.

The biggest problem is the fact that when cornering hard the car leans over a lot, you get a lot of positive camber and the tyre take a beating.

[Iain]

Awesome, I saw a video of someone doing this but assumed it was for excessive negative camber. I am definitely gonna do that, as it's totally reversible.

I'm on 185 wide tyres so it's a little bit frightening anyway.

So if moving 3mm gives 0.25 degrees, what is the ideal resulting camber? I have basic gauges. Aim for a little less than 1 degree neg?

[welshpug]

FWD - increase rear roll stiffness, rwd - increase front roll stiffness.


that's a basic rule, if its mainly a road car I'd only go as high as the standard roll bars and use the spring rates to increase roll stiffness further, this will aid traction by allowing more independent movement of the wheels.

[steveg]

Not sure to be honest I don't know what my car was before, all I can say is that it's the got the most it can have with the standard top mounts. I don't really know why it was a problem in the first place. Did Volvo set the cars up for left hand drive and forget to change something ?
Another thing to consider is the state of the bush that links the track control arm and the rear facing arm. Volvo ones are OK when new but the aftermarket ones allowed more movement on the wheel than the soggy old one. I fitted superflex polyurethane ones on my car.

With the front suspension loaded up the weight of the car will be pushing the wheel under the car which will in turn eat the edge of the tyre.

[Iain]

Good stuff, sounds like I have some stuff to go at then.

1) Mod topmount for max caster
2) Check if it's got a front ARB, it defo has a rear one
3) Investigate track control arm bush for play (need to diagnose a knock anyway)

Maybe take a coil off the front too if I'm needing the tracking doing anyway!

[discostew38]

I've played about with both my 940 and 240
when I first got the 940 I replaced the springs with some basic lowering springs "40mm" and because the Volvo sits so high in the first place it still looks stock
at the same time I fitted bilstein B4 shocks and dropped the tyre size down to 205/50/15 
And to be honest that was actually pretty good I done track days and a ring trip with it like that and it was very capable 

on the 240 I made some coilovers for the front and replaced the rear springs 
the 240 has adjustable camber (front) as std and I'm run B4 shocks on that to and that handles really good 

[minininjarob]

I don't know if the Volvo guru's can advise on mine....

I want to fit some lowering springs (40mm no more). As part of this I need to cure a bit of a clunk from the front end so Iwas thinking of renewing all the suspension components in one go so I know it's all fresh and minty.

So my list is

Springs
Shocks (Bilstein B4 - best option?)
Top mount bearings
Track rod ends
Ball joints

Bushings - don't know which ones i might need - any ideas?

[steveg]

The clunk you describe might be the strut top mount. Over the years the rubber bit gets battered a bit and the metal cups that sit in it become a bit loose. You can't adjust it as the distance between the cups is set by a spacer.

[minininjarob]

I want to modify some to change the camber so I might be best replacing both of them and the bearings I suppose.

[Iain]

Feb 17, 2016 15:03:30 GMT steveg said:

The clunk you describe might be the strut top mount. Over the years the rubber bit gets battered a bit and the metal cups that sit in it become a bit loose. You can't adjust it as the distance between the cups is set by a spacer.

Mine's got exactly what you say. You bounce the car and the top bush moves up and down a few mm and knocks.

Febi replacements are £20 for complete topmounts incl bearings.

The B4s look cheap, sure I've seen them at £130 for the complete set on eBay, but mine's supposed to be a cheap beater not a money pit!

[steveg]

These pictures might not make much sense unless you have taken you top mounts apart.



The cup hole has been enlarged to fit over the distance tube, you then need a thick washer equivalent to the thickness of the cup to go on top. By doing this you have compressed the rubber by the thickness of the cup or if the rubber is old closed the gap enough to remove the free play.







As I said there is little point unless the rubber isn't starting to crack.

[minininjarob]

Is that a temporary fix then?

[steveg]

It's been like it for 5 years now and is still OK although I haven't done a huge amount of mile since then though. AS long as the rubber is free from cracks I can't see any reason why you couldn't add another washer to tighten things up again. The strut mount in the picture is a spare one and not in very good condition.

[bigdaz]

Putting lower profile tyres on will help to, if you stand by the wing and push the car back and forth not like rocking the car but like your trying to move the car over if you know what I mean lol see how much it moves on the tires like my car has 14" wheels and 70 profile tires on and I can move it a lot if I was to put say 16" wheels on and a much lower profile tire on I would reduce the movement by a lot but the overall wheel tire size will be about the same size,