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Yeah, the 16 valve head for the B motor is a specifically cast part for the B motor. It isn't too hard for a car manufacturer to cast another head, its a lot easier than making some cossie head fit, especially because its unlikely that the cylinders, headbolts, and cooling passages will all line up. Back when those heads were made the FIA allowed (at least in rallying) those types of parts to be used so long as the manufacturer offered them as a kit. There was a minimum of 200 kits that were supposed to be made avaiable if the parts were to be used in rallying. I've heard the same thing that Don has about only around 50 heads actually being cast and that maybe less than 20 were actually machined out. I don't know if SAAB actually planned on building 200 kits, but I know they didn't build that many and never offered them for sale to the general public.
I've personally seen two of these heads. One was on the engine in John Buffum's old 99 rally car and the other was a spare that was sold along with that car. The spare was fully dissasembled when I saw it. The story I've been told (from rally folks up in Buffum's area) is that SAAB sent Buffum the parts to build a 99 rally car (fully assembled 16V B motor, fuel system, 4spd crashbox with limited slip, etc. and spares). The car was built and then I think one of SAAB's factory rally co-drivers navigated in the car for one or a number of events. After Buffum stopped using the car he kept it stored at his house until he sold it and the spare parts back to SAAB in '98. I remember Peter Bakstrom saying that the car that I saw at the '98 convention wasn't the original shell and the original one had been scrapped due to an accident. It might be that SAAB sent Buffum all the parts from the scrapped car and got him a good US shell to put it all into. If I had the money then (I think the asking price was around $10,000) I would have bought the car - 16V factory tuned B motor with 250(?) HP, crashbox, spares mmmmm yeah.
posted by 68.186.254...
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