1963 SAAB 96

I convinced my pal, Jeff, to FINALLY get into motorsports - and what does he decide he wants? A Historic class rally car. Well...we started small and things sorta mushroomed.

In March the car was a stock, rusty, 650cc 96 with a running, but sick motor.

Since then, we've (mostly Jeff) rebuilt the rear axle assembly, installed new bushings (stock), bearings, wheel cylinders, brake springs, shoes, and new shocks. E brake cables were greased and in good shape. Next was stainless braided brake lines and new limiting straps. Later was a new 4 row copper core radiator.

In late April Jeff bought a late '66. He swapped out the four speed and slightly more modern CV joints for the old '63 three speed and guibo axles. He also robbed the better brakes off the '66. The original gas tank was resealed and painted, and the front bumper was rechromed.

The motor in the '66 is an 850cc with the triple carbs. Jeff found a full circle sport crank in Sweden and shipped the entire mess to Bud Clark to turn it into a fire breathing race motor. Well, as fire breathing as a two stroke, three cylinder SAAB can be. The distributor was upgraded with a Pertronix.

Putting a late two-stroke in a bullnose (early) SAAB turned out to be a hassle. Some guys told us it wasn't possible. But, we had to slightly relocate the throttle linkage, relocate the lower radiator outlet, and change it from a 0.75 to a 1.25 outlet, come up with all sorts of rerouted coolant hoses, and ditch the jackshaft driven fan for an electric.

As of last weekend, the late two-stroke motor is back from the maestro race motor builder and in the car. The carbs have been rebuilt and the manifold has been port matched to the porting on the block. We expect around 85hp from it.

We've patched all the rust in the floor and added a double skinned floor between the engine compartment and the seats. We cut out the soft rockers, plug welded 2x2" square tubing into the rockers and plated over the open rockers - they're stiff enough to jack up the car at any point on the rocker. We built a full FIA cage with an additional dash bar. We cut out the original seat mounts and added 2x2" square tubing across the car from rocker to rocker in front of the seats and plated the floor below the seats. We reinforced the rear suspension pickup points, the front towers, plated the shock mounts, and built additional stiffeners to put the front shocks in double shear. And we painted it all with a brush! :lol:

We chased down a leaky hard brake line and ended up replacing all the hard lines. That was after the stainless flexible lines and all the wheel cylinders, rebuilding the master cylinder, and installing racing brake shoes.

I replaced the hard line from the gas tank to the front of the engine compartment where it mates to an electric pump with a spare mounted right next to it. We boxed in the trunk and package tray to close in the gas tank. We mounted a shelf over the tank and put in straps to hold down one or two spare tires. The rest of the gear - spill kit, tool box, triangles, tow rope and first aid kit still have to be tied down in the trunk.

To match the skinny wheels we chose Mickey Thompson Mini-Mag tires. Not modern rally tires. We'll see how they work out and are prepared to groove them if needed.

Eye nuts have been installed front and rear as tow loops. The three brackets up front and one in back hold Cibie Oscar lights. Vintage convex Cibie headlights took the place of the junky sealed beams.

All the suspension arms and links have been boxed or plated and all new bushings installed. Jeff installed Bilstein shocks up front but we haven't been able to find them for the rear - so it's KYB for now. Anyone have any Bilsteins for the rear of a Bullnose?

The muffler and exhaust manifold has been jet-hot coated and a new exhaust and mounts have been installed. This weekend I tapped the manifold for the EGT sensor.

One of Jeff's pals that's good with old paint mixed up his magic potion and removed all the surface rust and smoothed out the paint so it's not quite so crusty looking. The worst section of the bumper was rechromed and the wheels were rattlecanned. Special touch - and family tradition - Jeff used airplane valve caps.

I bought a Terratrip 404 and we're not sure how/where to mount it. I also bought a PS Engineering airplane intercom amp and a pair of David Clark headsets to gut for helmet intercom parts.

We've still got a lot to finish before the Paris Rally after Thanksgiving. Get the engine fired and tuned - nut and bolt the car a few more times - readjust the brakes - install the seats and belts - reinstall the wiring and wire up the new starter button, horn and lights - install the tie-downs in the trunk - wiring the intercom and computer.

Anything we've done horribly wrong? Any last minute tips for finishing or something we've forgotten? I know everyone says to buy a beater as a first rally car, but my pal wouldn't do it unless he built a fun car for it.

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Jason McDaniel

Some in progress photos...

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Jason McDaniel

And some more...

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Jason McDaniel

Last two for now.

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Jason McDaniel

Hard to tell from the pics,the door bars look like 1.5 tubing ? Do you have a sill bar along the floor ?

heymagic Wrote:
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> Hard to tell from the pics,the door bars look like
> 1.5 tubing ? Do you have a sill bar along the
> floor ?

Gene, what about the angle of the main hoop rear support stays? Looks way too acute to me.

Jason, for your odo probe what I've done----way back when I still had drum brakes in the rtear----was take a 1/4 wide grinding wheel and grind 5 notches 1/4 wide x 1/4 deep---and if you have the energy you can use the lug bolt hols as a guide, just trace out to the rim, amybe get fancy and index half space and grind 5 more tween the first for better resolution.
Then I made a 3/8" thick nylon mount for the actual probe using two of the rearmost backing plate bolt holes and then drilled thru the backing plate so the probe can "see" the notches in the rim of the drum..
Lots of rocks fly around in the back of the Saab, so a smarter cookie would maybe position the probe more towards 1 o'clock rather than say 3 O'clock.
Armor the cable.
>

What final drive you guys have?
Seems the old 5.83 or as the Swedes call it 6:35 would seem to be the thing.
>

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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.

heymagic Wrote:
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> Hard to tell from the pics,the door bars look like
> 1.5 tubing ? Do you have a sill bar along the
> floor ?
>
>
Well, if he used CDS tubing the rest of it looks like it pretty much satisfies FIA specs (appendix J, article 253) and then he wouldn't need sill bars as FIA doesn't require those. But he would have to prove he used CDS.

Neat or Sonett.
Still own 1" sparkplug socket.
Have you considered using 70+ front discs or a Sonett tranny for
slightly higher final drive and maybe even a floor shifter?
Which oil is your engine builder recommending? What a great
project.
JT

Found this-






Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2008 09:24PM by MrToad.

We used 1.75 CDS tubing and have the certification papers for it. We had to present them for a logbook. There's no sill bar, but we did stick some thick wall 2x2" square tubing the full length inside the rocker. Everything ties into it. The angle of the downtubes is the minimum angle. 30 degrees IIRC. We had a hard time getting it in front of the rear suspension mounts and up to the main hoop like the FIA rules require.

We would have liked to swap to a Sonett floor shift, and late 96 discs, but we're out of time for Paris. We may try to round up the parts for 100 Acre Woods.

The head has been converted to use 14mm plugs. The builder recommended Redline 2-stroke oil. Jeff picked up a few gallons of it today $$$$.

For this event we're going to use the Terratrip universal speedo cable probe. It's en route. The car still uses lug-bolts. We may swap to proper studs and put sensors in the rear backing plates. I already have the sensors, and the armor for the wire, just don't have any stud heads.

Not sure about the final drive. The transmission is standard 1966 SAAB 96.

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Jason McDaniel

MrToad Wrote:
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> Neat or Sonett.
> Still own 1" sparkplug socket.
> Have you considered using 70+ front discs or a
> Sonett tranny for
> slightly higher final drive

Er Um what the hell do you think you need HIGHER final drive for?
Sonett is 4.67
V4 is 4.88
There was a GT850 one at 5.15 but hyper rare
2 stroke was 5.45
"Tall" rally V4 was 5.45 (usually used on bigger 1815cc, dual exhaust port, 2 x 45 DCOE motors or just faster stages)
"6:35" was 5.85 (used on 2 strokes and V4 with say single exhaust ports, and less than 2 x 45 DCOEs)(What the motor doesn't make for power the gearing does)

And the discs are '68 and later.


Also the Sonetts are the weakest of all the V4 ring gears with 9 on pinion and 42 on ring gear, I've seen far more broken than the small percentage of cars which had them should justify.

So why?






and maybe even a floor
> shifter?
> Which oil is your engine builder recommending?
> What a great
> project.
> JT
>
> Found this-
>
>
>
>
> Edited 2 times. Last edit at Nov 18, 2008 by
> MrToad.

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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.

MrToad Wrote:
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and maybe even a floor
> shifter?

Why would you want that? You can shift a 96 without taking your hands off the steering wheel. Even WRC cars have the shifter at the wheel nowadays. Have you noticed how everything has come full circle, or maybe SAAB was just way ahead of it's time.

Doivi Clarkinen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> MrToad Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> and maybe even a floor
> > shifter?
>
> Why would you want that? You can shift a 96
> without taking your hands off the steering wheel.
> Even WRC cars have the shifter at the wheel
> nowadays. Have you noticed how everything has
> come full circle, or maybe SAAB was just way ahead
> of it's time.


^^^^^
What he said. The couple times I've driven a 96, I actually LIKED the column shift. With the exception of finding reverse, it's dead easy to drive and you can keep your hands on the wheel. In a narrow car like a 96, I would think you'd be grabbing your navvie's thighs more often than a gearshift lever (yeah, I'm leaving that wide open for Merilee =P ).

Sounds like a lot of the Sonett ideas are solutions in search of a problem.

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Andrew Steere
Lyndeborough, NH
KB1PJY

Not just Merilee! I far prefer to grabbing (other people's or farm animals) thighs to gear levers myself. I'll still stir up a gear lever in a pinch. Any port in a storm, eh?

"Oh sorry, I forgot it was an automatic."

I think anyone who is at peace enough with one's self enough to drive a SAAB 96 popcorn popper, is going to be pretty comfortable reaching out for more than the odd thigh.

Peace, love and understanding!

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Ted Mendham
www.rensport.net

tedm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> I think anyone who is at peace enough with one's
> self enough to drive a SAAB 96 popcorn popper, is
> going to be pretty comfortable reaching out for
> more than the odd thigh.
>
> Ted Mendham
> www.rensport.net


You should see us in our matching retro driving suits. ;-)

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Jason McDaniel

very nice. coolest car on the site.

just out of curiousity, do you pre-mix oil into the gas?

-Al