I blame my OCD for this (saab inside)

Having seen a few nicely detailed saab engines, I felt if was my turn to do something. My engine compartment is a bit scruffy looking with a lot of oxidised aluminum. The valve cover was the worst, not only was the paint peeling off, but it was leaking and the aluminum underneath it was oxidising.. not pretty at all.

Detailing is cheap (this car MIGHT squeaze under the limits for the 200X challenge) so an afternoon was spent with wirebrush, drill, cleanser, tools, and paint.

It started off last night with the plastic cover that goes over the intake (which looks suspeciously like a carb intake) I cleaned it up and painted it red to match the DI cassette. Even though I degreased it and cleaned it compleatly, the finish came up way sub underpar with lots of small pinprick holes.

So I went out and bought some stripped and pulled all the old paint off and redid it to near perfection (for a spray bomb job) and it looked way too nice to put back on the engine. Off came the valve cover (I hate Torx bolts, whover invented them and the guy who decided that GM should use them should be screwed to a cross with them) and I started off with just wirebrushing the flaking paint and degreasing.

Degreasing caused a lot of the paint that I thought was fine to come loose.. so I used the last of my stripper to clean off the rest of the paint. A drill and an assortment of wire brush bits cleaned it up compleately.

No, I didn't clean it on the car, it was just the best place to show it off in all it's shiney aluminum goodness.

So, now came a choice of paint. I wanted to avoid red as I was already doing the intake cover in that colour. I have seen blue, but too many colours never looks good. Browsing Lowes, I found Graphite in Rustolium's "Hammered" finish and had at it.

And with the Red Intake cover:

And of course the gratuitous installed shot. Now I need to send the intake pipe off to be chrome cermic coated and clean up the rest of the aluminum to a nice shine.

Looks nice - now you just need to polish up the raised letters!

Scott

Not bad at all.

I am incapable of installing an ugly valvecover.

I knew I had a pic of how the engine looked before I attacked it.

try a little fine steel wool on the intake pipe. I used to do my International every weer when I washed and it looked good without killing myself.

looks great! does reverse work yet? now you need a header and ebay BP valve in shinny chinese aluminum. and some black touch up paint on the bolts. what color are you going to paint the pine needles?:grin:

no, I have a "new" used transmission on the way. $350 is not too bad. This will probably put me over the limits of the 200x challenge when I install a clutch too.. (unless I want to start selling off parts, which I don't) so this is just going to be a nice sporty yet comfy commuter for me.

I was thinking green for the pine needles.

I also need to go through all the hoses. I broke part of the PCV valve when I was reinstalling it. Snapped the small line right off. The larger hose was put on by somebody who didn't care, as all it does is easily slide into position (and right off too)

I may be cheap, but I do like to do things the correct way, shame this car (along with the Bimmer and Fiat) did not have similar previous owners to me)

Looking good. Since you are waiting for the trans now is the time to do the PVC airbox mod so you can hear the turbo and install a cheap MBC/ take out the silencer in the intake pipe so you can feel the turbo.

Is your BP valve metal or plastic? If it is the stock plastic Bosch one it will not last very long with the above "updates".

nope, it's the stock plastic one.

The saab is actually going to come off of the road for the summer so I can get the body straight and painted. The car lived a hard life in DC, so the body is decorated with a lot of little dings and creases. I want to get them out and painted by the end of summer so I have something to drive while I strip two 318tis to make one good one for the winter.

The saab also needs all new hoses.. I broke the plastic PVC tee yesterday and the hoses leading to it are so brittle if you look at them hard they break..

I finished off the painting today.. and opened up the airbox.

The fusecover, cruisecontrol cover, airbox, and breaker panel are all done in Hammered black paint. The Valve cover and uptube from the intercooler are done in a matching graphite with a bit of silver thrown in here and there for detail.

The old school Turbo Badge came off of a "classic" 900 and looks right at home there

As promised, an actual "performance" modification. I saw all the tricks to add a "funnel" to the airbox that opens it up to 3 inches, but I noticed most of them still seem to keep the 2(ish) inch opening into the airbox the same.

With Handy Dremel in hand, I quickly opened the hole up to 3 inches and epoxied a 4 inch section of black ABS pipe into the airbox.

After that, I got a smooth 45 degree bend and another 6 inch length piece of tubing and made a "snorkle" that sits down behind the foglight. It can get cooler air there but still be protected from water. Once the airbox was bolted back into place, the snorkle fit onto the tube sticking out of it and is securely held there by both friction and the body of the car. It literally has no place to go. I even had to warm up the lower tube in boiling water and compress it down to a slight oval shape to let it pass downwards past the bumper support.

Now I just need to get the suspension fixed so I can hear the turbo. Saabs do not make boost in neutral or with the clutch in.

A DIY cold air snorkel! Nice. Also, that is a rather funny looking exhaust manifold with the middle 2 cylinders and the outside two joined. Any reason for that or am i just being stupid?

There is supposed to be a heatshield on them. The car had it's turbo replaced before I got it.. so obviously whomever did the work, neglicted to put it back on.

I just won one on ebay, so as soon as it gets here and gets cleaned up and painted, I can see about installing

JohnGalt wrote: Also, that is a rather funny looking exhaust manifold with the middle 2 cylinders and the outside two joined. Any reason...?

That's a divided inlet manifold, sort of: the idea is to keep boost pressure from some of the cylinders from going into the cylinders with simultaneously open exhaust valves.

From Garrett's website:

The concept is to DIVIDE or separate the cylinders whose cycles interfere with one another to best utilize the engine's exhaust pulse energy. For example, on a four-cylinder engine with firing order 1-3-4-2, cylinder #1 is ending its expansion stroke and opening its exhaust valve while cylinder #2 still has its exhaust valve open (cylinder #2 is in its overlap period). In an undivided exhaust manifold, this pressure pulse from cylinder #1's exhaust blowdown event is much more likely to contaminate cylinder #2 with high pressure exhaust gas. Not only does this hurt cylinder #2's ability to breathe properly, but this pulse energy would have been better utilized in the turbine. The proper grouping for this engine is to keep complementary cylinders grouped together-- #1 and #4 are complementary; as are cylinders #2 and #3. Because of the better utilization of the exhaust pulse energy, the turbine's performance is improved and boost increases more quickly.

You'll note that I initially wrote "sort of": truth is, for this particular manifold, the divider between the two pairs of runners does not quite come all the way down to the manifold/turbo flange, and the NG900 did not have a divided inlet turbocharger, so there is some intermingling among all four after all.

Nothing that cannot be fixed with some descrete welding...

And I do think their is truth to the story the car got a new turbo. I cannot find a trace of oil in the hoses.. and because it failed inspection due to a safety issue. I have the full readout on it's emissions..

it put out a very small percentage of what it is allowed to