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Hey,
I am a long-time SAAB owner (had an 85 T 3-door and now a 93 Conv). I have been putting some money into my baby lately (buying a new top next week) and I really want to invest some dollars in kicking up the performance a lot and learning more about this incredible machine I happen to be lucky enough to own!
I am unsure how to proceed, so I wanted to ask you guys for your ideas. Here's some thoughts I've had:
- my clutch is currently engaging at the floor (probably a bad cylander) so it might be a great time to replace the entire thing with performance parts. I have seen things about aluminum flywheels, but while the heavier fly's take longer to spin up, their weight also helps from losing momentum once at speed. A light material would spin down faster, no?
Also, have seen things about 9000 clutches on a 900. My regular mechanic laughed at me and said the clutches on 900's never wear out - why mess with it? So what is the performance benefit of an entirely new clutch assembly? Are there any high-performance master/slave cylanders out there? Most clutch stuff concentrates on the plates, but I'm told it's the cylanders that go out more (clutch probs are usu. with the hydraulics).
- hoses: my stock hoses are crusty hard and are always coming undone: just get new OEM rubber ones? better stuff out there?
- APC box. Seen things on the web about new computers with different settings etc. My mechanic said he could tweak the existing box to give me just as much HP as the new boxes would cost, and for much less money. This guy has been around SAABs for 30 years.
- fuel/engine stuff: the whole train of parts between the fuel tank and the exhaust system - how to segment the upgrades in order to keep getting better without replacing everything at once or hurting anything? start with new plugs and magnecore wires? what do people do with injectors, etc? if I get the re-bored head what else needs to go with it? what stress will I be putting on other parts? need a new set of pistons? new turbo?
- octane: the FTC(.gov) says octane is only about preventing knocking and you should just use the lowest you can cause there's no bang in your bucks for higher ratings. Also, here's a quote from another page:
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these motors like our L's that have knock-sensors, maybe if you've gotten some bad 93 gas the thing won't give you the programmed spark advance under boost. It might be pulling some out. But, the computer isn't going to ever go _above_ its programmed timing table, even if it doesn't see any spark knock. It'd be kinda cool if it did.
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Can we get access to our SAABs' timing tables? Can we alter them? Should we? Why? How? Man, this kinda stuff just keeps me so lost.. :-\
- how do people get all these measurements? what measurements should I take before starting work so I have a baseline? how to get fuel psi? what measurements should I take? how do I get compression ratio? horsepower? what is my current timing map? is it correct? what others can I / should I get?
- additional guages: thinking bout either analog or maybe an onboard PC to read/monitor the guages? are there existing ports for, say, tranny oil temp guage, or do I have to drill the casing to put one in?
- TRANNY! - I am seriously in need of a totally bitchin' high-perf tranny! Is a stock SAAB tranny rebuilt by Eriksson good enough? anything better? This is one topic there isn't much web info on... My shifter is really fragile now - my mechanic says there's an aluminum arm in there somewhere that's about to go...
Yes, I've ordered the DIY book. Love to get my hands on the real shop manuals and tech bulletins tho! :-)
SO, can you guys help me out here? I'd really appreciate it! I think this stuff should all be FAQ material so if there isn't one out there, I'll put one up for sure.
Thanks a lot!!
Chris
posted by 209.42.38...
, Sat, 31 Aug 2002 19:14:38
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