Saab 9-5 Aero - Hybrid Turbo and 9000 Bottom End - 350 bhp

[227bhp]

HybridAero said:

With the following modifications, the 2.3 turbo 16 valve lump is capable of 350 bhp and 540 NM / 398 lb ft. When you take into consideration that an e39 M5 weighs 200 kg more (1520 vs 1720 kg), and has 369 lb ft (and has to rev higher to deliver that much torque), it doesn't take a genius to realise this will be a fairly swift motor once complete. Throw in the fact that front wheel drive configuration results in less power loss between crank and wheel, on the road performance will be surprisingly brutal.

It doesn't take a genius to point out the obvious lack of grip an over powered FWD will have compared to a RWD either, but nonetheless I like a bit of Nordic Noir. It looks great in that colour with the black wheels, watching with interest.

[HybridAero]

227bhp said:

It doesn't take a genius to point out the obvious lack of grip an over powered FWD will have compared to a RWD either, but nonetheless I like a bit of Nordic Noir. It looks great in that colour with the black wheels, watching with interest.

They look black in some of the above pics, but are actually anthracite wheels (see below in a better light), shot-blasted and powder-coated at Total Wheel Works in Nottingham, can strongly recommend them.



Yeh FWD is always going to be a weak point, would be awesome with RWD, but in the dry at least, once in to 2nd gear it just grips and goes.

Edited by HybridAero on Saturday 18th February 12:28

[HybridAero]

wormus said:

Love this and I admire you spending a small fortune on a car that's worth nothing just to make it better. Should be fast and comfy for not very much outlay.

I'd be tempted to do similar to mine but it would almost certainly end in disaster.

Thanks, well I plan on keeping it as a long termer, and most 4 grand cars on the market are dull as dishwater, and still require work, so would rather have a cheap base car with potential, with new underpinnings.

Edited by HybridAero on Tuesday 26th April 21:11

[Evoluzione]

HybridAero said:

Of more interest to me are VMAX type events, from a rolling start.

To give y'all some context:

Here's a 9-3 Aero with similar engine spec racing a Lamborghini Gallardo from a standing start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzbdkP85uco

Hmmm, hate to mention it, but that there is rolling start.

Nevertheless, keep up the good work. Impractical though the colour is I like a black car, sadly just sold my black Fiat Coupe turbo.

[HybridAero]

Evoluzione said:

Hmmm, hate to mention it, but that there is rolling start.

Nevertheless, keep up the good work. Impractical though the colour is I like a black car, sadly just sold my black Fiat Coupe turbo.

Oh yeh ha they make a lovely sound, was your standard? Black looks good for a day or 2 after cleaning then looks rubbish.

[Evoluzione]

HybridAero said:

Evoluzione said:

Hmmm, hate to mention it, but that there is rolling start.

Nevertheless, keep up the good work. Impractical though the colour is I like a black car, sadly just sold my black Fiat Coupe turbo.

Oh yeh ha they make a lovely sound, was your standard? Black looks good for a day or 2 after cleaning then looks rubbish.

Just mildly modded; chip, exhaust and coilovers. The red one has had a lot more done, there is a thread on here about it somewhere.

[AntiLagGC8]

HybridAero said:

AntiLagGC8 said:

I love it! This is what we would call a sleeper!

My Impreza is a modded 2.0t and makes 355bhp currently but only has 340lbft so quite a bit less than this monster! I find the parallels in the engine configuration interesting. I'm going for 450bhp this coming year which is easily achievable with a bigger turbo and remap. Still my build has cost more than double yours so far, so its great value!

I'm curious how traction will be with it being FWD and that much torque. Are you doing anything special in that area?

Also any plans for track days?

That must absolutely fly! What model year is your Impreza? I went out in a friend's 3 door white Type-R import with 300 bhp and that was savage both in-gear and from a standing start.

Traction-wise I am planning on getting a Quaife LSD, but no traction issues so far; the torque is limited in 1st gear to protect the gearbox and 2nd gear is fine in the dry, which I guess is down to the tyres.

I'd love to give some trackdays a go, but would have to get a baffled sump first. Various UKSaabs members suffered engine failures due to oil surging to one side of the engine and starving the other, on long and fast sweeping bends.

Of more interest to me are VMAX type events, from a rolling start.

To give y'all some context:

Here's a 9-3 Aero with similar engine spec racing a Lamborghini Gallardo from a rolling start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzbdkP85uco

Also while I'm on YouTube, back to how I was talking about the strength of the b234 lump, here's one running a reputed 618.7 bhp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU6mKshHTpo

Edited by HybridAero on Friday 1st January 15:49

Hi bud,

My car is a 99' RB5 Prodrive. The engine is fully forged with upgraded everything, fuel pump, injectors, front mount, Alcatek ECU (with launch control/anti-lag). Converting it to twin scroll really made the car for me, its now so responsive from just over 3k right up to over 7k. The twin scroll turbo just gives it a huge amount of flexibility and the lag is very little over 3.5k although below that it is still responsive in low gears but its pretty lazy until over 3.5k in 4th/5th.

When driven hard its very fast (for me!) and with the twin scroll its so exploitable although now slightly pointless because it goes so well that you really can't use it. I actually think it was more fun to drive hard at 247bhp with the much smaller TD04 turbo since you could work it hard for longer and more often. Still it sounds wonderful now (although no burble because its twin scroll) and punches hard when you get chance to use it.

It's mad that the 9-3 can nearly out drag a Gallardo. Your car is going to catch out some seriously quick cars!

This is where I'm going with mine; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ww91Q9nVoY

I always wonder if there is a PH track-day? That could be a lot of fun!

Keep the posts coming!

[Dift]

Why am I looking at Saab estates on eBay?

A nice 350bhp estate could be the ultimate motorway cruiser.

Your car looks brilliant!

[anonymous-user]

Dift said:

Why am I looking at Saab estates on eBay?

A nice 350bhp estate could be the ultimate motorway cruiser.

Your car looks brilliant!

Because they are filled with Saab turbo goodness! I bought mine as a shed for the station but I'm hatching plans for 300hp.

[griffin dai]

Have you upgraded the fuel pump & map sensor? I had to on the 9000 when going above stage 3 to stage 4 with the bigger IC & GG's (roughly 310/315bhp....standard td04 was maxed out there though)

There's was some info on a cheap(ish) LSD on UKS but I can't find the thread.

[HybridAero]

Few pics of the parts I have ready to fit after the running-in period:

0.8 bar / 11.7 Psi Kinugawa Adjustable Turbo Actuator, alongside a standard one:




BOSCH Green Giant 465 cc injectors:

Edited by HybridAero on Saturday 18th February 12:31

[HybridAero]

griffin dai said:

Have you upgraded the fuel pump & map sensor? I had to on the 9000 when going above stage 3 to stage 4 with the bigger IC & GG's (roughly 310/315bhp....standard td04 was maxed out there though)

There's was some info on a cheap(ish) LSD on UKS but I can't find the thread.

Thanks for the heads up, funnily enough I emailed Noobtune earlier to check if a Walbro 255LPH fuel pump would be required for a reliable and efficient 350 bhp.

Which MAP sensor would you recommend?

[griffin dai]

Tbh mate it was so long ago I can't remember the exact pump & sensor i fitted! Pretty sure it was a Wlabro 255 pump but there's a cheaper one availabe that's just as good, I think it's HTC or HNC? Probably more info on UKS about it.

I think I got my 3 bar map sensor from Neo Bros, could be a maptun one? There's others available though, id ask Karl though what he recommends using (same as the pump) as he'll be sorting the map.

I'd try and get it live mapped aswel, i did mine mainly by post so wasn't ideal and could never get it 100% bang on this way, but was lucky to have a quick live map sesh with Faero on a Saab meet to give it a little extra sparkle. (60-100 dropped from 4.3 to 3.8s then with some thinners in the mix, so was well worth it)

Have a chat to Karl about thinners too, I haven't touched them on my v6 but used to add 8-10% mix into a tank of vpower and it made a big difference

[Evoluzione]

We put a car on the dyno and tested thinners, it makes no difference unless you remap for it.

[griffin dai]

Evoluzione said:

We put a car on the dyno and tested thinners, it makes no difference unless you remap for it.

Which car mate? These older Saabs react very well to some thinners & vpower (never tried it in a standard car though) one was with the gt3076r around 480hp, the other was just remapped to around 220. I found no difference adding between 5-7% but really livened things up at 10% mix.

The older engines (especially the t5 cars) were over engineered, no issues on mine running with thinners over 2 years but I'm not risking it with my current 9-3...too much GM and not enough Saab in this one

[Evoluzione]

griffin dai said:

Evoluzione said:

We put a car on the dyno and tested thinners, it makes no difference unless you remap for it.

Which car mate? These older Saabs react very well to some thinners & vpower (never tried it in a standard car though) one was with the gt3076r around 480hp, the other was just remapped to around 220. I found no difference adding between 5-7% but really livened things up at 10% mix.

The older engines (especially the t5 cars) were over engineered, no issues on mine running with thinners over 2 years but I'm not risking it with my current 9-3...too much GM and not enough Saab in this one

Does the ECU adapt to whatever fuel you put in? Some later ones (in other cars) do, but I wasn't aware the Saab one does.

[Shadow R1]

Evoluzione said:

Does the ECU adapt to whatever fuel you put in? Some later ones (in other cars) do, but I wasn't aware the Saab one does.

Saab's can run on e85, i think its called the biopower edition of the 2.0t no mods needed.
If that counts for the v6 im not sure, but wouldn't surprise me.

[griffin dai]

Evoluzione said:

Does the ECU adapt to whatever fuel you put in? Some later ones (in other cars) do, but I wasn't aware the Saab one does.

Yeah the Trionic system adapts fine mate, really good considering its age.

I used to just fill up/10% thinners then pull the neg battery cable for 10-15 mins when I got home, that reset the ecu (kept the map on there but you'd lose any tweaks to the map unless it was done off the car, PITA when that happens) then take it back out for a quick hammering to adapt There's a more official way of doing it, I think it's either 3rd or 4th gear and take a couple long WOT runs up hill but found it better just caning it for a few miles with the missis screaming next to me

The only issues I ever had was with BP Ultimate, car really didn't like that and just kangarood down the road and knocked it's tits off

Vpower - best
Tesco Monentum - almost as good
Anything else ran like a bag of nails

[griffin dai]

Shadow R1 said:

Saab's can run on e85, i think its called the biopower edition of the 2.0t no mods needed.
If that counts for the v6 im not sure, but wouldn't surprise me.

I don't think we can get it here mate? I've looked but no joy, Morrisons in Cardiff sold it for a while but no more, I'd be all over it if we could get it though, JZW can map for e85 stage 5 in the states (absolute torque monsters with that 20T fitted!!) I think the v6 needs a few hardware changes.

They definitely sold some biopower 9-5's here though, pity Saab went belly up!!

[Evoluzione]

So basically the ECU is detecting which fuel it's using and changing the map to suit (literally remapping itself), yes I can see that working.

With a more basic ECU it has no idea what you are putting in the tank, therefore if it's mapped for 95 and you put 100 in there is no gain.
We found that the thinners was oxygenated like race fuel, det levels were lowered, but you had to put more in to get more power, just like you would expect with race or E85.

The problem is while race fuel is 100% consistent, paint thinners and also E85 are most definitely not, so if you have a non adaptable ECU then anything could happen from one tank to another. I just used thinners when I could get it cheap and petrol prices were high, now that has changed it isn't as attractive.