The C30 R Design has to be one our favorite looking Volvos. Never before has a Volvo hot hatch been so accessible. Used examples can actually be found for less than $20 000.

Here is the data straight from Redbook.

Comfortable seats, excellent handling and a very stylish exterior make this vehicle quite an attractive proposition.

There is one thing though; its power.

Things look great on paper. Once again from Redbook:

When you actually perform some dyno testing you will find that the power at the wheels is actually a paltry 105kW at the wheels! This is the same sort of power that is produced by a Ford XR5 Turbo which is not surprising since they share the same drivetrain!

So what can be done about this?

A lot actually.

Volvo’s engineers are quite handy and have found ways to make it impossible to modify the computers calibrations via the OBD port. Luckily for us we aren’t too shabby in the IT department either!

We have been able to bypass their encryption and hack the motherboard in the ECU:

We took an example of one of these vehicles, tested it with its stock calibrations and then tested it with our calibrations and this is what we discovered:

Here is the dyno chart for reference:

The vehicle now has much improved response, smooth power delivery and we have smoothed out the Air to Fuel Ratio.

The biggest changes start to occur after 4000 RPMs. The largest power gain over stock is 40kw  which occurs at around 5800 RPMs. This makes the vehicle a completely different animal to drive. The long gear ratios on these vehicles make 2nd gear an amazing power gear pulling to over 100km/h. With our updated calibrations 2nd gear really comes to life.

A key metric that is measured in the video above is “knock” or “detonation”.

The video clearly shows that the knock recording is glued to “0”. Under full load during a 17.2 second test through the entire range of 4th gear our calibrations are demonstrated to cause no “knock” or “detonation”. This key metric indicates that the calibration is safe and the power extracted has been done so effectively with risk to our client minimised. Or in layman’s terms, its a “safe tune“.

If you have any questions or would like to get your Volvo or Ford worked on by us, please email us at: sales@boostedautosports.com.au