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I recently had the pleasure of driving my 1972 99 two door around the local race track (Barbagello raceway,Wanneroo) and here are some of my thoughts and comments.
1. Do it! If you ever have a chance to drive a SAAB on a racetrack I strongly recommend that you do, If only to learn how your car will handle at its limts.
2. Something that has never broken or gone wrong before will go wrong during scrutineering. During scrutinineering my boot lid decided to fail and come of one hinge completly. It has never happend before (honnest!) and I had bit of a job to convince the scrutineer that the car really was safe to drive around a race track.
3. Good tyres and a well balanced car make a big difference. A few years back I took a 5 door 99T around the same track, and my top speed was only around 130kmh. The car was essentially unmodified (except for the 5spd).I think the weight of this car, ho hum tyres (Le Mans A5s 215s by 60 by 15s I think) and a case of serious brake fade kept my top speed down. (My driving was and is so shocking that I did not take any notice of my track times)
This time my 72 99 with better tyres (Yokies on the rear, Dragos on front, 205, 60, 15), battery in boot, rear swaybar, a very tired engine and noisy 4spd gearbox was able to hit a bit over 140kmh, and I did not notice any serious brake fade either. Although I think I may have boiled the brake fluid as my brakes became spongy and stayed spongy by the end of the day.
4. Tired engines do not take well to track work! By the end of the day my engine managed to work the oil filler cap loose and blow it of...resulting in some oil all over the engine bay, and after securing the oil filler cap the engine decided that it would blow the oil out the dip stick instead. I am not sure if this is typical behaviour for B engines being driven hard or is a result of the increase in crankcase back pressure that I think the car developed by the end of the day. Also the engine lacked power compared to other cars out that day (one spectator had the audacity to call me a grandma driver). One benifit of the day is that my engine now idles at bout 500 and is very quiet at idle...could this be due to a lack of compression?
But in the end I was happy about the engine, as the quicker it wears out the sooner I get the 16V T. (oh and my car still runs in the meantime!)
5. Driving around a track is exhausting. After doing a few sets of 3 laps in quick succesion I was feeling quite ill and carsick. I think the combination of hot weather (33 C), helmet and my limited track experience contributed to this. I guess with more practice I'll get over the ill feeling.
If any one else had any comments about track working a SAAB, particularly the 99 I would be interested to hear about it.
Next event: Hillclimb in April or May.
Happy Saabing
Justin.
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