The T8 Special was a special edition for the Swedish market, only built for the 1989 model year. Basically a fully loaded SPG/Aero/T16s, just with the 8v turbo engine. I think it was put together to help get rid of the last 8v cars.
My car originally started life with the B201 Turbo engine in it, but according to the old Swedish papers I have with the car was converted to a 16v Turbo engine in the summer of 1989. It spent it's entire life (until it went to the Netherlands) in and around Trollhättan, and the conversion appears to be to full MY89 factory specs, including pretty much every factory option (AC, cruise control, drivers seat heater with a button instead of automatic). I dug into it a little, and I have the feeling this car used to belong to a factory employee who built this for himself. I have reached out to the Museum in Trollhattan to find out if they know anything about older test cars (either by VIN or license plate), but haven't gotten anything worthwhile out of them yet.
The goal for this car is to be a modern, sporty, driving car with the classic c900 look I fell in love with. It's got good bones, with barely any rust, a sunroof, pretty much all options and the best color combination ever. So far I haven't gone too wild with it yet. Just making sure everything is ready and up to snuff for the eventual bump in power and torque.
As it sits now, I've been through the top end of the engine (B212 head and intake, B204 cams, modded cam sprockets), deleted the cat (which helped with spool and a little peak power) and toyed with the APC system a little. It pulls well enough to make the brand new 215mm clutch kit slip at full boost. I've also toyed around with suspension setups. I got my hands on a used spring, damper and sway bar kit built by a Dutch tuner, but after driving on that for a year decided I didn't like the match between the shocks and the springs at all and sold the complete kit. I'm now running Abbott Racing springs, GAZ (rebound) adjustable shock absorbers and the factory ARBs with poly bushings on them. The car feels much more controlled now, although it's a little low for my taste, so I might go for a round three of suspension work to get it dialed in perfectly. I've also been through the entire stereo setup. Running Hertz speakers in all four factory locations, an underseat sub mounted to the side of the trunk and a Kenwood DAB+ radio head unit in the dash. It's been pretty good, but can be optimized a little more. I feel like it could use a little punchier mids and the sub wants to resonate a little when I turn it up so it needs a little sound deadening work.
The most recent update I did to the car was a custom big brake kit, the exact same kit Jesper Schwartz is running on his RWD 99, just redrilled to 4x108. Loving it so far. I'll post some pictures of the suspension and brakes below.
Future plans are the following;
- full do88 catalogue, maybe I'll skip the rad, but I want the hose kits and the FMIC badly;
- ATP Ultimate Wastegate, 3" downpipe, 100/200 cell cat to probably a custom 2.5" stainless exhaust to keep the sound mellow. Maybe I'll spring for a Varex (style) muffler to be able to make noise when I want. It's pretty loud as it sits and I'd kinda like to fly under the radar a little more, especially since it's a daily driver;
- Trionic 7 conversion, I have a friend who tunes Trionic professionally and has a deep love for how nicely he can get T7 cars running. The conversion into a c900 has been done before, I've seen that car in person and heard it running. I think it'll be a cool project and knowing Dion he'll be able to get it running very nicely;
- taller gears; I think after I get to adding power and torque I'd like to move to a Jörgen Eriksson 8.5 primary gear set to get the revs down at highway speeds. It needs more low end grunt before I do that though.
- Height adjustable suspension. As I mentioned above, I love how the car feels now. I just think it's a tad low for ideal daily driver use. I've been looking at what some Swedes have done suspension wise and I'd like to follow a similar path in getting everything perfectly adjusted height/comfort wise in the future;
- Rear brake upgrade, mostly a visual thing. My fronts are 320mm rotors with Brembo four-piston calipers now, the rears are the factory 258mm solid rotors. I found a 300mm rotor that should work nicely with the possibility of retaining the factory (e-brake) caliper, I just have to buy the rotors, have them redrilled and make up some kind of caliper adapter bracket ideally;
- Sound insulation/de-rattling. I have some rattles in the car that annoy me to no end on longer drives. I'm gonna have to find the time to replace the sunroof cassette, put some sound-deadening on the roof skin before putting the liner back in. I want to do the same to the doors and behind the rear seat panels. Ideally the trunk floor and sides as well. I think that'd really help improve the modern feel of the car, even though sound insulation is already MUCH improved over my old '81 900;
- Stereo upgrade. It works pretty good as it is now, with four new speakers, a modern radio and a small active sub in the back. I just feel like I miss a little midbass, so ideally I'd like to build a set of speaker pods to fit into the bottom of the door panels. On the list of future projects.
With all the work I do I plan on taking my time to do it right, instead of doing it in the cheapest or quickest way. The end result should be a pretty good representation of everything I'd want out of a fun daily driver, whilst retaining the style and classic looks of the c900. I'm not interested in peak power or having the lowest/coolest car. I want a smooth feeling power delivery, sporty (but not super harsh) suspension and nice stereo so I can enjoy every drive I take. I'm fairly sure it's gonna take a while (especially since some of the plans I have get pricy very quickly), but I have no intentions of selling this car anytime in the forseable future, so it'll be a fun road to get there.
After such a long story, it's probably time for some pics, huh?
Suspension V2.0 fully laid out on the garage floor before getting it onto the car;
Suspension V2.0 in the rear;
Suspension V2.0 in the front;
Fredrik Olsson front BBK mounted (Audi 320mm rotors redrilled and grooved, Alfa 159/Brera Brembo calipers, EBC Redstuff pads, 9000 caliper conversion lines);
And, my favorite part about the big brakes, they're super sneaky;