building saab900 for trackdays

[ric]

Hi !
I´m new here and I got here by accident I was supposed to go to saabrally.se but things go wrong some times and this time it was good I hope I drive a saab 900 I8 -88 converted into a turbo 16.
I see its mostly saab 99´s here but it´s quite close to 900
I´m trying to improve my car for trackdays on tarmac that we have in the motorclub that I am a member in. I would like to have as good roadhandeling as possible.
I have lowered the car with harder springs and I have sachs rally shockabsorbers, std rollerbar at the rear axle. I have been thinking of the front one as well but some people say it´s better with out it on tarmac.?
My question is what would you say its the most importent to improve the roadhandeling ? You can see my car at ratec.se under "min saab" more pictures are coming.
better drive fast´n safe than slow´n dangerus
please correct my english when it´s wrong
thank you

[Luke]

Hi there,

Checked out your site. Jealous that you guys in sweden can get such a nice cage kit without having to build your own. That certainly speeds up the process of building a car. Sounds like you have done the right things to the car to improve its handling. On the front bar I think it depends a lot on the road surface of the track. Front sway bars on loose surfaces will make the car "plow", which is not very fun!
Do you have an LSD differential? That helps a lot, but they arent cheap, too bad you didnt find us sooner, we had custom units made in england for a very reasonable price a few months ago.

[max]

Pffft...what do the swedes know about rallying?

[ric]

Most of the time I drive on tarmac and it´s smothe on the tracks but not on public roads, but I try to keep the speed down there
I am planing to build a wattslinkage for the rearsuspension instead for the panhardrod. The wattslinkage will keep the rear axle in centre all the time while with the std panhardrod it will move from one side to another.
But I wonder if I will feel any differance, some people say that I shouldnt bother to build it. I allso want to change the std stearingrack to one with less turns (on the stearingwheel).
About LSD diff. a friend of mine Jörgen Eriksson (E.T.T.) build gearboxes for rallycars and he wants to sell me a LSD diff for ca 15000 sek its about 2300 usd and it´s a kind that will tighten more the more power you put in to it if you got the grip with the tyres. I cant english good enough to explain it but could it be rampage LSD ?? so when you drive slow and for example try to park the car it will not engage so hard.. something:)
I`m very keen on one of these but like many others its the lack of money:)
And what about wheel angles ?

[ric]

Hi max!
About rallying I dont know much but I have meet Per Eklund spoked a litle and shaked his hand and I also know that he did win Pikes peak

[Luke]

Max is joking, in the US rally has a pretty small following, in fact we can't even watch the WRC on TV we have to download it. The Scandinavians are well known for producing the best rally drivers.
The diff I use in the rally car right now is from Jörgen, its works awesome! Luckily I got it before the $$ really tanked, as its about $500 more now than what I paid. But for you it should be a fair price.
There is a guy in this country that has a 900 rally car with a quick ratio steering rack, but we don't know the details about it, other than his car came from sweden and Ola Stromberg used it. I've wanted to have custom rack and pinion kits made up, but for now I just use a quickener mounted in the column which works pretty well too.
About alignment. For pavement you should run more negative camber than we do on gravel, maybe as much as 3 degrees negative. Also add additional shims in to give more caster, maybe positive 3-4 degrees. I run 0 toe.
The watts linkage would be cool, I've thought a lot about that too, but I don't think it worth it. Panhard rod does a good job and is lighter and stronger. Besides the point of the rear axle in a FWD car is just to keep the muffler from dragging, meaning it really isnt doing all that much.

[Crazyswede]

Hi max!
About rallying I dont know much but I have meet Per Eklund spoked a litle and shaked his hand and I also know that he did win Pikes peak

ok you wanted us to correct your English...so here goes.

I think you meant to say: I don't know much about rallying but I have met Per Eklund, we spoke a little and I shook his hand. I also know that he did win Pikes peak.

I assure you that your English is much better then my Swedish

[matt]

That's a nice looking 900. I also like the downpipe off the turbo.
Welcome to our board, and do not worry, your English is better than most of the people I speak with everyday.

[max]

Hi max!
About rallying I dont know much but I have meet Per Eklund spoked a litle and shaked his hand and I also know that he did win Pikes peak

I'm being sarcastic! Welcome to the forum.

[ric]

Thanks for the tips and spellcheck and yes I guessed that max was sarcastic
I will continue to build on my car. Yeasterday I changed the 3 glass windows in the rear to polycarbonate ones, it saves me about 7.5 kg I´m also gonna change the fuelinjectionsystem this spring Hopefully the car is driveable at the end of april/beginning of may because we have our first trackday of the year then.
Thanks again.

[Geoff]

I wish I had something usefull to contribute to this thread, but I've spent most of my high speed driving on dirt and only done a few track days. I did the track days in an '85 SPG (Aero) with standard sway bars (with polyurethane bushings), Bilstein Heavy Duty shocks, stiff lowering springs with spacers (which raised the height of the car but also pre-loaded the springs more), sticky 205-55-15 tires, a good alignment, and some minor engine tuning. With this setup I was able to keep up with the fastest Viggen and 9-5 Aero drivers, except on the straights. But I'd catch right up to them in the corners!

[Crazyswede]

Of course I was almost able to keep up to everyone in the corners while driving your rally car. It was the straights where I had no chance.

[Hans]

What does the car weigh? Spring rates? Do you run those 205 Hankooks on the track? In one picture it looks like you have only a stock front end alignment?? You can get a Quaife diff from Abbott in the UK for 800 Euros.

[ric]

The wheel alignment is std front and rear for now.
I want to change it for more agressive driving and I´m going to try to get hold of a LSD diff. I allso want a quick ratio stearingrack. The list is long:)
The car weight is about 1200 kg but my aim is 1000 kg, I just put in polycarbonate(plastic) windows in the rear saved 7,5 kg and at the end of this week I`m gonna pick up a glassfibre bonnet and bootlid that I did order a couple of weeks ago, hope to save some more kg there.I
allso got hold of a litle pice of carbornfibre with kevlar just enough to make the fuelflap! I really don´t think it will make a differace but I can always enoy someone;) And they are most of the time very rusty .
About springs, I asked Jörgen and he recomended a company so I just called them and sayd that I´m gonna drive fast in a saab 900... so I don´t know the spring rates, they are lower and harder.
The 17" wheels are just for show. I probably gonna use yokohama A032r
or simular on 16" rims.
I have a cuople of brembo 4piston callipers that i want to use but that is probably something I try to do next winter because there is not an exellent fit realy
Is it ok to write in kilos(kg) or should I try to convert to something?
I know in england they use stones to weigh a human wich I think is strange because in sweden the stones are in different sizes (joke)

[Geoff]

Silly Britts, always making things harder for everyone else

I don't mind if you use metric units, we can always convert since most of the world doesn't use our weird units. There are 2.2lb/kg if anyone wants to know.
I keep this program on my desktop for quick units coversion
http://joshmadison.com/software/convert/

Who makes fiberglass (glassfibre) hoods (bonnets) and trunks (boots)? (Silly English language!)