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Yesterday it finally all came together - I was off of work, the weather was over 40 deg. (Sweet!), and it wasn't raining. It was a (comparitively) beautiful day to work on the car. So I changed my front brake pads - don't know why, the old pads still had a good 1/8" left on them! - and installed the IPD bars I've had sitting on my porch for a few weeks. BTW, this is not just another review of IPD bars, I've actually got what I believe to be little-known information about the stock bars farther down.
After installing the bars I took 'em for a test drive, naturally. Instead of giving my first impressions of them I'd rather give my second: In my opinion (just an opinion), the IPD 25mm/22mm bars don't make the car handle like a go-kart. They don't make the car go around corners on rails. They don't make it handle a kazillion-jillion times better. What they do is make the car handle like it should. What I said to myself was something like "Neat. This is how it should have been from the factory."
I haven't noticed being able to take corners faster - I learned to drive in a 240 and LONG ago learned that even when your passengers are flying all over the car screaming and it feels like you're going to turn over, the 240 will stay on that road with no trouble. In other words, I think I very early learned to ignore that, "I'm gonna DIE!" feeling and have always been able to swing a 240 around corners at a pretty good clip.
What I have noticed is that it no longer feels like you're going to tip over. My sister used to be scared to death of my driving and I made her go for a ride with me last night - took a corner into the grocery store parking lot faster than normal and she tensed up beforehand, braced herself, and after I pulled through the turn said, "Oh, is that what those were for." Yes, now people won't think I drive like a maniac in my 240 and think I drive very well in, say, my mother's Chrysler 300, even though my driving style doesn't change.
Summary - IPD's bars are overpriced for what any apprentice blacksmith (were there any around these days) could form in an hour with $30 worth of steel. But they are a very good upgrade to the handling and make a 240 feel more like it has a modern suspension. I like 'em.
Now for the interesting part: I was looking at my stock bars lying in the grass today as I walked in from work and thought to myself, "That front bar looks thicker than the rear. Nah. Couldn't be. Everyone knows all the later 240's got 19mm bars, front and back." Right? Conventional Volvo wisdom, everything I've read for the past couple years, everything I could find on the subject of sway bars while I was researching whether IPD's bars were something I wanted to try - they all said that except for Turbos, and some wagons, 240s got 19mm bars on both ends.
So I got the calipers. I measured. I calculated. I re-measured. I pondered - witness if you will, Exhibit A:
I realise that the picture makes it look like I have them on there quite crooked but it's not really that bad, and observe also if you will that I have my thumb pressed against the wheel to keep them tight around the bar. In case anyone can't read that, let me close in:
Let's call that 0.83 inches. Everybody get out your calculators, but I think we'll all agree that 0.83 inches is just a hair over...ready?...21mm. Hmmm...
The rear bar still measures roughly 0.75 in. or 19mm but the front is definitely somewhere along the lines of 21mm. This is stock. It had never been off of the car, I'm fairly certain. It was still surrounded by worn-out "Volvo" stamped rubber bushings.
So, because I've never heard anyone claim that '93s may have gotten an upgraded 21mm bar in the front, I'm going to assume that it is not common knowledge.
I ask those of you out there now who own '93s - and who still have the stock bars - to measure them if possible and see if it was a standard change for the '93 model year or if somehow, somewhere, my car - which, when I got it, was untouched, unmodified, and completely stock - if my car somehow picked up a 21mm bar during it's 13 year journey to me.
That is all.
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Sean Corron
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