Saab 9000 Aero Build

[TurboBudapest]

I am starting a build thread on my 1997 Saab 9000 Aero. I purchased the car in May 2012, and have done a large amount of work on it since then. I will be posting over the next several weeks a description of the work I have done in stages. The following is the history on the car:

- The car was purchased by its first owner in 1997, and the car was delivered to Switzerland.

- I purchased the car in Budapest Hungary for around USD 1000 in May 2012. The car was complete but in pretty sad shape. I have attached a picture of the car as used in the advertisement where I found the car.

- To be honest, I should have declined the purchase of this car but for some reason I was drawn to it.

- The following is a long list of the issues it had at the time (i) the window rubber on the windscreen was not original and was installed badly – windshield was also cracked, (ii) the water pump needed changing; (iii) the car had a large scratch on the left side of the car, (iv) the interior did not have any tears, but was badly sun bleached and very dirty; (v) headlight was cracked, (vi) the steering wheel was also terribly sun damaged at the top of the wheel, (vi) Cat was blocked and the car did not have any boost, (vii) the vacuum valves were badly connected and (viii) the car was on aweful 15 inch winter tires on steelies.

- The car allegedly had 174K KMS (about 110K miles) on it, but God only knows if this was accurate. The car felt tired – a lot more tired than it should have felt with this amount of KMs.

- Since the price was so low, and as the car was generally rust free, I decided to purchase it, and proceeded to spend around USD 2000 to make it road worthy (including the scoring of a decent set of Super Aeros for USD 350).

- After the work was done, the car worked reasonably well, although the handling was sloppy and the car generally felt very tired. The engine was a marvel though, and the acceleration quite intoxicating. I saw that this car has potential, but that it needed a lot of work. I attach a picture of how the car looked right after I made the car road worthy again (pictures are really decieving - the car looks a lot better than it was, as the paint was very thin on the hood and generally very tired).

After owning the car for a little over four months, I blew up the engine spectacularly (in September 2012).

After I blew up the engine, I stored the car at my local Saab indy’s garage, and mulled over whether I should spend more money on the car or give up on it. I had about USD 3500 in the car at this point, and it needed a lot of work. And I am a perfectionist…..but somehow this car – as bad of a shape as it was in – seemed to deserve to be brought back to life (otherwise it would have been destined for the crusher), and in March of 2013 I decided to embark on a mechanical restoration of the car.

My plan was as follows:

Step 1 – get the car into top mechanical shape. Live with the car for a while, and decide then whether I should continue with restoring/updating the car, or give up on it altogether. I figured that the drivability was the most important aspect of the car, and if I did not like the way it drives, it would not make sense to spend money on the cosmetics. The plan was to do a full suspension and engine/turbo rebuild.

Step 2 – get the car into top cosmetic shape. Full respray and spruce up the interior.

Step 3 – if I still was into the car following Step 2, start upgrading the car tastefully. I did not want to make a boy racer out of the car, but wanted to make it as quick as possible while not sacrificing on refinement.

I reasoned that the three steps could be done over a two to three year period.

I have completed steps 1 and 2 of the project (separate posts on each such steps of the project to come) , and am currently embarking on step 3.