Saab 9-5 SRD Racing (Schweden)

[SRD]

Homepage SRD-racing.com

This project is from SRD, a Swedish company specialising in making cars in general, ans SAAB:s specifically, go faster.
Here´s our new project – turning a SAAB 9-5 2.3T into a full-spec racing car

 

[SRD]

Progress so far: Interior is coming out, lots of ”not suitable for racing purposes bits” go in the bin.



Our brand, SRD prides the boot lid



Cleaned out the luggage compartment, 10 more kilos gone (on the car )



engine degreasing

 

[SRD]

More progress...



Carpets are out







Here she is in the garage



JR-filter from Speedparts



Measured and cut hole for the roof scoop



.. from the inside. Just needs detailing



Job done!

 

[SRD]

Just picked up some fun stuff for the SAAB

A whole package of Powerflex bushes from http://www.speedparts.se

 

[SRD]

More acheivements from the garage..

Replacing the front bushings



A-arm about to come off



And undone. Needs paint and tidying.



Will soon look better.



Painted, cleaned and new bushings in place
More bushings replaced



Dismantled. Will change to bigger later on, present diameter is 17 mm,



Bracket for the bushing



Bushing in place.

 

[SRD]

Last bushings in the rear end replaced



Rearend bushing Powerflex



The original bushing, seen its better days



Old bushing gone


Old bushing out.


New bushing in place.



In place
Talking about sponsors. A new sponsor has decided to support the build of the SRD Nürburgring 9-5, so there will be more upgrades coming soon.

But first, a problem that occured. I had difficulties changing ear, and it turned out the engine steady had broke.



I made a new one, non-flexible.



Old vs. new



New steady in position.



Additional strength added with this. No movement now.

And- from our new sponsor, this is what is on its way to the workshop



330 mm discs, 6-pot calipers



Adjustable coilovers



Adjustable upper strut mounts

 

[SRD]

A few more achievements..



Sponsor badge (Speedparts)





And, most importantly, I started constructing a new exhaust. Down pipe diameter is 3".


Down pipe taking shape.



Trial fitted



Lambda probe in place.



Some new parts.



Flex Extension.

Today I got the exhaust system finished, just waiting for the cat. And got some material for constructing adjustable rear suspension.

Down pipe is ready for assembly.





Down pipe in the car




From the rear end




Adjusatble TCA:s




New endpipe



Original vs. new dump valve.



New dump valve in place.

More sponsors proudly on the car. The adjustable rear end is also in place now.





What she looks like now

http://www.geting.se

TCA:s

This is how the rear end was mounted in position.

[url=http://www.geting.se/viewimage.php?image=225835-7530_2010-03-03-img_2772.jpg][img]http://www.geting.se/image.php/225835-7530_2010-03-03-img_2772.jpg

 

[SRD]

Cage being installed. Tubes just about everywhere..

 

[SRD]

some new pics

 

[SRD]

New pedalbox with adjustable brake bias.. not cheap

 

[SRD]

Really dug into the car today. Got the steering column back into the car, the reservoirs for the new pedalbox and more. Great progress today.

.. and the proof :)



Mounting bracket for the pedalbox

 

[SRD]

Here are some pictures showing what will happen to the rear end set-up. The wishbones need more clearance if we are to lower the car further, hence the surgery.







OK, time to start the long road back to a working rear-end set-up. No turning back now :)





more work 8)

 

[SRD]

Yesterday went really well in the garage.







The rear end of the car is now ready. Hours and hours went in over the weekend, but it paid off. The rear end can now be lowered. That will cure the oversteering, which haunted us last season. The gap between the wheel wells is for the fuel cell.










Wheelwells painted. Actually, the chassis is colourcoded. All adjustable bits are to be yellow. Wheel wells don´t qulify as adjustable :), so they were painted white.

 

[SRD]

Today there was further progress. Nice to know that people are following the project. I´m working on strengthening the strut towers. The strut tower bar will be a home-fabrication, angled towards the a-posts and the scuttle panel. The reason it´s angled pointing rearwards, is that the space between the strut towers will be occupied by the intake manifold, once the race-spec engine is built. Better do it right first time.. :)










This Saturday me and David worked hard. All welding inside the car got finished and David got the engine and gearbox out. After that, we continued with reinforcing the front strut towers.

So, after a 12-hour nightshift in the garage, we were really pleased with what we´ve acheived. Take a look for yourselves!


Original strut tower


SRD Racing strut tower


Hope this will help preventing bodyroll
Last night, me and David get a bit more done on our racecar. Now it´s down to maybe four more hours of welding, before all the welding is done. Feels great to be "almost there".

I'll post some pictures of what we've done lately. Don´t hesitate to ask if you have any questions about the car.







Some pictures of the last few days job.

The engine compartment is cleaned and two coats of primer is added.

 

[SRD]

Today, work on the cylinder head began. The old head had cracked, so it´s been substituted for T5 atmohead. We believe that will provide us extra power, once the SRD-mods have been performed :loco: . I started by dismantling it. Then it was soaked in a degreasing-bath. A little bit of manual scrubbing after that made it all nice and shiny.

Here it is in the bath



Nice and shiny



Porting work has begun. Lots left, but getting there

Today, more work was done to the head. The intake ports are now almost done. Will add a few hours of work tomorrow and hopefully finish it.

Pics of the porting:




The ports will be smoothed out and then shot blasted

avgas port

Intake port size is originally 43mm x 31 mm, now it´s 50 x 35. org

 

[SRD]

More good news from this week:

Stefan shotblasted the intake

The engine is now totally dismantled. Jimmy will clean everything next week, once the head work is finished.

Engine turned out to be in really good condition. After almost 200 000 miles, the only real wear we found was on the main bearing on #3.

Saturday continued with Stefan scraping off the sound deadening left inside the car, then the brackets for the seat belts were welded in.

Finally, the engine compartment was painted white. Feels nice, after doing odds and ends all weekend, to do something that really can be seen.

Not the best pics, forgot the Nikon at home and the compact doesn´t really meet the same standards

David

Couldn´t hold myself from trial-fitting the front fenders once the engine compartment was painted

 

[SRD]

Gearbox

Exhaust

Today I was in the garage and cleaned up a bit in the car. The floor got a coat of primer.

 

[SRD]

Have now got the engine block painted. It got four layers of white paint and two layers of clear, so I hope it will be easy to keep clean. Chosing white makes it easier to spot any leaks that may occur.

Could look really good once the valve cover has been painted white, too.
Have now got the engine block painted. It got four layers of white paint and two layers of clear, so I hope it will be easy to keep clean. Chosing white makes it easier to spot any leaks that may occur.

Could look really good once the valve cover has been painted white, too.

 

[SRD]

Here are some more photos of the cylinder head

Valves.

Not much left before it´s finished.

Exhaust

Intake

Intake

 

[SRD]

My new front