SAAB 99 builds....

I was hoping to find a thread or webpage with a good rundown of prepping a SAAB 99 for rallycross or rally in general. I know its not the most competitive car, but I had one back in the early 1980's and I just bought a 1974 99 EMS thats been parked since 1983 and this is probably best use for it. Unfortunately Im in Texas and there is not a lot racing on dirt here, mainly just SCCA road rally (TSD once a year) and pro solo, but just north of us is a few rallycross events.

So this will be a mixed use car. And i know its better to go one direction of the other, but I don't expect to win just have some fun.

---

Rick Wallace
1974 SAAB 99 EMS

No chip on your shoulder about "winning", that's a great start. For just starting out in grass-o-cross, "a build" is as simple as:

1. Replace your fossilized shocks with whatever is cheap. Keep stock springs (assuming they're not rotted away).

2. Change fluids, spark plugs, filters, pads + rotors (economy OK)... normal maintenance stuff.

3. Buy tires. Good all-seasons, snow tires, rally takeoffs, whatever you can fit and is cheap.

4. Enter events. Drive. Repeat. Repeat more.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2017 05:02PM by Rolling Blunder.

Quote
Rolling Blunder
No chip on your shoulder about "winning", that's a great start. For just starting out in grass-o-cross, "a build" is as simple as:

1. Replace your fossilized shocks with whatever is cheap. Keep stock springs (assuming they're not rotted away).

2. Change fluids, spark plugs, filters, pads + rotors (economy OK)... normal maintenance stuff.

3. Buy tires. Good all-seasons, snow tires, rally takeoffs, whatever you can fit and is cheap.

4. Enter events. Drive. Repeat. Repeat more.

Best-est answer evar!!! And from a fawkin Blubaroo driver yet! Who'da thunk it..

Hey Rick, long time Saab guy here---second ride EVER in a Saab was Stockholm to Huskvarna Sweden on 19 September 1974 in a 73 EMS---on back roads cause the cops had just gotten their first ever radar guns and announced on TV that that weekend they'd be patrolling the main N/S round we'd normally take...

Now I was just on the phone with a good guy in Texas who you should hook up with cause if there's any dirt to be sprayed around, he's helping.. Dunham is his name..he's right now bangin diff seals in his Mare-kooooor Xratty that I found for him for cheap.

74 EMS if it runs is maybe the best year 99 because of the nice D-jet management on it which is a MAP senor based system and is more fiddle-able easier than the next year to the end "K-jet" or "CIS" stuff..

How familiar are you with 99s? No point in me telling all sorts of shit you might know already, right?

Every particular car dies in mostly the same way and I've gotten more free 99s for really simple things that "can't be fixed" that I ever wanted....Hell my first saab and first car engine I ever built was a D-jet 99 way back in 1978..born 1709cc (the English engine that Saab and Triumph split the design and development costs on) but was like 1945cc when done..
So one big thing to look at is the hose from tank to fuel pump and fuel pump to the front..It passes thru the real wheel arch on driver's side and is always baked with dirt and shit so you can not see when they get all dry rotted and full of microscopic cracks so the poor innocent fuel pump sucking hard will gladly suck air...15-18" of 1/2" hose--if I recall correctly and boom you've solved that..Got 2 freebie 99s with that one problem...

How about the trigger points in the dizzy down below the normal points? NOBODY EVER lubes the points cam so the rubbing block wears and no open points= no injector wants to fire..

Shocks...99 fronts are still available from Bilstein.. they'll do fine
99 rears you don't want..They are a pin mount both TOP and BOTTOM so the lowest thing in the car is that measly M10 x 1 pin hanging down below the rear lower spring seat..


Find a photo or sample of a 900 lower spring pan and you'll see Saab just drilled thru the side and used a long bolt and a lower eyelet.. Like this:


Here's the rear lower spring pans, lousy photo but better than anybody else has posted so fawk 'em if they can't take a joke.


Here's 2 for $65
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Saab-c900-Classic-900-Spring-Links-2/201913239337?epid=1622171107&hash=item2f02f78729:g:qNcAAOSwDNdVpwaT

In the front 99s had a nasty habit of breaking off the lower shock mount...Find some 900 lower A arms and weld things up..direct interchange..

Yoiu WILL absolutely want to invent something better for the front motor mount than the junk Saab supplied..(in before fucking hockey pucks..fuck that shit was and is bullshit) I can draw you up what Saab themselves did,,simple stuff but it will require welding.. That was a chronic failure on street driven Saabs (had to fix that on this cutie-pie girl from Texas Beth who was up here and drive like a maniac doing jumps off of when the streets go downhill and level out WHOOOOOOSH! Wham! Oh I had the hots for her but she was being to bashful...)
If you don't it eventually tears up the sheet metal where the mount is and now you have a repair AND a fix to do>>
And the way the shifter is bolted to the floor, if the motor moves in relation to the stick--and they leap around--is the same as moving the shifter--and the fuckers jump outta gear..


What else..ask questions, don't be shy..There's some real winners here so watch out...

Whaddya have for wheels? (I need to get rid of some 99 wheels) the ordinary EMS wheels are the hot shit, nearly indestructible even when you chuck 'em up in a lathe and carve off 5 lbs.. Only thing better is Minilites and you ain't getting any of mine. So solly Loundeye!

OK gotta go fold clothes now..
Write more.

---

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.

I drove a semi-rally prepared car on the street back in the 1980's, and I raced it between 1983-1986 in a several SCCA pro solos and two rallycross events until I managed to break the rear drivers side shock thru the frame. I was bit ahead of time around here - driving a tuned import (MSS headers, carbs, headers, no interior, driving seats and rollbar, konis, Ronal R-10s, modified lower aframes, and a 900 rear axle) and I've never had as much fun since. I had all the usual fights with the fuel pump, vacuum leaks, electrical gremlins (I had a nail stuck thru two wires going to key switch to be able to start it) - but then I moved on to SPGs and now 9-5 aeros.

I have found an ex-race prepped 99 here in Texas that I think won an SCCA regional back in the day. The body is massively rusted out, but should have a lot of engineering goodies and parts on it. It's one of Richard Millers old race cars, which I tried to buy back in the late 1980's but back then I couldn't get him to let it go. I'm not even sure if its his old IT or prorally car. Ive only seen it once and that was 8 years ago, and I've slept some since then.

I'm going to follow all the advice I get here. Been out the game a long time.

---

Rick Wallace
1974 SAAB 99 EMS



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2017 08:33AM by rickwtexas.

If its one one that crustacean Miller's ex cars it probably is stock stock stock...And the good thing is it has with all certainty never been revved higher than max 2500 rpm---judging from a nearly 30 year record of coming last or second to last in virtually every rally entered..

You do want to put a plate on the upper A arms as well as the lower and weld around the pivot shaft.. Again I can show you nice photos to illustrate...
I have broken an upper..Insta-bowel evacuation. 4 Inches toe out on one side--headed 45* for the woods at 75 while turning wheel the other way..Yee haw..
weld it.

---

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.

Hey Rick,

I'm just to the north of you in Hurst, let me know if you need an extra hand when you're wrenching.

I've got a Xratti that is in the process of getting back to a 'reliable' street-driven car before attempting some rallycross and autocross (despite how adamantly everyone who knows me and hears about the car says 'When does the cage go in?').

There's a decent amount of rallycross near Austin which is much closer than going up to Oklahoma if thats what you were meaning by north. There's Brianne's series, and sometimes there's events at the Rally Ranch (Rally Ready Driving School) which are both down there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2017 04:03PM by dunhamr1.

I guess my search skills are really bad... Yeah Austin is much easier. I have a 9-7X for trailering duties. Probably take the winter get my act together but I'm pretty dedicated to this one.

https://ibb.co/eWF3k6
https://ibb.co/knqEsm
https://ibb.co/gD69Q6

John Vanlandingham: I started practicing my welding skills last night so I can follow your instructions. I did most of what you said back in 1983 but I drank so much in the 1990's I can't recall much of it. There is one 900 in a wrecking yard around here. So much has been crushed..

Ryan Dunham: I'll have questions, glad you're close by. Did you buy the XR4ti that was parked on Abrams street here in Arlington? Sat in front of a window tint biz for 5 years, got moved just in the last few months. Blue I think.

---

Rick Wallace
1974 SAAB 99 EMS

No, I bought mine somewhere south of Dallas almost to Waco, on a tip from John incidentally! I guess that was almost two years ago now. I wish I had known about that one, always good to have spares :-) there are three in Houston that a guy is trying to get rid of that I might pick up and pack away...

Mine is a red single wing 1989, I hauled it up to Deetroit for a year and got it running while I was up there, but moved back down here earlier in the year.

Definitely let me know and like John said those stock wheels are nice, don't let me find them, I think they are 4x108 as well!

Quote
dunhamr1
No, I bought mine somewhere south of Dallas almost to Waco, on a tip from John incidentally! I guess that was almost two years ago now. I wish I had known about that one, always good to have spares :-) there are three in Houston that a guy is trying to get rid of that I might pick up and pack away...

Mine is a red single wing 1989, I hauled it up to Deetroit for a year and got it running while I was up there, but moved back down here earlier in the year.

Definitely let me know and like John said those stock wheels are nice, don't let me find them, I think they are 4x108 as well!

Getting that running was suuuuuuuuuuuuure a lotta fun wuddnit?

99 and 900 wheels from 1969 thru 1987 were 4 on 4 1/2"
9000 wheels from beginning and 900 wheels from 88 were 4 on 4 1/4"

Or-----for some reason know but to Dog 114,3mm and "108" even if its 107,95mm

9000 will do and clear calipers and stuff..900 wheels have a different width and inside profile so the tend NOT to clear...

9000 wheel 15 x 6 ET 33



900 wheel 15 x 5.5 ET like 38 or 40



Simplest ID is the 9000 wheel jas an extra small hole cuase they went to M14 x 1.5 BOLTS so there's a peg to hand the wheel on

I've said everybody should go to M14 x 1.5 STUDS so they got the size right but screw bolts.

The 9000 wheel clears normal caliper and brake and bigger 2wd stuff but won't quite clear my 4x4 stuff without a 4mm spacer..

---

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.