I bought the car in 2022 before moving to Minnesota and while the body was very clean, it needed a lot of work. I've replaced the R-specific 4c suspension only to realize just how bad the 4c units are at doing their job. I've had to completely rebuild the front end suspension: new rack, new power steering loop, TME springs, new control arms, new ball joints, etc. The car is stage 0'd now and I'm finally starting to add some fun mods. My goals for the car is to be a daily drive-able M3 killer like Volvo originally marketed the car back in 2004. For me, that means pushing ~300HP to the wheels, and tightening up the handling. I need to replace the rubber bushings for the rear subframe with poly bushings to match the stiffer bushings in the front, and eventually, I'll get some KW V2s on all four corners. IPD's front and rear sways are also on the list. Unfortunately the 2.5L whiteblock isn't the most robust engine, so pushing 300 WHP will require some modification either in the form of shimming the coolant channels, or in the worst case, sleeving the block. In the 3 years I've owned the car, I've learned a lot about how to work on cars and I've really enjoyed meeting the very dedicated and quirky people in the Volvo community.
