Turbodustbin

[old saaber]

900i_02.jpg (41.29 KiB) Viewed 933 times

[TurboDustbin]

Got the car back now; gearbox replaced, new steering rack, new clutch hydraulics, track rods and other bits and pieces. And then....



Broken rear shock mount!

Bollocks.

[old saaber]

That happened to my 99 on the way to Sweden in 2007. Didn't seem practical to try and weld it up in Sweden so ended up driving all the way back without the rear shock.

As it's a common failure you can buy a repair panel to weld in. Steve Lewis sells them. And I'm sure I've seen them advertised in a few other places.

http://www.stevelewissaab.com/apps/webs ... ow/4868187

[TurboDustbin]

All welded up now. Boot corners had gone too, so had those done as well.

Wonder what'll break next.......

[old saaber]

Lots of options.

The engine is pretty original still.

[TurboDustbin]

......a wheel bearing. That's what went next.

Gearing is much shorter with the replacement 'box. It's the same part number, so a bit surprised by that; its pretty spritely when accelerating, but is not nice on the motorway.

[peva]

[TurboDustbin]

Unfortunately, the gearbox was from a car I broke a couple of years ago and I'd only driven it around London, so didn't really notice the shorter gearing. I might just wait until some of those fancy type 8 gears to come along, though I've just spent a fortune (again) on my XJS and don't have the stomach for more automotive expense at the moment!

[peva]

If they are type 6s in (as from a LPT) they are really quite short and noisy at speed. You could improve things by installing some quite common (and cheapish) type 7s. What happened to your original ones?

[old saaber]

If you had the longer ratios in the original box then I would have transferred those over to the replacement. It's a shame that replacement box didn't last as long as the first one. Everything was done to make it the best possible build with all new seals and bearings but cracked casings and shearing gears have happened before with those boxes and no-doubt will do again in the future.

It's probably something like 3 to 4 hours worth of labour to swap the primary drive with the gearbox in the car if you still have them.

[TurboDustbin]

Still have the old box, so could get the primaries swapped over at some point. Would rather have the type 8s,though as the car has enough power for the performance not to be blunted much. Went in a standard car once, with type 8s, and it was smooth, but not massively brisk.

[old saaber]

Type-8s are fine. Compared with today's ratios the type-8 isn't particularly long. Plenty of autobahn-ready sales-executive mid-size cars with small engines and long gearing meant to cruise at speed. Think with a good enough hill you can get 150mph out of a 1.8 Vauxhall Insigna.

[TurboDustbin]

Well, the car turned 29 last week, so getting on a bit. Needed two wheel bearing and £500 of welding for its MOT - guess it's a sign of the advancing years!

[old saaber]

As we used to say, you've probably saved money given the mileage you do. Compared with putting the same miles on a new car and the purchase cost. In the time you've had it and the mileage you've done someone else would have bought 3 or 4 cars.

[TurboDustbin]

Car will be turning 30 years old in a couple of weeks! Still seems to be going OK, though I've got a bit of rust starting on the boot where the bottom of the window seal is. I suspect it's worse than it looks.... Passenger door bottom has started to go, too.

Hasn't really needed anything since the last MOT other than having the clutch clevis pin re-done and the clutch pedal welded.

Gearing is still far too short, so I tend to avoid longer trips. I noticed that you can buy Type 9 primary chains now, so maybe something to think about.

[old saaber]

type 9 would be awesome. My compromise is a 4-speed with type-7. It effectively eliminates 1st gear so you begin in 2nd. Good for 0-60 but ultimately the type 9 would extend all gears and that would be best. Not sure if you've had it tuned since it was jamsaabed (that made it slow) but if you have 200bhp or more then first gear is next to useless.

[old saaber]

you can get door bottoms from Skandix

http://www.skandix.de/en/spare-parts/bo ... t/1019499/

[TurboDustbin]

Good stuff, thanks for the link.

Car is pretty brisk, though it still overboosts and cuts-out if you put your foot flat down quickly, so you have to moderate it with the throttle input. Might just get a manual boost controller and set it just below the point at which it overboosts.

[old saaber]

Get a good map on it. I developed a good map which I was using on my convertible. It had boost limited to 0.8 bar in first and second and then up to 1.5 bar thereafter. I worked out all the issues with applying a map to a 900 (rather than a 9000) and that includes disabling the boost / fuel cut limit.

Never wanted to get into tuning customers cars because of how long it takes but when I had my own car t5 car to play with it made a lot of sense to invest some serious laptop time!

Here is the bin file: download/Emmett_Jenner_t5_file_september_2016.bin

Make sure whoever flashes your ECU exports the existing .bin which is currently loaded so you have the option to go back if you want to.