Saab 900 Notchback Rally Car

[paulh]

It's called California Burgundy. We've got a 72 99 thats supposed to be that color, real weird.

Paul

[Crazyswede]

Drilled the fenders for the pin mounts tonight. Also cut the steel tubing to length and roughed out the body panel reinforcement plates.

[Crazyswede]

[Jon1]

The plates are bent into shape and the holes are drilled. I will deliver them to Steve shortly.

[Crazyswede]

Jonathan Williams and I picked the car up from the body shop yesterday. Jon is a bit of an inventor/fabricator and has a nice system for moving shells. The car was on his rotisserie to start with at the body shop. We rolled the frame trailer, that Jon built, under the rotisserie and then jack up the supports to take the weight of the car. The bolts get undone from the rotisserie and then we lower the jacks on the frame to bring the car back to the lowered travel position. The car sits on 4 posts that each lock into the stock jack points. Then the whole assembly rolls onto the transport trailer where it then mates with two locking brackets that prevent forward/backward movement. we put a couple of security straps on and ready to go.

New color revealed.







[imghttp://crazyswede.smugmug.com/Cars/1986-900-notch-build/i-PnHVNdH/0/L/20140817_142141-L.jpg][/img]

[Jordan]

ORANGE SAAB RULES!

[Geoff]

Looks awesome. You need one of these for the roof.

[Crazyswede]

Looks awesome. You need one of these for the roof.

Actually the guy who painted it paints a lot of school buses and we confirmed it is not the same color

[Scott]

Is that the 70s Saab orange, or something else?

Orange is my fave Saab color.

[321go]

He always wanted a car that was "mango" colored.

You're the winner.

[Crazyswede]

Reassembly has started. Front suspension is slowly going into car with 3 of 4 A arms bolted and while the 4th waits for new bushings. I am still trying to decide which springs to run as the one I have been testing in my 85 Notchback are a little too tall and stiff....they would probably work well for an event like Maine where the extra ride height would be welcome. I am also exploring the option of running coil over eliminators in place of the standard spring.


Big Eeuroparts order going in today.

[Crazyswede]

Got a big Eeuro order in yesterday which will help with getting things back together:

Qty: 4 - Ball Joint Bolt Kit (8990012) - Unit Price: $2.69 - In Stock
Qty: 4 - Control Arm Bushing - Upper (61340006) - Unit Price: $2.69 - In Stock
Qty: 1 - Cylinder Head Gasket (0586598) - Unit Price: $14.71 - In Stock
Qty: 1 - Engine Bottom End Gasket Set (101K10118) - Unit Price: $50.13 - In Stock
Qty: 1 - Exhaust Manifold Gasket (0176080) - Unit Price: $8.36 - In Stock
Qty: 1 - Exhaust Manifold Hardware Kit (21347280) - Unit Price: $9.44 - In Stock
Qty: 1 - Intake Manifold Gasket (0894206) - Unit Price: $4.72 - In Stock
Qty: 1 - Oil Pan Gasket (Engine - Trans) (0514943) - Unit Price: $13.79 - In Stock
Qty: 1 - Timing Chain (Endless) (7500697) - Unit Price: $44.86 - Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Qty: 1 - Timing Chain Guide (8858276) - Unit Price: $58.99 - In Stock
Qty: 1 - Timing Chain Guide (21343505) - Unit Price: $25.98 - In Stock

I also ordered a Coil Over Slider from Summit racing to get an idea for fit and use. The one I ordered is a Howe 11" and it has about 3.5" of travel. I suspect this will be too short for the application but I can get them in 13" and 14" with up to 8" of travel.

Coil over slider? you say... looks like this:



These are used on dirt track and other roundy round cars for certain events/series where coil overs are not allowed. So they run these for the springs and then have to run a standard shock in a different location. My idea is to use these to run coil over springs on the Saab without the need to get too crazy modifying the suspension and mounts. The coilover setup in Lukes red car worked great but was the culmination of multiple iterations of suspension design as the upper A arm is not designed for the impulse force of a shock. I think these can be mounted relatively easily and may even be able to fit in the stock wheel housing without the need for a shock tower. The advantage being availability of more springs to run, adjustable preload and sag, and more corner weight adjustment. These things cost in the $80 and up range depending on design. some use bushings others use bearings. So other than removing the stock spring mount your upper A arm could be standard and you still run a shock in the stock location.

[Crazyswede]

Some work on Sunday.


The intake that came with this car was made from a Hilborn mechanical fuel injection intake manifold originally intended for use on a 2 liter Ford Pinto engine. These Hilborn systems were used on drag racing cars and sprint cars etc...they are pretty cool systems and very expensive. The intake was adapted to the cylinder head with an aluminum plate that both allowed for proper mounting holes but also helped blend the ports on the head to the ports on the intake. The problem is that the intake was for use on a vertical block...or at least one that has no hood clearance issues. To get around hood clearance problems a hole was cut in the hood and a hood scoop was used to disguise it.

To clean things up and improve the setup I decided to convert a stock 2.1 intake into a weber style intake. I picked up a waterjet cut Weber 45mm flange off ebay and it will get welded to the intake. Jon Williams helped quite a bit by making a fixture to mount the intake in the mill. I initially used a sawzall to cut the plenum off and then I milled the tubes flat so I could get an idea as to how much material needed to come off.



I knew that quite a bit of material had to come off and I knew roughly where I needed to get down to...so I expedited the process by using the Sawzall to cut another 3" off the runners and then milled them flat again.



This is at final height showing the flange sitting on the runners for welding. The flange is 1 piece in this photo but it will get cut in the middle as the center spacing is not quite correct. We might pin it back together once the width is correct. Future manifolds I will draw this flange up and have them cut for the Saab dimensions so that it can be one solid piece for a cleaner look.



The intake will look something like this when done...though I wont be welding up the injector ports (I think Luke may have actually made this one...though it is now listed as an item on a Finnish performance parts site)

[Crazyswede]

The next piece we worked on this weekend was the coilover spring setup. The purpose of this is not to run a full coilover shock/spring combo like Luke had on the Black/Red car...but to allowing for coil over springs to be run on the car in the stock location. This piece that will allow this to work is the Coil-over Eliminator...or slider as they are referred to. The unit I bought for trial setup is made by Howe racing and cost about $80. It is 11" long compressed and 16" long extended...sooo...5" of travel. The travel at the spring perch with everything stock is about 4" so 5" will be plenty as I don't intend to modify the body for more droop. Looking at various ways to mount the lower point on the A arm with the goal of keeping the upper mount in the wheel well and not up into the engine bay. My idea is that if this works well it will be a way for people to relatively easily install coil over spring into a 900/99. The nice thing about coil over springs is there are a lot of them out there in many different rates, they are easy to change out, and you can adjust the preload and do things like adjust corner weights etc. Aside from welding mounts on the body and Upper A arm mods its about $400 for the parts.



Yes the hub is red. The drivers side hub is green...the intention being that any side specific spares will be color coded to make finding parts easier in the future....such as during a 20 minute service where time spent looking for a part might lead to a penalty.


This photo is just from an initial sizing fit. I hole sawed a 2" hole through the block that is currently welded to the spring tower but I hope to be able to lower the mount on the A arm and bring the upper attachment point to the inside of the wheel well.

[Crazyswede]

This site lists quite a few springs for reference.

http://www.racingsprings.com/