This will be the first post in english to make it easyer for Saab enthousiasts all around the world to read what we are doing.
About a year ago the oppertunity to buy this original Dutch turbo X manual saloon presented itself. After a few years of thinking about upgrading the station it never came so far because of the automatic gearbox. I knew that the automatic gearbox would be a limiting factor somewhere. So luckaly this is a manual.
It is this turbo X:
Bodywork was in very good condition, however the technical parts could use a revitalising treatment such as big maintenance on the engine, Xwd system and rubbers + bushings. We will be replacing these parts during the build.
It diddnt take long before we started the upgrade proces, first a bigger intercooler + piping:
In the meanwile we started with disassembling the second engine, that is the best option in our experience. When you want to build a complete engine with all new parts you never know when the parts will arrive and if everything is complete and not damaged.
that way we can keep the downtime of the saab low.
The idea of this project was to try and do all machining ourself, we took out the valves and tried to grind them our self, but sadly the result was not what we where looking for. The exhaust valves had to much wear.
Picture of DIY valve grinding ( exhaust valve)
So thats when we decided to send the heads over to the machinery to grind the valves with special tools. Also had the heads machined and the engine checked.
Loaded everything in the back of the car of the misses:
Then the results of the valve grinding :
Perfectly smooth again.
After that it was time to start assembling the heads, still with the original valve springs and cams:
Then it was time to start on the bottom end of the engine, strengthened conrods and forged pistons to make north of 600 HP.
Because the weight of forged pistons and conrods are different then the original ones its important to make sure you get all the weights as close to the same as possible and after that balance the cranck with flywheel, clutch and piston/conrods.
As seen here below:
This makes the engine run a lot smoother, less vibrations in the clutch pedal,less stress on the cranckshaft and a lot more positive effects.
When everything is balanced out we mounted the parts in the engine with new ACL bearrings :
Its getting closer to the finish!
So now we want to put the heads on there and use the special strengthened timing chains for the v6 ( we sell these aswell)
Now that the turning parts are assembled we need to place all sensors, wiring, clutch, exhaust manifolds and turbo on there. The turbo is a custom hybrid turbo, a G25-660 dual ballbearring machined into the original housing.
The clutch is a double plate clutch one organic plate and one sinter. wich should hold up against 800NM
Now everyting is basically ready to get back in the Turbo X, out with the old and in with the new :
Did a first start and she runs like a beast,now its time to try and get the Maxxecu wired up and working.
After a few nights of soldering, checking and testing she was alive, everything works exept the cruise controll, maybe somewhere in the future we can fix that issue.
We put her on the hub dyno to see what the possibilities are with this turbo.
We found out that the maximum was at 488HP and 613NM with the current set up. This was with the original exhaust after the 3" downpipe. The lines made us think what was holding us back. The turbo should be able to make north of 500HP.
To find out what could be the issue we placed some pressure sensors in the exhaust pre turbo and in the downpipe. we found out that we had more backpressure then we wanted, the next step was to build a 3.5" downmipe and midpipe wich wil branch off in two 3" pipes, followed up with 2 2.5" magnaflow mufflers where we mounted the original tips on. a thing of beauty and a lot of work. really would like to thank Jord for helping me build this monster of an exhaust pipe.
EMAP 1,2 and downpipe pressure sensors.
3.5" stainless steel
Quick pick of the Turbo X
Current 100-200 km/h time is 10.98 seconds meassured on dragy gps
A video how she sounds and spitting flames :
The current situation is that i believe that we maxed the original engine out regarding the cams, springs, exhaust manifolds, turbo, fueling and gearbox.
We have ordered a slightly bigger turbo ( EFR 8374), straight gears and we will be making our own exhaust manifolds.
I hope you enjoyed to read this page, if you have any questions about this or any other project, please dont hesitate to contact us. We can help you build your own V6
Or we can do it for you.
Best regards,
Lennart Lammertse.
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