The past few months have flown by, I’ve been working on my cars quite a bit.  It seems like I’m either at work on the computer, or I’m out with a wrench tinkering under the hood.

On my NG900, I’ve done quite a bit of upgrades.  I have a nice 3″ downpipe, a larger front mount intercooler, and a Nordic Stage 3+ ECU.   Last fall I dyno’ed the car bone stock and it put down 185hp and 198tq at the wheels.  With these upgrades, I should be putting down 240-250hp and 270-280tq.  In June there is another Saab Dyno Day at Marty’s dealership in Iowa, so then I’ll know what I’m putting down for numbers.

This August is SOC, Saab Owners Convention.  This year is the 25th Annual SOC, and it is Saab’s 60th anniversary as well.  I’m planning on going to it, and an overwhelming majority of people want me to bring my SPG instead of my NG.  So I have quite a bit of work to do on the SPG before it’s ready to go to SOC.  I’ll be posting more about that later.

It’s been so cold out I haven’t had time to work on my cars lately.  This is a sad thing because my SPG needs some more attention, and my NG900 wants more power.  I ordered myself a birthday present for my NG900, an Autometer Sportcomp II boost gauge (30hg/30psi) so I can tell how much I’m boosting with the turbo.  The OEM boost gauge doesn’t have actual PSI values.  I’m also tempted to get a MBC+A (Manual Boost Controller + Anticipator) so I can crank the boost up, but I’ll only max out at 15psi with my current ECU.   Most likely I’ll set aside a little bit each paycheck for the car, and then in April/May go straight for a Stage3 Nordic Tune.

I can’t wait for the weekend, then I can take my mind briefly off work and relax.  I’ll probably finish my book this weekend and start another one.

Anyone who enjoys working on cars often times has a wish list of things they would like to buy for their car, or things they would like to do to their car. Here are some suggestions of things to get for the Saab Enthusiast. These are this years hot items:

Front Mount Inter Cooler (FMIC), $90 + shipping – Many Saab lovers that are tuning a classic 900 desire to mount a FMIC to the front of their car to help improve their turbo charging system. The FMIC acts to help cool the air after it passes through the turbo and on into the engine. Definitely one of the bigger ticket items to make a Saab guy happy.

Gauges and Gauge Cluster – When improving and tuning a car, it is always helpful to have live information about the condition of the engine. This is where a 3-gauge DIN cluster that mounts in the radio slot comes in handy. With a Boost Gauge ($68.95), Air/Fuel Gauge ($71.95), and a Water Temp Gauge ($60.96), you can add character and better improve performance of you Saab.

Another big ticket item this year is the JT 3″ Downpipe ($257) for the exhaust system. By upgrading to a 3″ downpipe you can better imrove the flow of the engine so the turbo can spool better for improved power and performance.

As always, a Saab enthusiast can never have enough tools. No Saab tuner should be without a full set of (metric) ratchet wrenches ($179.99). These ratcheting wrenches can mean the difference between a 30 minute job and an hour long job, and save your knuckes as well.

I’ll let the picture do the talking

Since I don’t want to go too overboard with the SPG, (I’m only shooting for 230-250HP) He told me I didn’t need to go with the larger head. That a full downpipe/exhaust + his eprom chip and an upgraded APC should easily put me at that level.

So I’m going to look around, and keep reading up, and I’ll probably order his eprom along with some larger injectors soon.

Anyways, since it was so packed there, we only got 3 runs in on the time-trials. They lined everyone into lanes, and ran 2 cars at a time down the track. Once you ran, you got back in line to wait for the next run. They were doing time-trials until Noon, and were then going to do bracket racing, where they match people up with others that had similar time runs, and break down for eliminations. We didn’t want to stick around that long, so we left to go over to the Technical College where another friend of ours was doing AutoCross with his Miata.

For being my first time on the track, I feel I did pretty good. I had some decent launches, and my trap times weren’t that bad either. Especially for my car to be 10 years old, bone stock. I was running consistent low 16s, and hitting 89mph in the 1/4 mile. One thing I need to remember is that Saabs are not built for the low-end. We have very little low-end torque, and our turbos are handicapped in 1st and 2nd gears. So it leaves room for improvement.

Once I finish paying for my new SPG, I’m going to start working on upgrading my 900SE. I think I’ll probably end up going with a 3″ DP and exhaust kit from GenuineSaab.com and then go with a Stage3 Nordic Tune. That will take my 185HP car to ~270HP. Then with a Cold-Air intake and cone filter, my car will breathe better, and I should be able to go from low 16s to mid 14s. Even though I’m not a fan of 1/4 sprint racing, it was definately fun. But I would definately like to try AutoCross, and some form of Rally Racing.

So on Saturday I organized a small impromptu cookout at Fort Snelling Park in St. Paul. This was with a bunch of the people from SaabCentral.com and SaabLink.net a couple of Saab forums that I chat on.

We had a pretty nice turnout of 7 cars. One of the guys (with the red 900 vert) had to leave before we could take the picture with all of us and our cars.

It was fun though I’m jealous of Andy’s ‘86 900Turbo, man alive would I like to get a car like that. So pristine, so classic, so fast! And with only 68k on the odometer!

I got my car back from the shop yesterday, and the major things are all fixed. Like my o2 sensor, brakes and new exhaust. Here is a picture of my new muffler, aint she pretty?

My car sounds a lot nicer now, doesn’t have the exhaust rattle like it used to. And i’m quite impressed by the new tailpipe, it fits the car beautifully.