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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
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