It's been a while since I posted on here. I got a new car in November and I've posted about my other 'Retro Rides' so it's only fair the 99 gets its own post as well.
It's a 1972 Saab 99. The car has been prepared for racing but was never seriously raced as far as I know. Since I've had the car I have done loads and loads of work on it. Many, many parts replaced and most things have been tweaked or adjusted. The highlights though are the work to stop the crank pulley rubbing off the firewall. I tried a number of things but eventually made a bracket and fitted it to the top of the engine to stop it rocking back. The engine has been in and out a few times and it's actually on it's third different engine since November. I've had lots of electrical gremlins but I admit I've not really put much effort into the wiring so some of those problems are self-inflicted. Another highlight was the fitting of the engine control systems from the Saab 9000. It's running much better as a result of that work. Toyo Proxy-888 road-legal track tyres grip really, really well in both the wet and dry weather. Rubbish on standing water though.
I've had one rolling-road result for 300 lb/ft of torque and 168.5 bhp but it wasn't running right and that particular rolling road was throwing out suspiciously high figures so we could well shave 5% off those figures. It was quite a poor result but it wasn't ready for it at the time. It's running much better now and I'm doing another RR day end of this month so looking forward to that.
I've also driven it to Sweden and back for the Saab festival.
Here's some photos.
Castle Coombe in April:
Preparing a new block, only to find out a few days later that it was blowing lots of oil past the piston rings and had to come back out.
Tidying up the engine bay a bit. Was covered in oil and dirt. On this occassion I'd left the gearbox in but taken out the engine. The engine usually sits on top of the gearbox. I also left the intake manifold in the car to save me disconnecting everything.
An engine out day. This was the engine with the leaky piston rings. This was after I'd fitted the engine management from the Saab 9000. You can see the red, 4 individual coils, seriously high voltage 'direct-ignition' cartridge sitting in the top of the valve cover.
Engine and gearbox out of the car.
This is a Saab 900 donor car which I bought to take the engine out of. I took off lots of other bits as well and the donor car also turned out to have a very nice gearbox which I am still very happy with after 4k miles of abuse.
It's a 1972 Saab 99. The car has been prepared for racing but was never seriously raced as far as I know. Since I've had the car I have done loads and loads of work on it. Many, many parts replaced and most things have been tweaked or adjusted. The highlights though are the work to stop the crank pulley rubbing off the firewall. I tried a number of things but eventually made a bracket and fitted it to the top of the engine to stop it rocking back. The engine has been in and out a few times and it's actually on it's third different engine since November. I've had lots of electrical gremlins but I admit I've not really put much effort into the wiring so some of those problems are self-inflicted. Another highlight was the fitting of the engine control systems from the Saab 9000. It's running much better as a result of that work. Toyo Proxy-888 road-legal track tyres grip really, really well in both the wet and dry weather. Rubbish on standing water though.
I've had one rolling-road result for 300 lb/ft of torque and 168.5 bhp but it wasn't running right and that particular rolling road was throwing out suspiciously high figures so we could well shave 5% off those figures. It was quite a poor result but it wasn't ready for it at the time. It's running much better now and I'm doing another RR day end of this month so looking forward to that.
I've also driven it to Sweden and back for the Saab festival.
Here's some photos.
Castle Coombe in April:
Preparing a new block, only to find out a few days later that it was blowing lots of oil past the piston rings and had to come back out.
Tidying up the engine bay a bit. Was covered in oil and dirt. On this occassion I'd left the gearbox in but taken out the engine. The engine usually sits on top of the gearbox. I also left the intake manifold in the car to save me disconnecting everything.
An engine out day. This was the engine with the leaky piston rings. This was after I'd fitted the engine management from the Saab 9000. You can see the red, 4 individual coils, seriously high voltage 'direct-ignition' cartridge sitting in the top of the valve cover.
Engine and gearbox out of the car.
This is a Saab 900 donor car which I bought to take the engine out of. I took off lots of other bits as well and the donor car also turned out to have a very nice gearbox which I am still very happy with after 4k miles of abuse.
