Show me.... saab 900 turbos

When I was looking to buy a T16s I got loads of excellent advice from their forum HERE

Well worth signing up

Yep
UK Saabs
SaabCentral
and
SaabScene
are invaluable places for information, including buying, maintaining and tuning.

At least one board or another manages to have a trackday each year, so there are usually several to choose from.

dead easy to do the clutch! Thats about all I know about them, having done the clutch on one. HTH etc.

Got yes, they are fun. They can be made to lift off oversteer easily.
Early models like my old square nose had a front handbrake (all saabs before that did). later ones used a year handbrake.

Early models share brakes with the 99, later ones with the 9000 (not exact parts but mechanically compatible).

Killen springs and Bilstein shocks make it a nice handler.
Early T3 models need to be idled before switch off and lag a little. Later mitsu models had water cooling, and don't need as much idling and have less lag. They are more fun to drive with the smaller turbo in traffic, but the big T3 is really fun.
You get a "Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, OMFGIJUSTSHATMYSELFNEWPANTSPLEASE" moment the first time it really does spool up. I used to regularly take it upto 70 in 3rd in both of mine, others have seen 90 easily, but one was 125k of dubious service history, the other was a 200k+ rebuilt lump with recon box.

Gearboxes are the weakspot, they were designed to take 125bhp in the early 4 speeds, then they had to make everything thinner and weaker to get a 5th gear in. Some say the 4 speed box from the 99, properly specced and with chill cast innards is the one to have. I know Pete Tandino could shred 3rd gear in his 300BHP 5spd one easily. It is the massive ammounts of torque that they produce.

Swap your intercooler for one from a turbo volvo using a mix of Saab and Volvo pipes and some silicon, get the mesh off your air flow meter if is bosch and you have good filteration and get a decent ducted cold air intake cone system (use a good filter).
Search for APC tweaks. You can alter the boost max and boost curve with two pots (leave the knock potentiometer alone) on a stock APC, or add and remove some resisters to "reprogram" it first then tune with the pots.

Tyres are very important on these, use good ones. Cheap tyres and a damp road, you will floor it in second on a roundabout and just spin. Or worse, halfway through an overtake, at 60 in 3rd as you floor it, wheel spin and front end shimmy while still making progress. A very scary experience, especially as the person you are overtaking starts to panic.

Only the last couple of T16 900 models needed a CAT, but Saab fitted them early My old CATless bosch injected model passed emissions at the CAT levels. Decat pipes are available as are replacement stainless turbo elbow/downpipes. For that you need to move the battery to the boot, if you have gone front mount intercooler, move the battery to the passenger side. the turbo elbow is very restrictive. bigger injectors, fuel pumps and FPRs are available.

A tip used to be to fit the FPR from a non turbo lucas injection car in a bosch turbo car. The Bosch FPRs were 2.2 and 2.5bar pressure models, the lucas was a 3 bar model.

Can you tell i was a bit of a Saab 900 geek. Only did cheap quick bolt on stuff to mine as it was daily driver.

But boy did i love that car. You have made me want another one.

Original factory varient in australia belive it or not! Its the "enduro" pack 17psi of boost with water injection, special suspensin with bilstein dampers and stiff springs. I can copy the article if needs be

J

slammed66 in da house:
Any pics or vids of monster 900 turbos much appreciated to get some inspiration for my new turbo barge

There's a ton of them in here: www.garaget.org/show.php?model=Saab just flipp through the (127) pages untill you get to the 900, there's some real nice cars in there....

DP says: Gargaret.org is a huge source of inspiration....

THANKS FOR THE PICS VIDS ADVICE AND GENERAL GOOD SH1T GUYS ;D

Heres my new barge courtesy of ebay

cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=017&item=270026809459&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

I like it because its a little different being the coupe rather than the hatch back.

Comments good or bad appreciated

(i know it needs some stick action)

Apc has already been ditched and the car is running 1.0 bar of boost which is far too low! lol
1.5 bar here we come!!!!!!!!!!!!

Agree entirely with mr Meatball. Get APC back on, get it tweaked and you jammy git for getting a 2 door cheap! Only thing of that ilk that's stiffer and better handling is a 2 door 99 turbo and you have to tweak the boost on that to play catchup.