Saab 96 B207R Powered Track Car
The day our new 'project' arrived to it's new home...
Straight on the scales for a weigh in.
Standard weight with half a tank of fuel:
Let the stripping begin!
Inspection from quality control.
We plan on 'squeezing' the one on the left into the one on the right :-)
Donor car - Saab 9-3 Sport Aero 2004
Cutting away the roof from the 9-3 Sport Chassis
Still runs and drives!!!
Quality control Inspection...
Floorpan cut away from the chassis
Saab 96 shell resting on the floopan of the 9-3 Sport...and trying out it's new 'boots'
Starting to take shape
On the scales for another weigh in to see where we're at...
Our finished target weight is under 1000kg - so far so good :-)
Stripping down and lightening of doors
Stripped door vs original door
In the meantime, rust repairs carried out...
...and dressing of inner wheel arches carried out
Templates made in card first
Sizing up...
Smooth transition between Saab 96 and Saab 9-3 Sport
Internal seam welding
Rear quarters ready for modification...
Splitting the scuttle panel and mounting some 4 inches further forward - this is to
accomodate the longer engine bay of the 9-3 Sport
We have cut out the boot floor of the 96 and where it meets the 9-3 Sport floorpan
Flattening and shaping the sills, getting rid of the gaping holes
Now moved into the boot area, and have filled the void where the spare wheel well once was
One side sill has now been filled and shaped, just needs tidying up
Boot floor now finished, here's how it looks
Dressing the end of the sill
The spare wheel well/boot floor totally flat, welded and grinded flat
Finished off the repairs on the rear quarter and replaced all corroded sections
We have started today by building the A Post.
We have chopped the 96's A Post off and are now modifying it to fit the 9-3 Sport A Post.
Once in place we can then mount the 96 Doors
With the A Pillar in place we mock fitted the door in place to see if it would fit
With the door fitting well in it's place we spent the afternoon positioning the hinges and strengthening the A Pillar
We are now fixing into position the Scuttle panel in order to mount the bonnet
At the end of the day we decided to mount the Team Dynamics wheels and slicks onto the car to establish the stance and general shape of the car
Made a good start to extending the scuttle panel today. We simply used a a length of sheet metal and tacked it in placed and shaped it accordingly
The Diffuser has arrived!
Cutting out rear panel to fit the rear diffuser and also rid it of corrosion
Diffuser Fitting Nice And Snug, Just Need To Make Some Mountings To Secure The Diffuser
Today we are going to be working on making the front suspension turrets more rigid and then hopefully mount all front end panels loosely to give us an idea of the shape
Suspension turrets now strengthened against the bulkhead 'cross bar'.
With the bonnet in place, we have had to cut the wing in half and use a second wing to lengthen it
The diffuser is now securely fixed in place, just trying to decide where the exhaust will exit
As you can see we have also cut and lengthened the off side wing and mock fitted in place
Front end is now all sized up and in place, doors opening and closing well - top half of the wings are welded together and screw into their places
The NSR wheel arch is currently under construction. It seems as though it's going to be quite wide
We have been working on the NSR and NSF wings to extend them to accommodate the wide track of the 9-3 Sport. The NSR wing had to be extended by some 180mm to allow clearance between the wheel arch and tyre.
The NSF wheel arch has been tack welded and fitted in place - this has been extended 150mm however still needs plenty of work to shape and take into account wheel tyre/wheel arch clearance. At present there is only 25mm between the tyre and wheel arch, not enough in our opinion especially under heavy braking/cornering etc
We have got to the stage of fillering, rubbing down and priming the NSR wing. Starting to take a better shape now
Since mocking up the near side front wing, we haven't been very happy with the shape of the first design
, we have again made another mock up for the new shape that we think suits the car better,
we will begin fabricating it out of steel tomorrow. There will be air scoops incorporated in it
Progress Made....
This is where the back vent will go
This is where the duct vent will go
Both wings have now been fabricated.
The next job to do is start designing the front valance and splitter and cut out the air ducts
The Cobra Monaco Pro Bucket Seats have arrived!
We spent today seem welding both inside and outside the NSF wing and started to develop the shape of the duct and lower spoiler
The metal fabrication on the wing is now complete. It's now become more rigid
As you can see the wing duct has now been constructed.
Applied The First Layer Of Filler
The nearside front wing has had 3 skims of filler, 2 skims of top stop, and then has been rubbed down and shaped to suit.
We finally gave it one coat of etching primer to finish.
Look whats arrived... A special edition Maptun Brake Kit, 6 Pot Calipers and 355mm Floating Discs
Today we have concentrated on finishing off the rear quarter and the door. We have also repaired the side seal.
Tomorrow we will start on the side skirt, producing a few mock ups
We started fabricating the offside wing today as you can see
Door has now been fillered and rubbed down, as has the offside sill.
In the mean time we are also mocking up some ideas for the front panel.
We have started on the A Pillar by filling it and rubbing it down. We have also made a start on the off side rear quarter
We have completed the repairs on the rear screen surround, and have fillered, rubbed down and primered the rear quarter and sill
We have started to smoothen off the transition between the front panel and wings also getting rid of the overlap.
We are now playing with ideas on how to design the front intercooler vent and lower splitter
Today we were playing around with a 9000 Aero side skirt to see if we could incorporate it somehow into the side sill
Laser alignment of the rear wings to ensure they are the same height
We have moved onto the off side front wing today. It is now on its first layer of filler and it currently being rubbed down.
As you can see from the photos below the front panel is also in the early stages of fabrication.
We've now got the two wings and front panel shaped, filled and in primer.We are sure you will agree it's starting to look quite mean
We have cut into the front of the rear wing as we were not happy with its angular shape, we have rounded it off to match the curvier design of the original 96
We have added a lower extension to visually balance off the car. We have also incorporated vents on the rear of the wing
We rolled the 96 out to see how it is looking on its wheels. As you can see it is currently mock fitted with a 9000 side skirt.
We have just finished re-shaping the off side rear wing, it just needs filling and primer, today we are doing the same with the near side rear
We have also just received the new Maptun coilover system which is soon to be fitted to the car.
This is the second generation kit and now have damper control, each shock absorber had a 12 way valve adjuster.
The first generation coilover kit had non adjust shocks and was equivalent to position 6 on the new design shock absorbers
Following the arrival of our rear lights, we have fabricated bezels for them to sit in and have mounted them to the rear of the car.
You will notice on the rear wings we had to re shape the corners where the original 96 lights once were.
Both rear wings and rear panel are now complete.
The light recesses and mounting points have all been made, wiring to be completed at a later stage
We rolled the 96 out into the yard yesterday evening and took some snapshots of where stand at the moment
Due to the floor pan of the 9-3 sport being wider than the original 96, the steering column now naturally sits too close to the off side door as you can see below.
As you can see in the photos below we have successfully re located the steering column 45mm to the left
We have also had time to line up and mock fit the roll cage, taking into account the position of the seats and the gear selector
Today we have temporarily tack fitted some of the anti roll bar and dropped it down to allow us to seam weld it.
You will notice the movement of the steering column from yesterday
Now starting to seam weld the roll cage in place...
We have now fitted 90% of the roll cage.
The last 2 pieces that now need to be fitted is the bar between the front suspension turret to the base of the A post on either side of the car.
We have already cut the 2 holes in the 9-3 Sport bulk head to allow them to go through.
This is the offside foot well where the bar will be fitted
Another concept drawing based on our current 96/9-3 Sport hybrid, this time incorporating the Neo Brothers colour scheme
We have now started to seal the bulkhead/firewall. We are using a cardboard template to size up the panels for shape
Days drawing to an end, this is where we got up to today!
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