Ok, good ol' dad is helping me with all this, but we're hoping for some opinions. Iooks like I'll be running a webber down draft carb, with an ipd header, on my car. Does any one have any preferences or opinions on the exaust- like, are there different mufflers than the original that might be better? And would it make any differences to use larger pipes straight through, or go down from the larger at the manifold, to the standard size before the end?

I bought a Tri-Y header from kgtrimning and it fits fine. Tight fit on my 70 1800E by the A-arm to install but once in clears fine. Did have to drill it for one stud. You can order direct from them www.kgtrimning.com or John Parker at http://www.v-performance.com/products.html. Clifford Performance used to sell the headers like IPD but I do not see them in there catalog anymore. May try a call. Do a ceramic coating job if you want reduced heat and longer life. I think John P. will have this done if you get one from him. They make stage 1,2,3 versions.

Greg Bodner

Firstly, do you already have your ipd header? They list them in the catalog, but it seems they don't have any to sell...

If you do have your header already, indeed, watch them upper A-arms... I've got an old header on my 1800, and it did rub on the A-arm... Had to grind down the corders of the arm, and install a 3rd motor mount to push the engine that extra 1/8" over and its been fine since.

If you don't have a header yet, I'd skip it and go with a dual downpipe stock exhaust manifold off a later B20 car. Its almost as good as teh headers as far as flow goes, and it fits a lot easier. One from a fuel injected car would be easiest, as it is not connected to the intake manifold.

The DGV is a fine carb, but it ain't a performance unit. Great for consistant, reliable running though. If you are looking for performance, go with SUs or...? If you just want a good running car, go with the downdraft weber, the stock dual down exhaust manifold, and a basically stock exhaust thereafter. Easy enough to go with a 2" system, and a free flow muffler... that ain't gonna be too expensive.

If you want a hot rod, spend a few grand on the engine, go with the header, 2.25 exhaust, and a pair of DCOE side draft webers. Or at least SUs. Now that would be fun, wouldn't it...

-Matt B
'70 145 w/ overbored B20, radical cam, biggie valves, ported/polished, and dual DCOE webers. But still no header...

yes, yes, yes,
i had to stack about an 3/4 inch of washers under the engine mount to reduce the knocking at idle. it still vibrate on the A-arm at 65mph though.
i just got an FI exhaust manifold and will be sticking that on to solve the problem. FI saves a lot of hassle cutting the intake off. Brad M.

As a word of caution, I put an ipd header on my '70 144 and i had nothing but trouble. first the manifold surface was machined improperly. it was not flat and did not seal to the manifold. second the header would hit the lower A-arm at the back bushing. this may not be a problem with 1800 suspension, i really don't know. all in all i was dissatisfied. but maybe i just got a bad header. i know grassroots motor sports (grassrootsmotorsports) had one on their 122 and had some trouble. i cut the oe exhaust pipe, added the reducer as ipd indicated and retained the oem muffler.
i do like the weber dgv carb though, it's a big improvement over the wornout strombergs.
I hope everything goes well, Brad M.

There were some troublesome issues with these headers - frustrating to say the least. This header was made by Clifford and sold by ipd.

Just a minor point: the GRM 122 didn't have one of these: they had a 4 into 2 into 1 header that looks a whole lot like the KGTrimning header.

The new headers are made to the same design as the Clifford but by a different company (as mentioned). We'll see how they work once Shayne gets a chance to put one on his Most Excellent Wagon.

Best,

Cameron
Stoopid Fast Amazon
Rose City

Cameron,

Why don't you import a bunch of the KGtrimning headers (stage 1,2,3) and sell them with ceramic coating and O2 bung as an option? They seem to be good quality and I would have bought one from you instead of importing it myself. They seemed good to deal with and made the shipping pretty easy. I think the Tri-Y design is a good one also?? I would like to see some of there other products over here also. Let us know how the current offering is and if it differs in not just the quality but performance and fit.

Thanks,

Greg Bodner
1970 1800E
IPD Customer

Hi Greg -

Headers have come up a number of times in conversation at ipd. A long long time ago, in a welding shop far away... er...

Let's see: Richard used to race Volvos (and likely will again); much of the ipd product line 30ish years ago was based on what worked for him on the track. If you've seen an ipd catalog from the early 80s or prior, you know this already. Up until.. mmm.. mid to late 80s ipd offered 2 headers that were based on their own R&D. One was a 'race' header with big ol' tubes and a big ol' collector. Some folks bought this for their street cars, but it was too large to work well. So ipd offered a 'street' header as well. Each of these designs was based on dyno results. Back then, ipd was known to test one engine with 7 or 8 different cams, several different headers, and lots of comparison between DCOEs and (modified) Djet fuel injection. 195hp normally aspirated? Oh yes.

Anyway, sales got slow on the race header. As any business will do, the item that doesn't sell gets discontinued. Eventually, and for the same reason, the street header was also discontinued, though both sometimes show up on ebay, etc. These were actually tuned headers - maybe not optimized for all B20s but it's safe to say that they were better, performancewise, than any of the stock manifolds. Pushrod Volvos went through a Phase of Blah and sales for all that cool stuff I wish was still available faded. Around the same time, Volvo was busy discontinuing parts for the same era cars. In the last several years, parts have come back into production.

One of the competitors in the Volvo Header arena was a company called Thunderbird. Thunderbird made headers for lots of different cars; and didn't spend as much time ensuring that their product would fit all that well. I used to have one of these and I've seen lots of them on Volvos, so I know they were fairly common. This header was too close to the block and required grinding some material away from the engine block itself. Not much, but not exactly a 'bolt on' mod.

Thunderbird recently went out of business and was purchased by Pertronix. Yes: the same Pertronix that makes the breakerless ignition doodad sold by ipd and lots of other retailers. One of their reps came to ipd with a Thunderbird header and wanted to make it so that ipd would sell it. They sent a couple samples and we found that the thing still contacted the block. Shayne and I (and several others) couldn't accept this and the design was nixed.

... Until they offered to make them based on the different design. The headers that we're now waiting for will be very, very similar to the Clifford design (this is the most recent offering from ipd). I haven't yet seen one myself, so I don't yet know if some of the 'things we insist must be improved upon' have been addressed. What I do know, and am happy about, is that we now have the chance to install one on a car that's a known quantity and that we'll be able to evaluate it not only for fit and finish, but (most important of all) performance.

None of this addresses why we're not importing KGTrimning (or other Swedish) headers. I can't offer a complete answer to this, because I just don't know. I bought mine through John Parker at V-Performance.

I'm not speaking for ipd when I say this: this is only my personal take on it:

Given that sales for high end performance stuff like this are really, very slow, it would be hard to justify (from a business perspective) keeping them on the shelf. Offering them on a special order basis could work, but many people don't want to wait 4-8 weeks for delivery plus 2-3 weeks for ceramic coating plus whatever delivery time from here to there. Some would, but many would not.

(Note: I wish ipd sold every last part for old Volvos and nothing else. But there'd only need to be one part time employee.)

Also, headers of this caliber are already available from US suppliers. V-Performance carries them, OJ Rallye carries them. I don't know if they're identical, but I've seen headers from both and they're both excellent. In my opinion, it's better for the consumer to have choices. For a 3rd supplier to begin offering the same thing gives the consumer a choice of 1 item and 3 suppliers. I feel that it's better to have the choice of 6 or 7 headers and 3 or more suppliers. The customer gets to choose exactly what's best for them, and all the retailers/suppliers have the chance to sell parts. ipd has an enormous presence in the Volvo aftermarket but the main focus is on the newer models. For better or for worse, S60 owners tend to spend more on upgrades than vintage owners - especially when these upgrades can be installed by someone with no mechanical background in less than 2 minutes. Try adding 40hp to an 1800 in 2 minutes. Took me 2 years. Took Phil 2 years too.

I'm getting way off track; my point is that if the decision were my own (I'm part of the decision process, but certainly not alone in it), I would be hesitant to offer a product that's already offered by two excellent shops run by excellent people because 1) I don't think it's wise to flood the market while reducing the number of options available to the consumer and 2) (personal) I don't want to enter into competition with those shops to any greater degree than is already the case. They're good. They deserve to thrive.

If this were a part that wasn't available domestically, I'd be all over it!

2 weeks to Oly!

Best,

Cameron
68 122 that wouldn't be what it is without The Works, V-Performance, OJ Rallye, Daniel Stern, CVI, Roundfender, GCP, Shayne, Phil, Corrie, Volvo, and ipd.
Rose City

Cameron,

Thanks for the buisness explaination and history of the headers. I am interested in what you find with the new headers in terms of performance. I am glad you are running a KG Tri-Y and that tells me I may have made the right choice. I am getting a little engine block contact by the pan. I may wrap heat shielding tape around it in the future. It was not that bad to order from KGtrimning. About a week and a few days for the coating from performancecoatings.com up your way. I too do not want to see the others be forced out by competition and do agree the market is probabley not there but you are relooking at stocking a header so that tells me something. I wish I could get my hands on some of the R-Sport and IPD offering from the past like the adjustable FI DJet ECU. I could proablably hack into the coolant temp sensor and install a potentiometer but it would not have the fit an finish of your old box. I have only had my 70 1800E for 3 years or so. I will keep my Ebay eyes open. I appreciate you taking the time to respond with the great explaination .

Greg Bodner

Greg,

I can't tell for sure from your pic, but on mine the header was hitting the bellhousing support, not the block. Was pretty easy to remove the support and hacksaw off 1/4" at the offending point.

Alternator clearance was also an issue. While there was no contact, I didn't want it that close to hot temps (even if the forward pipe is cooler than the others). Solution was to fabricate a longer upper alt bracket -- two Heim joints that go into a threaded aluminum rod (one end LH thread) -- so the alt is down and outboard of the header. Adjusts like the center steering tie rod. I think I ended up with a 37" belt.

--Phil

Phil,

Alternator is close but when belt is adjusted it cleared. Not an issue with my supper low temp #1 cylinder pipe on my B20E . Thank god for it everyday but used to curse it. Nice point..

I did have to put a standoff on the bottom for the FI Intake Manifold bracket to connect to block. Those brackets seem like overkill but it must take some stress off the header/manifold bolts so I kept it..

Greg

That little casting on the pan rail didn't have anything to hook to on my 544 so it got plasma cut off.
What I'm running is a FI manifold and 140 headpipe. The reason for interference is that I had the manifold angle milled to sit closer to the block back when I had the Judson supercharger(Cameron and Phil will remember that one). I also had the FI manifold coated after spending an evening or two smoothing it.

It might take a pretty nice header to make me switch, and I'll likely make my own as detailed on my web page: http://www.geocities.com/iadr1/techphotosmystuff.html . I'm aiming for a very small tube stepped to a slightly larger tube, and a major change at the gasket surface and port. I have most of the parts, including a trick 4-2-1 collector and .500" thick flanges, but it's just not a priority right now.

The primary piping on the new IPd header is 1.5" OD, correct?
I've seen the old T-bird header on Ebay, and is was a really nice piece. More complicated bending than others though...nothing wrong with that- adds ~$10 to the price and makes it look nicer.
I for one would love a pic of the new IPD-T-bird design.

Thanks all for the input. I have the DGV, and you might find this interesting. I believe IPD got the new headers in today. By new, I mean from a different manufacturer, and they are infact testing one on a car before they will sell. I'll be finding out tomorrow if they have the results yet.