Two days ago I upgraded a good part of the suspension:
- Upgraded front lower control arms with new bolted ball joints, Whiteline Polyurethane bushings and Anti-Lift Kit
- Bilstein B8 Struts and shocks
- New strut mounts
- New strut dust boots
- New rear shock mounts
- New rear shock bump stops
- Pierce Motorsports 2-point lower tiebar brace
Everything started because I needed struts for my S40. Since the struts on the C70 are still good. I decided to take advantage of this situation and buy upgraded struts for the C70 and transfer the old ones to the S40.
I started looking for options and after reading some reviews and hearing a few opinions, I decided on Bilstein dampers. But I didn't want to lower the car. That meant I had to buy the B6 model. BUT there is a big problem, according to VIDA, our cars use exclusive struts (front) and shocks (rear). I found that most manufacturers state their front struts are compatible with all P1's but the rear shocks was a different story.
According to Bilstein's catalog, the rear C70 B6 shocks are discontinued. No one on this side of the pond have them in stock. FCP still had the B8's, but these are meant for lowering springs. I wasn't very happy about having to mix different dampers even though the valving is the same on both models. Only difference is they're ~20mm shorter. Since I didn't want to lower the car, I wanted to know if using stock springs would be possible. But before I needed to gather some info first. That's why I reached out to many of you asking about the suspension of your car (I'll be doing a thread with my findings during next week).
So, after doing some calculations, It seemed using the stock springs with B8's wouldn't be too bad of an idea. And after finding that RockAuto had them at a better price and also I had a 5% discount coupon, I pulled the trigger and ordered them:
I didn't want to leave the strut rod exposed, luckily I still had the plastic boot holders from the original struts of the car, they just needed a little modification to allow the thicker rod to go through:
These are the genuine Volvo LCA's that came with the car when I bought it, I kept them because I knew this would happen soon or later......
Now the front of the car will be reinforced from above with the genuine strut brace and below with the lower tie bar, plus it looks almost "OEM".
I started with the LCA's first and the lower tiebar brace and left the struts for the last
Struts installation was relatively easy.
Bilstein B8 C70 shock vs "Stock" KYB C70 rear shock
Once I had all installed, only downside of the lower tie brace is the splash shield needs to be installed bent:
EDIT: I measured again and the tie bar protrudes approximately 1.75" / 44mm from the bottom of the oil pan.
To be honest, I don't feel comfortable forcing the splash shield there and only being held by screws threaded into plastic clips. For now I'll leave it out and see how I can modify it to make it fit better, or maybe just use on the S40 instead.
So far the car was transformed, now it feels much firmer than before, body roll and nose dive (under braking) got reduced quite a bit . Road imperfections can be felt a little bit more, yes. but it's not that bad. Steering is now very responsive. And the vibration issue I had before, now seems to be gone (hopefully). So far I'm very happy with it and now can't wait to drive it on some twisty roads with the roof down.
