moving the stock oil cooler? Where to?

[allessence]

Where does one move the stock oil cooler to? Or does one just buy another one and put it?

Thanks J

[Geoff]

99 or 900? On my 99 it is mounted just behind the grill, in front of the radiator, using an early '80s square 900t cooler.
Another location I've thought about using is between the inner and outer fender behind the wheel well (this is where the fusebox is on a 900). That RallyHo fella put one in front of the wheel well (or was it near the airbox?) with a duct coming in from the stock 99 high beam (which was removed).

It all depends on what you want to do with your car and why you want to move it (are you going to bust it rallycrossing?)

[allessence]

I guess I slould have been more specific:

91 900 turbo.

I was out doing 360's after the last snow fall and happened to catch the back side of the oil cooler on some hardpack snow. Needless to say it bent one of the fin's and created quite the gusher. Good thing I was only a short downhill coast from home.

The front of the cooler is fairly well protected but the back is open.

Is there an armoured setup? Or does one just move the cooler to behind the bumper?

[Crazyswede]

Oddly enough I was at the shop on Tuesday getting my car inspected and hanging my exhaust a bit more robustly. My friend Chris (who owns the shop) and I were talking about Saab things and I was remarking how the oil cooler is right out there but I had rarely ever seen one damaged....short of a full on crash.

What you might consider doing is finding one of the older sqare units that came on the 8v turbos and mounting it towards the front of the car. If you cannot put it in the path of good airflow you might consider putting a thermostat controlled electric fan on it and creating some duct work.

[Luke]

Also, the 85-86 turbo oil cooler mounting housing WAY more solid than the later flimsy 87+ ones. The metal gauge is much thicker and they extend further back.
Best bet for real abuse though is too move it to a safe place inside the engine bay and provide good airflow. Same thing with the intercooler, no reason so hang it out front to gain 0.5 HP when one small hit with a rock will end your whole day.

[allessence]

I've thought about moving the stock unit above the lower cross member, directly above where it is now with an air duct.

I have several of the older square units. would this be a better way to go?

I agree with the big front mount intercooler for rally use. With my current car, 1991 Spg it's more of a street car/singular dirt road racer than a full blown rally car(no where near rally). So, I was after more intercooling since I'm running 24-30lbs of boost. At some point I would like to be producing around 320HP in it.

Though, I do have some older 60's vintage SAABs I was going to rallify. A 63 GT 850 to be exact. But, I suppose a revamped 900 maybe a smarter option.

[Crazyswede]

So where do you live? You keep telling us about all these cool Saabs, now we want to see them.

[max]

320hp, man I remember "back in the day" the most people could get was like 250BHP before grenading the tranny. He must have one of dem fancy swedish rally transmissions. :lol:

[Geoff]

with that much power you'll want a larger cooler than the stock one. You might want to get an aftermarket one and find a good protected place to mount it. Are you going with a FMIC? When you mount it make sure you have air flow in front and behind it. If you want to put in on top of the lower cross member you might want to use two and put the other on the passenger's side. You might be able to use the stock one in the new location and use a second one on the passenger side. I know James was planning on (or maybe did) put one on the passenger side using an automatic tranny cooler from a 16VT automatic so as to have two oil coolers that looked completely stock. (this was on a street car)

[Crazyswede]

There was a guy a one of the Saab conventions a few years ago who had a 1980 99 turbo Factory rally car. He had the getrag 4 speed gearbox and lots of other goodies. The car was supposed to have about 300 hp and about 300 lbs of torque coming from the B motor. The car was not running an intercooler and I don't remember if it had water injection. However, the front of the car where the radiator would have gone was split with one side having a radiator and one side having an oil cooler almost as big as the radiator. I think Geoff has some pictures.

[Geoff]

this is the best I had of that part


you can see one radiating device on one side, the other is hidden under the radiator support but partly visable. The car had the single round 7" headlights (not the E-code and not the US spec 5 1/4" dual round). I think it used a stock radiator (might have been from a 900) on one side and a large oil cooler on the otherside. There might have been a tranny cooler too.

[Crazyswede]

You know I am looking at that picture and that is the old gear primary drive setup not the 4 chain primary.

[allessence]

I"m in MA. I live out by the Big Quabbin Res. The town (Gilbertville) had a bunch of dirt, twisty turny back roads., but now there are 3 left. One is about 3/4 miles long with no houses on it.

So, most of those dirt ones are now tar. Still twisty, turny but with pavement. Ahh!!!. Still fun in the winter or spring as they use lot's of sand.

I'll post pictures of the older SAAB's later. I haven't any pictures handy.

And, nope. I'm running the stock 5 speed. Without LSD at this point. Will be looking for an LSD in the spring. But, as of this week will be putting a newly rebuilt 88 into the SPG, until I rebuild the 91.

Jennifer

[Crazyswede]

how is your engine temp affected by the intercoolers in front of the radiator? It looks like they might do a considerable job of blocking air flow to the rad. Otherwise thats pretty cool, first time I have seen someone do a front intercooler setup with the inlet and outlet intercooler connections going over the radiator.

[Geoff]

I saw some of your photos of your intercooler before and I have to say it looks pretty badass! It looks like there is a lot of volume where the air enters and leaves the turbo at the top of the intercooler. How does this affect your spool-up time? On Seth's old 2dr 900 that had a 16VT and a 9000 intercooler the ducting was long (and the intercooler was big) and it seemed to affect the spool up of the turbo.