86 900 Street / Track Project

[SwedeSport]

I have been rambling about my project in scattered posts throughout this forum. This is an attempt to consolidate the topic into one post.

Some of you know a little about my project from my misc. ramblings here and there. The general plan is to have a car that is a good compromise between a street car, that can be driven daily, and with a few hardware changes, become a reasonably competitive for a beginner at an event. I hope to run a few hillclimbs in the PHA series next season, an autox or two, and maybe even get to do a few track days with it.

I'm currently building a 2.1 liter motor with a worked 8v head, and if all goes well, I will be pulling the car in the garage the day after Christmas to perform the swap. I have a week off work but have a full schedule of Saab building. I will be replacing the motor with the 2.1 hybrid, replacing motor mounts all around, replacing the radiator, installing the boxed upper control arms with poly bushings, installing the 79 EMS rack with poly bushings, rebuilding the cv joints with new boots and clean grease, adding an 02 bung in my header and opening up the flange to match the head, new brakes all around with braided hoses.

The engine is coming together in the next two weeks, with hopes that a completed long block is ready in time. I'm running into a few snags that I didn't expect. First I had to drill and tap the 6mm x 1.00in. holes behind the timing cover for the old style 8v tensioner. The bosses are there in the block, but not machined from the factory since the 8v was gone by the time the 2.1 came out. I was a little leary of getting this good and straight since the motor is attached to the trans already and I had to perform this with a hand drill. I made it thru this without any problems. I am using all new timing components and ran into an issue there too. The head has larger valves, dual springs, and a reground cam. There is a shim that goes under the cam carrier. The larger valves are slightly longer, and require multiple shims. The issue is that now the crank to cam timing is compromised, and the new chain is too short to get the tensioner into place. It will bolt together with the old stretched chain, but its still kinda tight. I currently have a .125 shim under the carrier but will be swapping it out for the .062 shim, hopefully I get enough chain slop to get it together. I think I may have to modify the cam sprocket to make it adjustable. The valve clearances are not very consistent, and Im having issues getting this thing to shim out properly. Some of the required shims are falling off the low end of what is available, and others are falling off the top end. There is a 3rd shim that is located under the cam followers and is pinned into the center of it. If my math is correct now, The .062 shim under the carrier will put me the closest to spec, but I still need to have two of the pinned shims surface ground to be thin enough to allow clearance. 2 of the intake valves have really tight clearance. Im trying to set it up so that the stock shims are all I need to adjust this in the future. I should have sent all the bits up to MSS and let Jack set it all up. Prob would have saved me alot of frustration.

I plan to have a bunch of build pics over the next few weeks.

[Geoff]

You might want to call Jack and tell him what your issues are with the pinned shims. There are different thickness pinned shims for different cams. Are yours all the same thickness? You can give him the # off the cam and he can tell you if you have the right shims. Shimming is such a PITA!

I haven't come across any shimmed cam carriers. I've seen plenty of hand-slotted cam gears though.

[Jordan]

Yeah I had a similar problem. I (still) need to get some taller pinned shims from Jack because for some reason the ones I have with the kit I bought are too thin to work with stock pallet sizes.

Btw, did you make that S&R decal on your windshield? I need to get a set for paint masking, but maybe in a 4in width instead of the big ones I see on ebay.

[SwedeSport]

The decal is a parody of the S&R logo, It says Team SwedeSport Racing, I added a circle to the bottom of the S to make the R look like another S. I may have an actual S&R logo here somewhere.

There are 2 sets of pinned shims, 4 pcs .080, and 4 pcs .098. I would assume one size is for intake and one for exhaust. They vary a few ten thousandths though. Where do I find Jacks PN marks? Im not sure what cam it is, Mike White told me it was the "fast road cam" which I assume would be the 275090 cam.

I set up the head with .099 stock shims and the .125 carrier shim. I measure 1-8 .172, .130, .121, .176, .175, .104, .109, .190. That seems extremely inconsistent to me. Even the base circle and lift vary from lobe to lobe. Im swapping out to a .062 carrier shim to close up the gap a little. Using pinned shims and the .062 shim , I end up needing .094, .077, .069, .098, .052, .057, .115 stock shims to get everything to the proper final clearance (at least mathmatically). The issue is the stock shims only range from .070 to .112. I need 4 shims that are outside of that range. 3 are under, and 1 is over. I can prob get a bigger pinned shim for the one thats over and surface grind the 3 that are under.

In order to make the cam sprocket adjustable, is it necessary to use an eccentric bushing to lock the sprocket or will the bolts hold it steady? I think I have 3 hours on the phone with Jack about setting this head up. I was just being cheap and trying to not pay to ship the head to NY, lesson learned!

[SwedeSport]

Finally got my Kumho Ecsta XS 205/50/15, bolted 2 of em on this past weekend for a preview. Pics coming shortly.

Table with all the parts for the 2.1 8v project.

Control arms, EMS rack, and Braided stainless brake lines.

[Jordan]

Looking good!

Hmm... I've never heard of a carrier shim either. 8v H motor thing? I also didn't notice a variation on my pinned shims, I think I mic'd them at one point but they were all pretty much the same. The biggest pin shim set that Jack told me he had was a 0.135 which even with those I'd still need .90-.104 which is the top end of the pallets available...

I'm also slotting the cam gear because I have the head shaved a bit. Jack told me that I might want 5* of adjustability ..no more than 2.5* from stock.

Overall I think we have similar plans for our cars...hopefully we will see each other at some events! I'm hoping to get mine together for spring/summer.

[SwedeSport]

I hope to get out to a few events this year. I have not been to Carlisle in almost 4 years. I'm gonna run the steelyard autox there if I can. I can't wait to see the 71 project up close.


I think I figured that jumping a tooth on the sprocket is worth about 8-9 degrees. so I would figure that you would want to adjust between that range. Im gonna measure everything with the dial indicator , and try to true up my timing. I believe Jack times his cams based on the lobe centerline. Jumping one tooth is probably way too much change. I won't know until I degree it all and see where I stand. So far as I can tell the marks on the flywheel are only a few degrees off. Not bad for a mass produced engine. But I think the spacer is gonna mess that up at the cam. Just need enough to correct that issue and be able to tune it a few degrees either way from true TDC. No more than 2.5 from stock, after the true timing is corrected to 0. My dad says he has seen chevy small blocks that are inacurrate by 15 degrees. I did a rudimentary degreeing of the short block and found it to be within 2 degrees.
Need to identify the cam and get the specs to find out if its timed right.

Did Jack tell you what the smallest pinned shim was?

[Jordan]

No, mine are all ~0.111.

Even with the .135 shims I'm in need of .103 , .089, .099 and .104 pallets. I have a few sets (from 3 heads), and I have a few that are close ( .090, .100) but the larger ones I don't have. Of course after setting them up I'm sure there will be some bed in so its not going to be perfect without constant adjusting.

[SwedeSport]

Here are those logos, the actual S&R and The SS logo.

[Geoff]

The cam should be stamped on one end (maybe at the distributor end, that's where they are on B engines but no distributor). It will have a serial number. You need to take that serial number and talk to Pat or Jack and have them look up what cam it is in their records.

I forget what the smallest size pinned shim is, maybe 0.064"? But all shims should be the same height. I had a cam once with the wrong shims and ended up with the same issue you're having. Once you know which cam it is you can order the proper compensation shims (sounds like you only need 4).

[SwedeSport]

The cam, lifters, shims, and carrier came off the head I bought from Mike. I just swapped everything to the head that I got from Luke. It has more portwork , chamber smoothing, larger valves, heavier springs, and its O-ringed to boot.

pics of my taped up lights for the track.

preview of the wheel tire combo on the car.

[Jordan]

I know its probably a little cold for it but have you had a chance to buzz around with those tires?

[SwedeSport]

They have only been mounted on the drivers side for the pictures I took. I took em right back off. I dunno if its true or not, but I hear on sticky tires like that the wear is accelerated in temps below 50 degrees. I prob wont have a driving impression til spring. Besides, with my rod knock it may not be beneficial to want to crank her thru the twisties at redline just yet. I don't plan to run these on the street too much as Im hoping to get a season of playing at the track out of them.

I currently have 195/65/15 Futura's on Manhole cover wheels. IMHO, the shittiest tires EVER made. At least they were nearly new, and Free!

BTW!! I found the number 47 engraved on the dist. end of the cam. This corresponds with the first 2 numbers of a PN in the cams section of the MSS catalog. Might I be onto something here?

I may have to equally shim the VC so the distributor goes on. It never ends does it?

[Geoff]

The stamp might be at the sprocket end.... I seem to remember the serial # being 4 to 6 digits long.

You should just get the proper compensation shims, throw out that shim under the cam carrier, and slot the cam gear. Just use loctite on the bolts and torque to around 20 ft-lb. I've never had a problem with them moving.

[SwedeSport]

If I eliminate the shim under the carrier, 1-8 would need to be .130, .096, .087, .134, .133, .054, .075, .148. This includes taking into account the actual spec'd clearance. There is no way Im gonna get one size shim to fit all the valves. The .054 is smaller than the smallest shim available. and the .148 is bigger than the largest available.

I measured the installed height of the valve stems with the dial indicator, and they are actually rather close. 7 of them are within a couple thousandths and one is .009 lower than the others. Measured the cam lobes and base circles, and found them to be pretty consistent to each other, although the BC on the intake is .050 larger than on the exhaust. I even went so far as to check the height of the cam followers from the shim pad to the top and they are consistent. Seems to me that there should be 2 different sizes of pinned shims, one for intake one for exhaust to make up for the .050 difference in the base circle.

Found a PN on the cam, very faintly scratched into the sprocket flange is the number 98890.