Everything You Need To Know About "B4184 Modifications"

How to modify and upgrade the Volvo B4184

"Comprehensive guide to performance tuning the Volvo B4184 engine!"

Popular tuning sites like TorqueCars often are getting messages about how to improve the B4184 from people wanting to know what are the greatest B4184 upgrades. So let us look into Volvo B4184 mods and outline the best mods that work on this great engine and point out some frequent tuning mistakes along the way.

The Volvo B4184 great bases for a tuning project and with the ultimate sports tuning mods like remaps, turbo improvements and camshafts you will certainly increase your driving enjoyment.

Car Tuning Tips will consider B4184 tuning and highlight the ultimate upgrades.

The ultimate B4184 parts on an engine are usually the ones that give the best power gain for your hard earned cash.

We won't be swayed by popular B4184 parts, they need to be cost effective.

Improving air intake on the B4184

You need fuel and air for an engine to work. If there is insufficient fuel then it will run lean, if there is not enough air it runs rich sapping power which risks damage to the B4184. We'll pick up on fuelling later in this article but for now we shall look at air supply.

So Pulling air and fuel into each cylinder is the main goal to any engine modification project.

It is not unusual that there's a restriction in the air flow sensor MAF/MAP on the B4184 when considerably more air is being drawn into the engine.

You'll see that 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor limited power at a much lower level.

Headers transmit the air from the intake filter and allow it to be fed into the engine and mixed with fuel.

The size of bore and shape and flow rate of the Intake can make a noticeable change to fuel delivery on the B4184.

Most intake headers are in dire need of performance upgrades, although a few manufacturers provide reasonably good intake headers.

Adding a B4184 larger valve kit, getting 3 or 5 angle valve jobs and porting and head flowing will also increase power, this will permit increasing the power increase on other modifications.

B4184 performance cam tips.

Different B4184 engines respond better to more aggressive cam durations check your engine on a rolling road.

The ecu map and injectors and fuel pump also will say much on the torque gains you'll achieve.

Extending exhaust or intake durations can alter the torque band and on most engines the exhaust and intake durations do not need to match, although most cams and tuners use matched pairs there are some advantages to extending the intake or exhaust durations.

The camshaft profile plays a big part in the engines power output so camshaft upgrades make quite a large difference. The intake & exhaust durations will alter depending on the chosen camshaft profile, so large engines power gains are on offer for camshaft upgrades.

NB: Fast road camshafts normally boost the power throughout the rev range, you could sacrifice a little low end bhp but your top end will be higher.

Competition camshafts, boost the top end band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

On a daily driver you need to optimize your power band to your typical driving style.

I'd be surprised if you have ever thought a B4184 Motorsport and race camshaft is a pleasure to live with when driving in heavy traffic.

Stage 1, 2 and 3 mods for the B4184

Before we break the best tuning upgrades down into stages of tune, let's list the most effective tuning upgrades for you.

1. Suspension Upgrades - always improve your cars handling
2. Brake Upgrades - Even before adding power improve those brakes
3. Intake - make sure the intake is not restricted, use filters and intake upgrades to improve this
4. Exhaust - as with 3 ensure there is not restriction in the exhaust, cats are the usual bottleneck
5. Tunes - remapping, piggyback ECU's and aftermarket ECU's can all make decent gains
6. Fuelling - when you've increased power you'll need to match this with more fuel
7. Turbo upgrades - Improving the intake with a large turbo and better flowing intercooler will be the biggest power gain you'll see (but one of the most complex).

This video guide to tuning cars is a great starting point to work from in your project.

Stage 1 B4184 parts:

Remaps/piggy back ECU, Fast road camshaft, Intake headers, Sports exhaust manifold, Panel air filters, Drilled & smoothed airbox.

Stage 2 B4184 parts:

Fast road cam, high flow fuel injectors, Ported and polished head, fuel pump upgrades, induction kit, Sports catalyst & performance exhaust.

Stage 3 B4184 parts:

Engine balancing & blueprinting, Crank and Piston upgrades to alter compression, Adding or Upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Internal engine upgrades (head flowing porting/bigger valves), Twin charging conversions, Competition cam.

ECU flashing allows a tuner to unlock the full potential of all the upgrades you've done to your B4184.

You will typically expect to see gains of approximately 20-30% more power on turbocharged vehicles and you can expect to see around 15% on NASP engines, but figures achieved usually differs on the upgrades you've carried out and the condition of your engine.

Turbo modifications on the B4184

To get a turbo working on a NASP engine there is a lot involved, from lowering compression ratio to improved fuel supply and mapping, so we have found a great guide to helpavoid the common pitfalls or end up with an unfinished project because you were not told what you were getting into by doing this on the B4184.

The more air you can get into an engine, the more fuel it can burn and uprating the induction with a turbocharger upgrade makes impressive power gains.

If the engine has a turbocharger mods are relatively easy and you'll see that turbo engines are made with stronger components.

There are tuning limits for every engine, with some being extremely strong and some only able to handle stock power

Research these limitations and fit better quality crank and pistons to survive the power.

It's not unheard of car owners spending a lots of money on turbocharger upgrades on the B4184 only to see the B4184 literally blow up just after it's finished.

Larger capacity turbos often experience no power at low rpm, and smaller turbos spool up really quickly but do not have the peak rpm power band gains.

Thanks to progress the selection of turbochargers is always moving on and we are seeing variable vane turbochargers, where the vane profile is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end power.

Twin scroll turbochargers divert the exhaust gases into 2 channels and push these at differently designed vanes in the turbo charger. They also increase the scavenging effect of the engine.

Beefing up the air intake by adding a supercharger or additional turbo will help you achieve very large bhp gains, although harder to install. We have this feature on twinchargers if you want to read more.

Tips about fuel supply on the B4184

When you increase the torque you will need to look at to the fuelling.

More torque needs more fuel. Care modifiers usually say to over specify your injectors flow rate.

As a rule of thumb add 15% to the flow rate when fitting an injector, which takes into account injector deterioration and provides a little spare capacity should the engine need more fuel.

Don't forget that different fuel grades will usually require different settings, a high octane fuel will burn more efficiently than lower octane fuel for example. A car will trim fuel supply to keep within the ideal air fuel mix but at the extreme ends you may need to adjust your injector capacity, or the mapping or you'll get flat spots and potential lean or rich fuel issues..

Recommended B4184 performance exhaust upgrades

You may need to upgrade your exhaust system with an upgraded one is if the existing exhaust is actually creating a flow problem.

On most factory exhausts you should find that your flow rate is fine even on modest power gains, but on a serious tuning project with a big boost in power you will certainly need to get a better flowing exhaust.

Note that with the largest exhaust you can source you'll slow up the exhaust flow rate - the best exhausts for power gains are usually between one and a half to two and half inches. Your exhaust design, the bend angles and construction are what have more effect on flow rates than your pipe width to a certain extent. So the exhaust design is a big factor.

Usual exhaust restrictions come around the filters installed, so adding a faster flowing high performance alternative will help avoid this restriction.

Cat bypassing (NB:catalysts reduce harmful engine emissions) is illegal in most countries and regions.

Faults issues and things to look out for on the B4184

Like most engines an B4184, should have few issues if it gets properly serviced and looked after.

We cannot stress enough the need for oil changes with the correct grade of oil on the B4184, failure to do this will exacerbate engine wear, on a tuned B4184 this is more important than ever and close attention should be paid to your maintenance schedule.

If you are interested in learning more or getting impartial tuning advice for your B4184 why not pop over to the forums at TorqueCars where you can chat about B4184 tuning options and read about others projects who may be planning to do similar modifications on their B4184.

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This entry was posted under Makes and Models. Tags: engine, Volvo
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