UKSaabs

Some of you may know about this project, but i thought it would be of interest to some about tuning a NON-turbo Saab, my first saab was a 99T, i really liked the car, but i didn't like the turbo of the restricted engine bay etc, i finally have the time to develop a 99 with more performance than a standard 99T, without the Turbo and hopefully more user friendly.
The engine is from a 1988 900i 8V H series engine, the type with the starter motor under the inlet manifold.
Initial fuelling will be from K-jetronic just to run the engine in, from then on it will be standalone ECU (megasquirt) and Jenvey 45mm throttle bodies.
The block is finished and just waiting for the big valve cylinderhead, a new camshaft will be fitted from Catcam. 5-speed box with quaife ATB.
The inlet manifold and Jenvey's look quite impressive.





The inlet tract is very encouraging.............

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900i '87
99 '83 Turbo Killer
99 EMS 77
Lancer EVO 6.5 TME '00 in red
Lancer EVO 6.5 TME '00 in black

Very swish very interested to hear more about it

Blimey sonett that manifold looks the dogs...Oh I do like shiny things.

Good luck with the project...can I have a go in it when it's finished...

Always interesting to see someone taking the traditional tuning approach, Dave, and those TBs do look the mutts nuts...

What sort of power are you aiming for, about 150?
You won't get the torque of the turbo though...perhaps you could make up for that with better throttle response?!

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S6 Avant 4.0 V8T 450bhp/550Nm
9-5 Aero 600Nm FB3
900 T16S track hack
96V4s

No problem Steve, of course you can have a go, but once you experiance throttle bodies you feel a void in your life

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900i '87
99 '83 Turbo Killer
99 EMS 77
Lancer EVO 6.5 TME '00 in red
Lancer EVO 6.5 TME '00 in black

Here's a base run for a 900i 8v (also 1988, k-jetronic, ect, ect...)

The graph also shows a second run with the nitrous kicking in. Look what happened to my fueling!

The only difference is that this car was using mappable ignition, but it wasn't professionally mapped so not sure if it had any impact on the output.

Edit: dotted line shows normal output.

I won't get the torque but i won't get the lag either.
Doing the sums and using the low side of the figures, 118bhp is the figure given by Saab for this 8v injection engine, the cam was chosen with caution as this will be a road car, it's a variation on the 284 degree Catcam, 12.2mm lift with a different lobe centre line, give this 10%, exhaust is 4-2-1 give this 3%, cone filter maybe 2%, big valve flowed head, 44mm inlet valves (standard are 42mm) 20%, throttle bodies 12%. Estimated power increase 47% which gives 55bhp on 118bhp, estimated theoretical is 173bhp, i would be really happy with 160bhp. But peak power is not really the aim of this engine, i want a wide power band, having power within a 1000-2000 rpm rev range is pretty useless in most cars, even more so in a road car. A mapping session on the rollers will tell eventually what this engine will produce.
To run the engine in i will be using standard ignition and K-jet fuelling, when it's run in i will take to the rollers i use for a power run, this way we can see what extra the standalone ECU and throttle bodies will give.

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900i '87
99 '83 Turbo Killer
99 EMS 77
Lancer EVO 6.5 TME '00 in red
Lancer EVO 6.5 TME '00 in black

Standard Saab 4-branch manifold or custom made?

well I don't understand any of those graphs but the kit is just so pretty!

I'm rightly impressed with the traditional tuning route. Most loons can tackle the bolt on power approach (even I am giving it a whirl) but what you are doing is truly commendable. Bravo young man.

Can I have a go too!!

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Starting from scratch!

Custom made, this one has since been camcoated........

_________________
900i '87
99 '83 Turbo Killer
99 EMS 77
Lancer EVO 6.5 TME '00 in red
Lancer EVO 6.5 TME '00 in black

I suppose with many people it's buy a turbo and turn up the boost, i decided to go the conventional route, which i think is more susceptible/sensitive to any errors, but of course that's just my opinion and once you here the induction roar from throttle bodies it's very addictive.

_________________
900i '87
99 '83 Turbo Killer
99 EMS 77
Lancer EVO 6.5 TME '00 in red
Lancer EVO 6.5 TME '00 in black

They're not his graphs, they're my graphs. They show the output from a standard Saab 900 8v (dotted line) but I was also messing about with a bit of DIY nitrous injection last year and that was the result. i.e. the graph with the big spike! I spose you've got to be a bit used to seeing graphs like that in order to know what they mean in real terms. There's a key on there showing what the different lines mean. For me, the interesting ones are power, torque and air/fuel ratio. It's actually nice to see so much detail on a graph. Often at a rolling road day you get power and torque and absolutely nothing else. This graph has everything.

Having had the 8v n/a and having fitted mappable ignition and generally messing about with it I know there's a lot to be had from that setup. Afterall, it's a 1985cc motor, quite a big engine! My car had all the handling and braking mods and the engine felt pretty nippy as well (although the evidence suggests otherwise) and I'd like another one someday. What's nice about the turbo is that ridiculous torque hit you get as the turbo starts to cut in... it feels great! and you can get the same thing from large capacity engines as well. I love flooring the peddle in the automatic BMW 635 and unleashing the fairly well tuned 3.5 straight-6. Highly tuned, normally aspiriated engines are great but real power is also lovely. Not sure which I prefer more.

Bit of an update on this slow moving project, took the 99GL to the rollers this morning just to get some figures from the engine that's in at the moment, it's the original lump with 104500 miles on it, with K-jetronic, 272 piper reprofiled cam, which is quite mild, 4-2-1 manifold coupled to jetex silencers. I only have a peak power figure at the moment which is 127.1 bhp at 5500 rpm, one of the leads off the dyno was broken so it couldn't plot a torque graph.
According to Saab the K-jet gives 118bhp at 5500 rpm, so that's an increase of a little over 9 bhp. I have never rated the cam that's in the car, in fact i would rather have the standard cam that's in my EMS.
The peak torque from Saab figures gives 123 lb/ft at 3700 rpm, i only have the max bhp figure so that will give 121 lb/ft at 5700, the Saab figures give 108 lb/ft at 5500 rpm, so at least that part of the curve has increased.
I need to find another 18 bhp to match the output of the standard 99 turbo at 145 bhp, i'm hoping the head/cam will give this even using the K-jet fuelling and standard ignition, but this engine is not just about peak power, i want a really wide power band.
The next step is to fit the new engine with the big valve/flowed/catcam head and run it in using the same disitributor and K-jet fuelling and take it back to the same rollers for another power run

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900i '87
99 '83 Turbo Killer
99 EMS 77
Lancer EVO 6.5 TME '00 in red
Lancer EVO 6.5 TME '00 in black

Think it's to do with double-clicking.

I reckon the Saab figures for peak power were probably optimistic as the figures in the brochure sometimes are. The mods you've done to the engine probably make more of a difference than 'book' figure v.s. what you got on the recent session. You can see from my figures above that standard figures aren't easy to achieve. Perhaps if my ignition settings were better it might have made standard power but hard to say at this point.

Interesting comment, what makes you think the Saab figures are optimistic?
The S&R catologue states an increase of 6-10bhp for a standard carb car using the performance exhaust, the 4-2-1 manifold is not included in this kit, using this information a 10% increase in power from stock on a fairly high mileage old engine is not far off the mark.
I am going to try to take it to a dastek rolling road, hopefully in the next few weeks.

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900i '87
99 '83 Turbo Killer
99 EMS 77
Lancer EVO 6.5 TME '00 in red
Lancer EVO 6.5 TME '00 in black

Manufacturers want the absolute best possible figure for their brochure so they will do everything to make the standard car perform well during testing. For some buyers the extra .2sec difference in 0-60 times can be enough to swing the decision.

I was hoping you may have had something more substantial to back up your thinking, so you still have no data to back up that the 118bhp peak power figure in the workshop manual is wrong?

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900i '87
99 '83 Turbo Killer
99 EMS 77
Lancer EVO 6.5 TME '00 in red
Lancer EVO 6.5 TME '00 in black

Even my experience of timing 0-60 times and going to lots of rr days probably wouldn't qualify as 'substantial' since the timing was not done with light-gates or other such equipment and rr shoot-out days aren't fully scientific.

I have to ask, in order to satisify your need for fully guranteed information, how should it be proved to you that book figures are hard to achieve? I'm sure one rule doesn't apply to all figures for all manufacturers but your scepticism isn't going to convince me that manufacturers don't use every trick in the book to make MPG, BHP, MPH, 0-60, ect, ect... look as good as possible and thus hard to achieve when trying to repeat the results.

If anything, on the later carb engines the quoted power is likely to be conservative. The single carb B20 engine, with the original cam, having to drive the jackshaft & dissie shaft separately, is quoted as 100bhp. These carb engines respond well to the EMS cam, don't have any figures, but I know what ours was like with an EMS lump on twin carbs.

"Same" H-series engine, with the single Stromberg, but now without the jackshaft, dissie on the end of the cam, and a cam profile equivalent to the original EMS is still quoted as 100bhp. In my experience those later engines feel more lively, in the same way as the early 900i feels much more lively than the original 900EMS.
So I'm not convinced...

Anyway, however you look at it, what Dave has achieved there seems pretty good. I never had it on the rollers but I remember transforming my 82 99GL just by fitting a full Jetex system to the standard tubular manifold. Far more mid-range and top end grunt, it didn't feel so asthmatic at the top end, and better throttle response too.

_________________
S6 Avant 4.0 V8T 450bhp/550Nm
9-5 Aero 600Nm FB3
900 T16S track hack
96V4s

A lot of rolling roads are not accurate, you just have to look at some of the quoted transmission losses, but if the readings are consistant and the operator know's his stuff, they are a very good way of evaluating any upgrades or performance modifications that you carry out to your car.
So far i only have confidence in one rolling road here in the northwest, and this was the result of two engines with an almost identical specification, being RR'd and mapped at two different dyno's by very good mappers, the results were almost identical give or take a few bhp.
The only true way to measure bhp/torque is to put the engine onto an engine dyno, which is what manufacturers do.
I am not trying to convince you of anything, you made a statement that Saabs bhp figures are optimistic, i was curious at how you came to this conclusion and if you had any substantial information to prove this.

Manufacturers have to use official government figures when quoting MPG, but not with any other figures afaik, so yes, as with most things these other figures are open to abuse, but at the end of it all, manufacturers power figures have more often than not been near or there abouts when tested, the Honda Integra Type R is one that springs to mind that was actually much higher than the Honda figures.

_________________
900i '87
99 '83 Turbo Killer
99 EMS 77
Lancer EVO 6.5 TME '00 in red
Lancer EVO 6.5 TME '00 in black