16 valve B motor - living the dream

[Luke]

I figured with this slow week at saabrally.com it was finally time to sit down and give this project a proper thread.
Most of you know I've been sitting on this special cylinder head for a while, but with the wrapping up of the '79 GLi project and the weather turning cold I've headed into the shop and I've been going full bore on the project.

I guess I'll start with a little history lesson on the 16 valve head for the B-motor.

Saab was doing well in rallying in the early/mid seventies, but with the V4 rally cars nearing the end of their lives, SAAB turned the spotlight on the 99 as the primary rally car. Some initial success was had with the 2.0 liter 8 valve engine, tuning efforts had developed that to about 165 HP, but SAAB was still at a major power deficit to other manufactures with special develped racing motors. So in 1974 Saab's competition department contacted Gunnar Axelsson (a swedish engineer that had developed a 16V motor for Volvo) to design a 16v racing type head to fit a Saab B motor. The head was loosely based around the cosworth BDA design - as was being campaigned by ford in the furiously quick escort MKI at that time. The first 16v Saab engine was tested in May 1975.
To meet the minimun production requirments set by the FIA for homologation in the Saab 99, SAAB needed to make 100 cylinder heads.
There is a lot of myth surrounding this part of the story and this is where it starts to get interesting. Some claim that only 50 cylinder heads were cast - when the FIA showed up for inspection SAAB told them that the other 50 were in another warehouse and that they could make arrangements to see those the next day. Overnight the same 50 cylinder heads were trucked to the other warehouse for inspection the next day

Edit: One of the very first of the SAAB 16V b-motors

[DrewP]

Sounds kind of like the cast iron transmission cases that went into the model 96 rally cars that were painted to look like the factory aluminum ones....

[Luke]

There is a lot of myth surrounding this part of the story and this is where it starts to get interesting. Some claim that only 50 cylinder heads were cast - when the FIA showed up for inspection SAAB told them that the other 50 were in another warehouse and that they could make arrangements to see those the next day. Overnight the same 50 cylinder heads were trucked to the other warehouse for inspection the next day

Again, although there is a lot of mystery surrounding exactly how many were cast, I have heard variations on the above rumor from several different sources, so I will perpetuate it as its more fun that way :)
It is generally accepted though that less than 20 of the heads were ever put into service on a works rally car. This was due to the excessive amount of machine work that was neccessary to build each one. Additionally, with the FIA homolgation rules changing for the 1978 season, Saab would have needed to build 500 heads to comply, which pushed the cost way too high.
This is where my particular cylinder head enters the picture. A small SAAB dealer in Maine was campaigning a 99 in the growing SCCA pro-rally series. He had heard news of the extra cylinder heads that no longer met european homologation rules, but the SCCA had no such rules regarding the number of parts produced. A few phone calls to Sweden and the complete "16V cylinder head kit" was on the next boat across the atlantic.

[squaab99t]

There is a lot of myth surrounding this part of the story and this is where it starts to get interesting. Some claim that only 50 cylinder heads were cast - when the FIA showed up for inspection SAAB told them that the other 50 were in another warehouse and that they could make arrangements to see those the next day. Overnight the same 50 cylinder heads were trucked to the other warehouse for inspection the next day

Again, although there is a lot of mystery surrounding exactly how many were cast, I have heard variations on the above rumor from several different sources, so I will perpetuate it as its more fun that way :)
It is generally accepted though that less than 20 of the heads were ever put into service on a works rally car. This was due to the excessive amount of machine work that was neccessary to build each one. Additionally, with the FIA homolgation rules changing for the 1978 season, Saab would have needed to build 500 heads to comply, which pushed the cost way too high.
This is where my particular cylinder head enters the picture. A small SAAB dealer in Maine was campaigning a 99 in the growing SCCA pro-rally series. He had heard news of the extra cylinder heads that no longer met european homologation rules, but the SCCA had no such rules regarding the number of parts produced. A few phone calls to Sweden and the complete "16V cylinder head kit" was on the next boat across the atlantic.

I recall the 500 number. It is nice to hear the "full" story. Please do a photo doc as usual, you have set the expectation. Is this the 16 valve head that was on the bay a few years ago? I think it was on auction for a total of an hour?
Good luck to you, not an easy task. No pressure, but don't F it up....

[Luke]

This is where my particular cylinder head enters the picture. A small SAAB dealer in Maine was campaigning a 99 in the growing SCCA pro-rally series. He had heard news of the extra cylinder heads that no longer met european homologation rules, but the SCCA had no such rules regarding the number of parts produced. A few phone calls to Sweden and the complete "16V cylinder head kit" was on the next boat across the atlantic.

So the 16V "kit" from sweden shows up with "some assembly required". Mostly Everything was there, cylinder head, cam carrier, cams, sprockets, lifters, exhaust manifold, DCOE sidedraft intake, some roughed out blanks for various bit and pieces. Many of the parts were used (exhaust manifolds, intake, cams etc) take offs some when the works teams engines were dismantled. It's as if they just sent whatever they had left laying around, some parts duplicated, others small bits not there.. but the main thing was the cylinder head and cam carrier were completely unmachined other than some roughing cuts to square up the casting! No instructions on how to put anything together! It was a bit more of a project than the dealer was expecting, even with the resources of having factory trained technicians and parts access. So the head sat on the shelf for a few years, when another local ralliest heard about it and made an offer. The head changed hands and the new owner had an engineering/machining background and also some contacts through rallying with the head of SAAB sport and Rally America. Through this contact he was able to secure copies of all the original blueprints from sweden, about 70 in total!
Some progress was made on the head with some minor machining being carried out, but then life got in the way and the head sat for nearly 30 years.

[Luke]

[quote="Luke] Some progress was made on the head with some minor machining being carried out, but then life got in the way and the head sat for nearly 30 years.[/quote]

So then I come along and sign myself up to be the next fool to try to put this thing together.
Needless to say its an ambitious project, almost 35 years in the making, but with a little help and support, and a lot to learn along the way, I think I call pull it off.

[Luke]

Without further ado, here are some preliminary pictures of the head in more less the state it was delivered from SAAB.

[Luke]

And the whole kit and kaboodle together, with a few of the parts I have made included that I will show soon.

[sonett]

Great project!
Have you got someone to carry out the machining on the head?
Do you have any information on the cam profiles and what is the biggest inlet valve you could fit?

[Scott]

The intake confuses me, is it meant to be fuel injected or carb'ed? I see a fuel rail, so i think FI, but the other end doesn't look familiar...



That header was part of the original parts? Interesting...

[Jordan]

That's not a fuel rail, its a vacuum tree. Since each port pulses vacuum (there is no plenum) you need to connect them all together in order to have a vacuum supply, for say a vacuum advance or brake booster... not sure what they actually used it for on a race car.

Historically, I think they ran Weber DCOE 48's.

[Scott]

Thanks Jordan. Interesting and shows i know nothing about carbs. For all its oddities (especially D-jet), I at least understand fuel injection. The carb world is very foreign to me.

[Luke]

Yep, jordans right its a vaccum balancing tube. It also serves to create negative pressure on the crankcase by hooking up to a nifty airoil seperator I have the drawings for.
The first season they actually ran the 16V motor on lucas mechanical fuel injection. If you look at the old picture in my first post you can see part of the mechanical fuel injection mounted on the valve cover. Later on they switched to weber 48's. I may just run 45's with large chokes as I have a nice set already and honestly I am not interested in trying to obtain absolute maximum power, I will be happy if this thing ever runs!

[Luke]

Great project!
Have you got someone to carry out the machining on the head?
Do you have any information on the cam profiles and what is the biggest inlet valve you could fit?

I havent run the cams on the cam software yet to get all the specs, but the lift is about .41". The valves are 32mm exhaust and 35mm intake, and both are made of standard 8V exhaust valves ground down, with stems cut to 6.5mm under the head. I will probably just use 6 or 6.5mm stem valves, custom made. 8mm is a huge stem these days!

[99Super]

What about using BDA bits to fill in the gaps? Could you use Cossie valves or would that be even more trouble/$$?

Good luck on the project! I can't wait to see/hear it run!

john