Engine
I made most of the modifications to the engine. Since I had very little experience working on engines, this was a major challenge.
When I first bought the car at an auction, it was spewing black smoke out the tailpipe and I thought I was going to suffocate on the 3 mile drive home. When I got it home, I decided to try the basics - spark plugs, wires, rotor & cap. I couldn't get it started, so I new I was lucky to even drive it home. The compression was shot in the #4 cylinder. After a few days, I pulled the valve cover and eventually pulled the head. Bingo! The pistons were missing chunks of metal from the edge. The car had been run hard for a long time, and the knocking had taken it's toll.
I didn't have any tools to rebuild engines, so I started acquiring and borrowing the tools that I'd need - an engine hoist, 6-point sockets that kind of thing. I also started looking around on the net for various performance upgrades.
I pulled the engine,
and sent the head off to Sweedish Dynamics to have it ported and cammed.
I started tearing down the engine and took it in to a local shop so they could blueprint the block. The cylinders were shot, so I had to find 1st oversize pistons/rings. I first tried to order them from a shop in Europe. After waiting almost a year, and still no pistons/rings, I went with forged pistons from JE. I thought about their anti-swirl pistons, but I got talked out of it and just used the same stock type. I was anticipating using nitrous at that point and I wanted something rock solid.
I got the head back from Sweedish Dynamics about 9 months later. They're apparently in high demand.
While the engine was being blueprinted and rebuilt, I rebuilt the transmission using instructions that I found online. I upgraded the pinion bearing in the process, but I had a local Saab mechanic set the load on the bearing. It was really pretty easy to rebuild, and I have another one mid-way through.
Here are a couple of shots of the storage area where I stored the engine parts mid process. I also dropped in a tuned exhaust system from Sweedish Dyanmics.
