Shady’s 1995 850 T-5R

AshDVS

In terms of improving handling, there's a good amount you can do and the P80 platform is pretty responsive to change.

Delrin subframe mounts are a good idea and offer a far more predictable change in handling than a urethane insert in an aging oem/rubber type subframe mount.

Delrin subframe mounts are absolutely harder (greater shore rating) than a rubber mount. This being the case, you should consider what mounts/bushes you use in other locations.

I'd stick with a good quality oem style mount as the torque mount (lower, connects to gearbox) - urethane here will have a short service life and will have an impact on NVH.

For the lower control arm bushes, the same applies here. A decent quality replacement arm (with new bushes and a new balljoint) is ideal, a bush higher in shore here is ok but will absolutely have an increase in NVH here and, particularly on the earlier P80 cars with two-bolt LCAs, the load on the bush will mean that a urethane bush has a fairly short service life.

Strut mounts, spring seats and front swaybar links all also have a big impact on handling too.

In the rear, outer delta link bushes are the common(ish) failure, inners perhaps less so. There's no decent 'better' option here, so replace with standard.

P80 FWD cars respond well to an increase in rear swaybar size, but I certainly wouldnt increase front bar size. If front swaybar D bushes are worn, you can replace these with an aftermarket bush. I think @Drwillis detailed this in his V70R build thread for reference. A bigger rear bar will help with turn-in and makes them a more 'fun' car to drive.

In your car, I'm not sure if you have the Nivomat rear end or not but over time these get soft/squishy in the rear and you can easily replace this with the conventional spring and shock arrangement in the rear. Decent springs and shocks/struts will yield a nice improvement in handling and you'll get a small ride height drop in T-5R and R models too (using something like an Eibach or H&R product).

Happy to provide more information on any part of the above and bounce around any ideas you might have.

This is great info, cheers Ash.

I’m pretty sure it was only wagons came with the Nivomats.

Is the Ultra Racing rear sway bar any good? And you’d recommend going poly for the sway bar D bushes?

Sounds like OE rubber would be the way to go for everything else ?

rado

Nice pictures there , I looked at mine when I got home and only had about six lol . Thought I took more . Looking good ?

Forge CBV , yes that'll go on the standard turbo no problem, I had mine on the standard turbo then on the turbo I'm running atm .

With the top engine mount , I've heard the poly is OK but don't change to poly for the one in the scuttle panel (small one ) .

As Ash says front swaybar bushes may need replacing, these are fun to get out , I drilled and burned mine out with a blow torch and changed to poly with lock rings , there's a brief right up in my thread .

Wish I went with Delrin subframe mounts, mine are good so I went with poly inserts. Worked well as it goes but should have just gone with the Delrin.

Just got the delta links to go , Ash has helped all the way , Legend ?

Plenty of strut brace options out there , mine is an OBX but later will be swapping to a DVS , @AshDVS any difference between the T5R and R strut brace ?

Thanks! Glad you could make it.

As @AshDVS mentioned the OEM Volvo strut brace is best for the T-5R as it needs to clear the ABS module. Finding a RHD one is proving very difficult, seen a couple overseas but shipping is outrageous.

I’m aware that they’ve been discontinued, but I refuse to pay silly money for one. I‘ve asked Mark Iceton to keep an eye out for me, he’s always reasonable with his pricing.

AshDVS

The last two I had, I sold for $100-$150. $400-$600 is definitely in my view of 'silly money'. They're ok but there's certainly more effective/functional braces out there (even beyond what we offer).

@shadycourgette , you asked a question about the Ultra Racing swaybar offering earlier and I missed it and didnt provide a response.

In short, their rear bar is pretty good and would be my preference (now) over the IPD offering. Back in maybe 2014/2015, we'd been looking at reselling them. We got an eval P80 rear bar and fitted it to my 1998 V70T5. Finish was 'ok' but not brilliant and it required minor modification to fit. Unless you have a hoist and were ok with taking a grinder to a brand new bar to make it fit, you might have been unhappy.

From a reseller viewpoint, while the bar we got may have been an exception, this made me lose interest in taking them on to resell.

Fast forward some time, all of the Ultra Racing swaybars I've seen since then (with no exceptions) had nicer welding than the one we got and I havent heard of anyone who the issues we had. Maybe we got a 'friday' bar.

I may reach out to them again and buy one in to eval it again to see if the experience is better this time around, being 7-8 years later.

What strut brace would you go with, given the clearance issues of the MY94/95? Hard to know what fits and what doesn’t, is for LHD only, etc.. I have seen a lot of people recommending OMP but I’m pretty sure they’ve been discontinued as well.

that’s good to know about the Ultra Racing sway bar. I’ll probably bite the bullet on one when I get around to doing a Viva order.

AshDVS

The last two I had, I sold for $100-$150. $400-$600 is definitely in my view of 'silly money'. They're ok but there's certainly more effective/functional braces out there (even beyond what we offer).

@shadycourgette , you asked a question about the Ultra Racing swaybar offering earlier and I missed it and didnt provide a response.

In short, their rear bar is pretty good and would be my preference (now) over the IPD offering. Back in maybe 2014/2015, we'd been looking at reselling them. We got an eval P80 rear bar and fitted it to my 1998 V70T5. Finish was 'ok' but not brilliant and it required minor modification to fit. Unless you have a hoist and were ok with taking a grinder to a brand new bar to make it fit, you might have been unhappy.

From a reseller viewpoint, while the bar we got may have been an exception, this made me lose interest in taking them on to resell.

Fast forward some time, all of the Ultra Racing swaybars I've seen since then (with no exceptions) had nicer welding than the one we got and I havent heard of anyone who the issues we had. Maybe we got a 'friday' bar.

I may reach out to them again and buy one in to eval it again to see if the experience is better this time around, being 7-8 years later.

You should look into this. Ultra Racing Australia don’t list any Volvo products on their website, so I emailed them about a rear sway bar and they said they could supply me one. Not a lot of options for stuff in Australia and OS shipping is outrageous at the moment.

Ex850R

Very nice!

(Polestar P3s have similar)

Dash top next!?

If I can find one that isn’t warped or repair the current one, I’ll definitely get it wrapped.

I also want to get the steering wheel rewrapped like this:

rado

Royal Steering Wheels in UK. Top notch. Ash had his done there and put me onto them so I had mine redone there also . Very nice work .

The trimmer that did my headlining said they could do it