960 wagon IPD sway bar kit

I'm looking at importing a pair of IPD sway bars for my early solid axle 960 wagon but I see that they're 25mm front AND rear - to me that seems a bit on the heavy side in the rear? I know the car probably isn't neutral right now (hard to tell as it's more boat like anyway), but I feel like that might make it prone to:

• oversteer
• one-tyre-fire
• lifting a rear wheel pushed hard

Can anyone who owns these and has them installed on a 740/940/960 wagon comment on how neutral they are when pushed hard? Most appreciated.

I currently have the turbo 19mm rear sway on the shelf to swap over from the 25mm one. 25mm is alright although a bit more tailhappy, I'm switching to a softer one since I'm now also running a Aussie locket now, which shifted the balance.

If you want to grip, use 19mm, if you like a bit of occasional slide, use 25mm rear

This is whilst running 25mm front, never tried with 19mm front as well

Thanks! That's what I thought. Is 19mm an OEM size from a turbo model or something? Or? Might be hen's teeth here, I guess.

Slides should be from power, not imbalance

Much appreciated.

Ha, on the kit for the 240 the have a big red warning:

This kit contains a larger (25mm/1 inch) rear bar for vehicles that are going to be lowered or are driven by enthusiast that wants more roll resistance, and understands they may encounter some oversteer in extreme cornering.

Original Volvo factory installed swaybar size information:
1977-78: 18.0 mm Front / 16 mm Rear
1978 GT: 18.0 mm Front / 19 mm Rear
1979-93:19.5 mm Front / 19 mm Rear

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No such warning for the 740/940 kit though and doesn't look like I can buy just the front either. I guess maybe I could sell the rear locally for cheap to get rid of it, though.

FWIW, a stiff rear bar is perfect if you have a MIG locked diff as it unloads the inside allowing it to slip more easily and allows the car to be driven faster with delicate throttle control than it otherwise could be due to understeer and instability from the locked axle. I had a whiteline rear bar in my R32 Skyline with a MIG diff back in 06/07 and it was pretty good, later got the front to go with it and it tracked very well indeed.

I have the 25/25 IPD bars on my 945 along with -50/-40mm springs.

I had the springs only for a long time and the bars since like half a year. The springs were a nice but small improvement and only the bars totally transformed the car.
I have not experienced any issues like more oversteer or lifting a tire when pushing, even though I can take certain corners 10-20 km/h faster than before without pushing too much.
Although I have to admit I'm very rarely driving the car "on the limit" on open streets.
You do need to take more care when it's wet is what I found, especially mid- and exit of a corner.

I'd say go for them, you will be very happy. I didn't think they would actually make that much of a difference.

FreeEMSFred said:

FWIW, a stiff rear bar is perfect if you have a MIG locked diff as it unloads the inside allowing it to slip more easily and allows the car to be driven faster with delicate throttle control than it otherwise could be due to understeer and instability from the locked axle.

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Yes, I'll experiment a bit for sure, a back to back session with different bars on track would be interesting to do. The 25mm is going on my brother's drift build for now, since I'll probably have plenty frontend grip with ~2-3deg camber upfront

I ran 25/19 bars for a while in my sedan with wagon/HD rear springs before I went to the 25mm rear bar. I've found the car to be a lot more neutral with the larger rear bar with a minimal penalty of lifting the inside rear tire. I'm not really a drifting type and don't find the car particularly tail-happy with the factory G80 rear end. If you have a permanently locked diff or LSD it may be a different story. It still feels like the balance is toward mild understeer.

Hmmmm, interesting.

When I say biases the car toward oversteer I do not mean overpowering available grip with engine hp. I mean with slight throttle to compensate for frictional drag and tyre losses, neutral around a sweeping corner, it will tend to oversteer more with excess rear bar due to putting all of the load on the one tyre while the other axle still shares the load across both tyres. Same is true in reverse if you have lots of front bar, both rears will stay planted and the front will tend to push out wide.

If you guys aren't pushing hard through corners then I'm not sure the feedback counts as accurate? Not judging, just saying.

Re 10-20kph faster - were you at the outright grip limit before or was it a control thing or even a psychological thing? When I started datalogging G forces while driving I noticed I cornered far harder turning right (RHD) than turning left, and eventually put it down to the sensation of being close to the road when the vehicle is leaning that way and managed to even up the left/right balance through the power of my mind

Maybe, finances pending, I'll just order them and see how it goes, can always downgrade to an OEM 19mm or get a custom one made locally if I'm unhappy.

Thanks for the input, appreciated!

FreeEMSFred said:

Re 10-20kph faster - were you at the outright grip limit before or was it a control thing or even a psychological thing? When I started datalogging G forces while driving I noticed I cornered far harder turning right (RHD) than turning left, and eventually put it down to the sensation of being close to the road when the vehicle is leaning that way and managed to even up the left/right balance through the power of my mind

Maybe, finances pending, I'll just order them and see how it goes, can always downgrade to an OEM 19mm or get a custom one made locally if I'm unhappy.

Thanks for the input, appreciated!

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Could be.

My very scientific explanation is that I was at a point where I was afraid to go any faster in certain turns because of the body roll and I probably would've just understeered out of the corner.

I was looking at the speeds I was making before, put the bars on and I was noticeably faster through some turns without even pushing, it just feels more connected to the road and the boat feeling is almost completely gone.

I'd say go for them, watch out for used ones in the for sale section, they pop up sometimes.
I also got mine on here and they were about 300$ or so shipped to my door in Austria.

I for sure recall them making a huge difference in lap times with 25mm front and rear compared to no sway bars and just the ipd lowering springs. Around 15 seconds at the old version of Zandvoort circuit 2:50 -> 2.34, although I also went from a normal to a sports tire in between those sessions with a bit more grip, this was still with an open diff however.

I lost my previous footage without the sway bars, but this was with them installed, open diff and sports tires:
https://youtu.be/HIN_YzM4P_A

Once I get on track this summer I'll do a comparison for science

I'm running 24 mm front from 94 960 sedan and 19 mm rear from 87 760 sedan on my 88 760 Turbo wagon. I don't think it needs larger than 19 mm.

Like the post above, on my 91 740 wagon I installed a 92-94 960 24 mm front bar and 19 mm rear from a turbo 740.
Made a good improvement to the wagon.

Cheers for the feedback!

Just checked the two closest 700/900 cars to me outside and:

1993 940 GL wagon 22, 16
1992 960 wagon 21, 0
1990 740 GLE 16v sedan 19, 16 - though I think the 16 came off the back of a 16v 940 that I chopped up into a caravan.

Yes, went for a walk and lay down on the road in the dark to measure the sedan

In the garage I have a different-shaped PRV 960 front bar and it's 23mm - intent to fit it to the 740 sedan at some point.

Will keep trying to get my little hands on a 19mm factory rear from someone locally and when job certainty recovers post virus hysteria order the IPD bar pair and springs and shocks and see how they go.

I just swapped the rear bar over to a 19mm one from the 25mm ipd one, same 25mm ipd bar upfront, and just took it for a run on the backroads.



The difference in oversteer tendency is clear, where it yesterday broke out on me on the same road, with similar conditions under throttle, it now stuck, so much so that I noticed my habit of steering towards the outside to catch the back on corner exit, since I ended up in a different place than before. It rolls a bit more, but it allows you to feel what the rear end is doing unlike before, and it's also a bit more comfortable on speedbumps and rough parts of the road (I also adjusted rear rebound on the koni's to be softer, so open for debate)

So in short, I'll be sticking to 19mm rears for now

^ Thanks for that. I have the 25/25 kit on the way as of this morning and I will give it a try and see if I like it or not. I'll also see if I can get a 19mm rear bar from one of the guys that has a tonne of 760 sedans and has wrecked a few of them. Thanks again for all the input everyone in this thread - valuable little bundle of knowledge contained here now

Will update once they arrive and I get to installing and trying them out.