The Volvo Chronicles: Upper Engine Mount [ January 5th, 2009 ] By: Mark Ozimek Posted in » Ramblings
With a new year comes new car parts that need replacing! I probably mentioned it in the past, but I noticed that my upper engine mount on the S70 looks like someone took a chainsaw to it. As you can imagine, this isn’t a good thing. Worn engine mounts allow more engine vibration, which can lead to poor feeling shifting, accelerated wear on other mounts, and in the extreme case, weird handling quirks and reduced power.
To fix this, I got a solid polyurethane upper mount from iPd to replace the hard rubber OEM piece:
As you can see, the Volvo part looks somewhat abused… it was originally a one piece design! Installation was pretty simple, I only needed 13mm and 15mm wrenches, along with a hacksaw and screwdriver to cut out the retaining ring on the old mount (the alternative was a bushing press to push it out of the mount, something I don’t have).
Before and after shots of the engine mount in question:
After installation, I took the car out for a test drive. One thing that I found a lot of complaints about was the increase in cabin noise and vibration. Granted, I am hard of hearing, but I honestly can’t see why someone would complain about the nice growl that is added upon acceleration.
However, the noise was the second most noticable difference, right after the feel when shifting. The actual shift engagement feel did not change, but rather the way the power is transferred to the ground when the clutch is released. In comparison to before, it feels much more solid, and throttle response is slightly better.
Those are really the only two things I noticed. No changes in handling through turns, which makes sense because that mount is designed to not support any load from the sides.
The moral of this story would be to make sure you stay on top of any bushings, especially on car that is exposed to racing conditions. The higher road speed, bumps, acceleration, braking, hard shifts, etc, all wear down the bushings that much faster, and introduce slop into components that usually do best without any.
