I bought my SAAB not even a year ago. I fell in love with its awesome body lines. But, like many "Car-Domainers" out there... I just wasn't happy with the factory package. I've since added a few things... here are some picks to high lite what I've done. If you like it, vote... if not, vote... I would love to hear what people have to say.




Here is the overall exterior. I've tinted the windows to 20% and added a set of 17" wheels, and did a little stereo work myself.



Here is a close up of one of my wheels prior to installing them. It is an Enkei RSF-2. They didn't come in black, nor did they come in a 5/110 bolt patter. I fell in love with the wheel pattern so I was determined to get them on my car... I had them acid bathed to rid them of thier factory finish. I touched them up with a sand blaster and then had a friend of mine at Powderstorm Technology here in town do the coating. I ordered a set of adapters from 5/110 to 5/114.3 made by Adapt-It-USA. The total bill on these wheels including the original price... well over $2K...and they're only 17's. Not the smartest thing I've done?




This is my subwoofer encloser during construction in my woodshop. The box is a dual chamber ported design. The holes in the sides are for the speaker terminals. In this view you can see the amp rack. I used Allthread from the local hardware store to make my floating amp rack. The Allthread was a cheap and effective way of doing this. The entire box is built out of 3/4" MDF due to the potential of the subs... even though they are 8's they can still destroy an improperly constructed enclosure. Well, at least these 8's and of course JL Audio W7's can!




Again, one step further but still in the woodshop. My apologies for the out of focus photo. I now have the box carpeted and sitting upright. At this point I was test fitting my equipment to make sure it is what I wanted. Don't worry, it wasn't. I later cut a few inches off of the Allthread so that the amp didn't hang so far out into the trunk. You can't tell, but in this photo the amp is about 7" off of the face of the box. It is no only 2"... much more clean looking.




Test fitting the enclosure and building the trim panel around the subs. Luckily, the box didn't have to be super deep. I slid the box into place and began cutting the trim panel. I lost 10" of trunk depth due to the box and another 4" due to the amp and rack. Fortunately, the trunk is deep so 14" didn't matter. I can still pack my travel bag and hockey gear in there with a couple of inches of free space in front of the amp. I'm sure it'll get scratched in the future though.




Now, the finished product. Two tone carpet flush in the trunk. Here you can see clearly two MA Audio 8" XL series subs pushed by a Clif Designs CD5.2LX amp wired to a 2ohm load. The box is ported through the rear deck for ultimate sound and thump when needed. It sounds clean, hits fast, and pounds on demand... Another nice feature to this design. My amp and rack are in front of the subs... thus alleviating the need for speaker grilles. Which is a good thing, the only grilles that fit these subs are the same 3-bar setup used by JL Audio on thier W7 series subwoofers.




I am not quite done yet. I have purchased a BSR intake system that I have yet to install. As soon as my warranty is expired, I intend on upgrading the exhaust and ECU to match that of the 9-3 ARC. Along with those three items, a new turbo BOV, and a slight increase in turbo pressure I should get about another 45HP. Which would be fine by me. Along with engine tuning, I intend on doing a few more exterior mod's. Minor of course, I intend on simply tinting the rear tail lights and orange parking lights as well. I will add pictures as more is done. After all that... I guess I'll have to buy something else since that will be all I want to do to this car!