My first experience with motorsport was watching Formula One on TV in the late '80s. I recall Ayrton Senna's yellow Lotus-Honda at Detroit, and the sparks when the car bottomed out. And I remember the next season when he was with McLaren, battling it out with Alain Prost. Murray Walker's voice rings in my head "It's Senna, then Prost!"
Years later, in '96, I bought my first go-kart. It was second hand, powered by a Briggs & Stratton 4-stroke. Put out maybe 10hp. After that, I owned another kart, and Italian made PRD (made by CRG, one of the biggest kart manufacturers in the world) and had a more powerful, spec, sealed Briggs engine called the "Blue Wazoom". I won my engine class in the club championship in '97. After taking a sabbatical, I came back briefly with the same kart but with a 100cc Yamaha 2-stroke engine. By this time, the Blue Wazoom class had died out, and so too was my enthusiasm for karting. It was bloody hard work! Getting up early on Sunday, driving out to the track, unloading everything by myself, sweltering heat.
I had caught the Saab bug bad by this time, and soon I negotiated a deal with fellow Turbo! list member John Wirt to trade my kart for his orange, '74 99LE. And thus in August 2001, my friend and I travelled down to the border to meet John, and the deal was done. The plan has always been to make the 99 into a rally car. In May 2000, I went to my first rally as a spectator, the Bighorn Rally in Edson, Alberta, about 2.5 hours away from Edmonton. The Sprongls in their Audi S2 rally car was quite fantastic.
Seeing all of the privateer entries at
my first Bighorn made me realize that rally was do-able. I could do it,
I could build a car, I could drive it, it would be major fun. And
best of all, I could involve all of my friends in it as well.
The 99 is already a bit of a Frankenstein:
A lot of these parts were refugee bits
from my SPG. Unlike the SPG, I AM sparing every expense in building
the rally car! It will head into the forest and may or may not emerge
in one piece, so... no use in putting all my good stuff on it! :)
The Canadian Association of RallySport (CARS) rules are slightly different from those of SCCA ProRally. The latter has Group 5 class, which would particularly suit Saabs (2WD, turbo or high displacement). But CARS does not have G5, so I will have to pursue other routes. Running a turbo'd Saab would put me in Open class, running up against AWD turbo Imprezas. Yikes.
Instead, I have two choices for rally: Group 2 or Production. The latter is VERY stock, very limited in what you can do, including OE fuel injection, limited engine modifications. However, G2 is basically 2WD, NA, open engine mods - just no turbos or large displacement engines.
As my 99 is a '74, it would technically be unable to run Production with a turbo, as Saab turbos only showed up in '78. I could drop in a B-motor turbo, but then fudge the rules a bit. We will see, I have to investigate this route a bit more. This would certainly produce more power, but then correspondingly one runs up against the 99/900 Achilles heel - weak transmission. SOOooooo....G2 class beckons. Not that I would need a lot of power anyway, and I tellya, the sound of carbs at full chat is intoxicating.
So, short term goals:
There are a couple issues with an engine
swap. First, both a B201 or a B212 swap would require modifications
to the firewall. A B212 swap may not even be allowed under the rules,
have to check. Further, there is no way the stock B212 exhaust manifold
will fit into the 99's engine bay. Lots to think about! A B201 may
be the easier solution for a more modern engine. It also keeps things simple.
It has been many moons since I updated my 99 pages! A lot has happened since then.
Several months ago, after much deliberation, I decided to ditch the Weber idea. Several reasons. First, they are expensive, looking at US$600 minimum for a pair, and that would be a good price. Then the manifold, several hundred more dollars. And on top of this, I still have to figure out tuning them, not to mention still be running points ignition (upgrading that would be another few hundred dollars), and apparently there is a flat spot in the power band when running the Webers.
On the other hand, I thought, I have a perfectly good stand alone fuel and ignition system on the SPG. I even have most of the sensors on hand. I can swap over the ECU, controller and coil pack, reprogram, and away I go, with an ultra reliable system with much more room for growth. Not to mention I at least half know how to program the SDS!
So that's been the plan. When required, I'll simply swap all the stuff over to the 99 and fire it up. I will, of course, buy new wiring for the 99 from SDS, and this cost is relatively small.
Next I had to prep the engine and transmission, get them ready. No better time than now to run the H motor, if the whole car will be torn apart anyway. My buddy, Gerald, would do the firewall modifications necessary to accommodate the H motor into the 99's engine bay. As the car is a '74, it still has the older style firewall, with smaller brake booster mounted lower. I had purchased a '78 GL parts car, and from this I salvaged most of the required parts. But back to the engine. I did a simple rebuild, no machining other than some honing of the cylinders with a ball hone. New rings, some new bearings, new seals, and a big clean up of the block and 4-speed tranny, taken from the '78 GL.
To allow for the Bosch EFI injectors that the SDS will use, the H motor's intake manifold was modified. I was quite pleasantly surprised to find that the Bosch EFI injectors would fit into the K-Jet injector ports without much of a fuss. However, the depth at which they sat left something to be desired. My engine builder machined down the ports to bring the injectors much closer. Good stuff. Now I just need to build a fuel rail...
I also took my aluminum flywheel off the SPG, and this now resides on the H motor. It already had the crank sensor magnets installed, so why not? Half the job was done. Again I fabricated a bracket for the crank sensor, duplicating the setup on my 16v engine in the SPG.
So off the shell went for the firewall mods. Work was extensive. Gerald built a box in the firewall to accommodate the H motor's crank and waterpump setup. Even so, the power steering portion of the crank pulley was machined out to help clear the firewall. The box in the firewall also has a removeable panel to allow access to the back end of the engine for maintenance. Nice. I'm thinking in-car timing chain jobs can be a reality now. Also modified at this time was the brake booster mounting bracket, all moved backwards a bit so that everything would clear. Fortunately, Gerald built enough room into the firewall to allow dual belts on the alternator and water pump. Excellent. And should the need ever arise, the mods should also allow for a 16v head to fit too. Good stuff.
And the last two things I've done have been relatively simple. I bought a cheap air hammer and used it to scrape off about 12-15 lbs worth of sound deadening material from the interior floor of the car. Cool. And I've also built up the dash on the co-driver's side, but it has yet to be all wired. That's a Brantz International 2 rally computer sitting there, along with a fuel level gauge, volt meter, and slots for 10 fuses and 6 relays. All of these electrical items will relate to the SDS and auxiliary lights. I will soon be acquiring a basic wiring set from EZ Wiring to take care of the basic stuff - headlights, wipers, horn, signals, etc.
More updates later! The next big
job will be wiring everything up, then getting the roll cage into the car.
Fingers crossed that it will be ready for next May.