Another XR Build Thead. This time with 1000% more Saab

One awesome thing about this was being able to spend some quality time with John in person. He helped out a HUGE amount. Here is a stack of parts that I drove back to Canuckisan wth:
have to take a couple pictures of this as well, but I picked up a STACK of parts from John Vanlandingham who owns JVAB Imports when I visited him in seattle. Believe it or not, all of the following fit into the back of a 2002 sebring:


[*]5 Soccer Ball Wheels
[*]4 Shelbys
[*]4 JVAB Ford-> SAAB hub adapters
[*]2 Vented Saab Discs
[*]2 Wilwood Superlight calipers
[*]2 Rear hubs
[*]2 Front Uprights, bearings, seals etc.
[*]1 Diff
[*]1 Diff Cover
[*]2 JVAB Rear Coilovers
[*]2 JVAB Front 40mm Struts and Springs
[*]1 JVAB Group N Acropolis Spec skid plate mount
[*]2 JVAB Group N top mounts
[*]2 boxes of Misc Parts (bearings, seals etc)
[*]3 Gallons of auto paint



And now onto what is "Saab" about this.

Seeing as I am a saab guy, and John pretends to be a saab guy with that old thing of his, saab wheels and brakes are the shit. Nice and deep hats and really cheap. Saab wheels are likewise very strong, cheap and I already have a crapload.

John and I spent some qualty time coming up with a solution for how to get the right offset for saab wheels and tires. some awesome adapters here they with the ford stub axles:

So I decided I should finish the front uprights and hubs this weekend. The ones I had looked to be in really nice shape, even looked freshly painted. Unfortunately, when I scratched one of the hubs with a wire brush, it just flaked off... not going to cut it:



So I wire burshed it off, and got ready to put some paint on it:


Masked and ready to go:


mmmm paint:


The uprights were just as bad, the one on the right is the one i tested to see how the paint was. They are pretty complex, so I just stuck em in the bead blaster. It took about a minute to strip one. Last part that large I did with sand (glass beads are in there now from when I was doing some aluminum) took 5 minutes. Just flew off.




Pulled the old bearing shell outers from the uprights, masked and primed:




color:


One outer shell driven in, and the inner just sitting dry:


Then I drove the other 3 shells, put in the outboard inners and drove in the seals... in that order. I did accidently drive in 1 seal without the inner bearing... they wont go by the seals, so I had to drive the seal out. I managed to do it without damaging the seal, so I was able to re-drive it in. I pre-packed all of the bearings with a good quality synthetic bearing grease, and then packed the cavity as well.

Here are 2 finished assemblies. I still need to torque the nut. I can't find my socket for this size of nut so that needs to happen and the dust covers need to go on. The nut gets torqued to some ungodly amount, something like 275 ft/lbs. I am not sure my torque wrench goes that high, so I may just use my air impact and call it good.

Obligatory parts photographs:

mmmm....


I'm sticking with the stock turbo, but it's going to get this: a cosworth T3 turbine housing. It has a HUGE internal wastegate and a great transition into a 3" downpipe. I'll be making a downpipe, we'll see how that goes



Front brakes Wilwood superlites 4 piston goodness. Rears are going to be radial mount wilwoods as well. Volvo rears are about 1/2 the price, but waaaayyy less cool


Another JVAB piece of awesomeness :


Mmmm:





Again, thanks to John for all the help and for lightening my pocket book just that little bit

Finally seats:





You can get the sabelt 2 packs from the UK quite reasonably (even shipped) compaired to cdn prices.

And I also got this:



Now that everyone is up to date (mostly, other stuff is boring) its time to get off my ass and get some painting done now that it is spring here and not snowing *touch wood*

This is what I am going for in the next month or so (likely)

Quote
MattWatson
One awesome thing about this was being able to spend some quality time with John in person. He helped out a HUGE amount. Here is a stack of parts that I drove back to Canuckisan wth:
have to take a couple pictures of this as well, but I picked up a STACK of parts from John Vanlandingham who owns JVAB Imports when I visited him in seattle. Believe it or not, all of the following fit into the back of a 2002 sebring:


[*]5 Soccer Ball Wheels
[*]4 Shelbys
[*]4 JVAB Ford-> SAAB hub adapters
[*]2 Vented Saab Discs
[*]2 Wilwood Superlight calipers
[*]2 Rear hubs
[*]2 Front Uprights, bearings, seals etc.
[*]1 Diff
[*]1 Diff Cover
[*]2 JVAB Rear Coilovers
[*]2 JVAB Front 40mm Struts and Springs
[*]1 JVAB Group N Acropolis Spec skid plate mount
[*]2 JVAB Group N top mounts
[*]2 boxes of Misc Parts (bearings, seals etc)
[*]3 Gallons of auto paint



And now onto what is "Saab" about this.

Seeing as I am a saab guy, and John pretends to be a Saab guy with that unbelievably awesomely powerful V4 powered jewel-like 96 thing of his, saab wheels and brakes are the shit. Nice and deep hats and really cheap. Saab wheels are likewise very strong, cheap and I already have a crapload.

John and I spent some qualty time coming up with a solution* for how to get the right offset for saab wheels and tires. some awesome adapters here they with the ford stub axles:

Quality time while the lathe was going and the chips were flying---quality time but not enough time to even grab and envelope and make a sketch! Poor old lathe was groaning!

But it worked!

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Rear:

IMG]http://i475.photobucket.com/albums/rr116/janvanv/calipermountinplace_zps2e96da04.jpg[/IMG]


Gonna re-invet the wheel?

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Yep I did, because everything here is from 4 months ago, and at that point you didn't have a rear solution in mind in the forseeable future. And remember, I am a different bolt pattern so none of the hats would work.

If I would have known I would delay as long as I did, I would have waited, but hey if I would have known lots of things I would have done it different.

Thats why they call them lessons learned... well or lessons gathered, filed and forgotten

Quote
john vanlandingham

Quote
MattWatson
Seeing as I am a saab guy, and John pretends to be a Saab guy with that unbelievably awesomely powerful V4 powered jewel-like 96 thing of his, saab wheels and brakes are the shit. Nice and deep hats and really cheap. Saab wheels are likewise very strong, cheap and I already have a crapload.

John and I spent some qualty time coming up with a solution* for how to get the right offset for saab wheels and tires. some awesome adapters here they with the ford stub axles:

Quality time while the lathe was going and the chips were flying---quality time but not enough time to even grab and envelope and make a sketch! Poor old lathe was groaning!

But it worked!

Yep,boy was I happy when I pressed the studs in and it actually worked haha. We did sketch it, and talk about them for oh 3 hours or so on the phone between philsophical musings.

And I almost missed the comment about the 96. You know when my wife likes the car that it's a winner. She has good taste. Her comment afterwards was "why didn't you build one of those?"

Thanks for posting all this! Let us know what works and what doesn't. Some of these pictures will help immensely with my build.

Quote
Thomas Kimsey
Thanks for posting all this! Let us know what works and what doesn't. Some of these pictures will help immensely with my build.

Lessons Learned:

1. Seat mounts: Do the floor thing rather than the bar. You'll have to replace the cat, but its worth it for ease of fab. I thought it would be harder than the bar, but when I did the bar mounts on the passenger side it took WAAAYYYY more time. I have no good efficient way to cut sheet stock, so I thought the bars would be easier. Nope, and the floor functions better anyway. I hae more detailed pics too.

2. I did most of the generic re-enforcements specified in the Sierra rally manual that ford put out. They are easy.

3. the rear bar to re-enforce the shock towers was put in because my scrutineer wanted to see a full legal plate instead of just tieing to the shock mounts. I don't know if I'd do it again vs terminating to the wheel well. I'd do it in 1 1/2 next time rather than 1 3/4" for sure (what I had left over)

Let me know if there is anything you want better pictures of. I'm more than willing to help out.

Will be cool to see a local Xrat out on the stages

---

Runamuck Rally

John, looking at finishing some more of the rear control arms: You had mentioned to extend the shock mounting point by ~ 1 bolt hole diameter correct, to avoid contact?

Anyone have any advice as to what they wouldn't do again post shell prep? (Well maybe including seam welding, I have some left to do)

I am trying to get my mind back around this beast. Planning on pairing down the stock wiring harness, running stock ECU, or potentially megasquirt has been sitting in a corner for a while.

Quote
MattWatson
Planning on pairing down the stock wiring harness,

Yeah, that's loads of fun. Literally half the wiring harness is wires running back and forth all over the car to the center console to tell you if you have a burned out light bulb.