Huang
Thanks for your substantial response. There is another company here in Australia called Fueltronics (www.fueltronics.com.au) who do have chips for Volvos. They do a lot of custom work for motor sport locally. The company that recommended these mods to my R specialize in Japanese cars and build wild machines like 4WD turbo Suzuki Swifts and twin turbo WRX's. They are very well regarded and have done a couple of 850's. They, in turn, regard 850's highly (a nice change from the prevailing attitude towards the 2 series) and were very professional in their approach (in stark contrast to our local Volvo service centres) and enthusiastic about the prospects. They have their own 4wd dyno and quoted a very reasonable figure. I must say that I am very reticent to modify the car just to compromise the reliability, longevity and resale value (I do not have money to burn). Having the dash glow like a Christmas tree every time I drive would really annoy me. That is perhaps why members on this board go the tried and tested TME/IPD way. Once a source is overseas it makes it even more difficult to overcome any inertia. I love the stainless exhaust TME/IPD sell but sending $AU1.5K off in the mail hoping to get something that would cost $AU300 max. locally, custom made, including fitting, does not have much appeal. But then it has been tried and tested...Our Volvo market is very small, crippled for many years by punishing tariffs in an attempt to protect a local industry, offshoots from the US, which manufactured rubbish. That is changing now. The net result is that there is virtually no local distributor for Volvo hot bits.
Don't worry - I am only in the research stages and it's not as though the car urgently _needs_ more power :-). I shall await your experiences with interest.
Take care --
Ivan form Oz