Converting Saab 900 T8 to T16 with Lucas injection

[sventurbo]

Good morning all

This weekend I will be transplanting this:



Into here:



Has anyone had anyone had any experience with swapping these engines over - obvious pitfalls and problems - I believe I have all the parts to perform a successful conversion:

- LUCAS CU14 ECU
- LUCAS CU14 wiring loom (this will be the headache)
- LUCAS air mass meter
- intake bellows and slightly different angle intake pipe
- filter box clip on lid
- distributor connection (different on T16)
- coolant hose from thermostat to top of radiator
- coolant hose from heater control valve to metal hose poking between intake runners 1 and 2
- and something else... 

I will be posting up where I get to on Sunday - any advice would be greatly appreciated!

James

[sventurbo]

Will update soon... with problems and relevant solutions!

[sventurbo]

Removing the engine was straight forward.

The whole bonnet comes off incredibly easy - you can do this with one person. Just release two bolts and it can be pulled away from the car. Putting it back on is a lot easier with two!



It provides a much better access to get at every area of the engine bay.



The items that need to be removed from the engine are incredibly obvious: intake piping, exhaust, car loom engine senors, constant injection fuelling loom, vacuum hoses to cabin and brakes, clutch line, coolant hoses, power steering.



You can clearly see the coolant leak from underneath the intake manifold... this was resolved with a new gasket and sealent but left orange everywhere.



Bes to use a flair nut spanner on the clutch line - it is in an awkward position - right below the clutch bleed nipple. This can be removed to make access easier - along with the clutch cover.



As seen here on the other engine:



To allow the removal of the driveshafts Haynes states the use of wood to hold the upper wishbone up... I absolutely hate this and I wish I knew of another method.

Easiest to get two large mates to sit on the front of the car whilst its on the ground and insert the wooden blocks in. These need to be 4 inches long and just over one inch wide. I used two pieces of ply under each wishbone arm(?). They made awful noises when lifting and deformed the once arch shaped driveshaft hole. Horrible method.







Initially I used a piece of chopped up pallet. As the car was jacked up it just split the wood in half... duh.

In the air!



The next step is to remove the driveshafts from the transmission... remove the lower balljoint bolts to allow the whole driveshaft to shift outwards. One of the ball joint bolts was cross threaded and I needed a replacement. (this would have been the perfect time to replace bottom balljoints...)



Get ready to catch any grease spills...



And remember to remove the jubilee clip that holds the gater...



The transmission linkage is an absolutely huge pain in the butt. It is a tapered pin with a thread on one end. It should be a case of removing the tiny screw and knocking the pin out. NOOOO.

DO NOT EVEN BOTHER. Attached to the car side of the transmission is a screw clamp - take this off and put the car into 1st gear. This should provide enough movement for the linkage to slip out when the engine becomes lifted...



The two transmissions I had a different gear linkage design - still using the same stupid tapered pin. However the design is no longer a rubber dougnut - it is a rubber dog bone setup.... Pictures to come!

If anybody wants to know any more specifics about anything just ask... I realise up until this point its just an engine out - ECU and fuel mods coming soon.[b/]

[sventurbo]

Continuing....

Remove the engine mounts from both sides and the front. These differ depending on year. I believe there was a period of time where Saab used a different front mounting.



The engine comes equipped with lifting eyes. I just used two heavy duty exhaust clamps and some steel cable - thanks Dave!



As it comes out remove the return line from the power steering - connected under power steering pump.





Out and on the ground. Ready to transfer the parts from the old engine.



It left a pretty grubby hole behind...



I gave the area a little clean - a lot of grime.







After this the neccesary parts were swapped over from one engine to the other. This included - front engine mount, turbo coolant line, oil filter and oil cooler lines, crank case vent hose...

However - the most awkward item was the gear linkage. As explained on the previous post - just undo the clamp and do not touch the tapered pin. The designs are different:



Refitting the 16 valve engine is the reverse of removal...



The engine was in and secured at midnight.... phew.

[sventurbo]

First start up... noisy hydraulic tappets!

[chrissyb]

was the 8 valve broken? I had a T8 (intercooled) and several T16s, didn't seem a lot in it performance wise. although the T8 was a light 2-door saloon and my 16 valves were all hatches. I suppose the T16 has more tuning potential.

[sventurbo]

The T8 transmission had a horrible whine - the box leaked constantly. So... it was me not topping the oil up enough causing the bearings to fail.

T8 fuelling system was a bit too rich for normal driving - yet to lean for hard driving. With increased boost pressure the APC system detected knock a lot of the time.

The T16 fuelling is much better - no misfires, no leaning out and better mpg... I would also say it produces more power. I'll post a video of maximum boost soon.

[Xenocide]

What a strange clutch arrangement.

[chrissyb]

Final drive is via chain transfer - engine back to front. Makes clutch changes very easy. (well I found it did anyway!)

[sventurbo]

I realise that I jumped quite a bit by going from engine in to engine running!

The main point of this is to show how to get the ECU wired up and running!

This is the wiring loom!



I have highlighted the items that are required to run the car without going into limp home mode. All other connections are for the AC - which I do not have.

When the loom is laid on to the car it is obvious where the connections are supposed to go.



The main modification to electrics was to splice in the new distributor connections - oh so slightly different than the 8 valves...



I followed a pretty easy to read diagram to locate the connections - and had some crucial help from a Romsey based Saab Specialist.

It only requires three splices into the existing car loom:
- Negative side of the ignition coil
- Fuel pump
- Ignition on



I had already run two wires from the pump to make a manual fuel pump primer... this allowed me to wire those directly into the loom. I removed the 8 valve relay - not sure if this would have interfered.

I took the ignition on from my boost gauge MAF.

And here's the coil...



And once all the connections were made it was time to check anything would happen!

The fuel pump should buzz for about 5 seconds on turning the key to ignition on. And it did!

I must admit that the video above is actually the second start up... I will post the first start up below!

[sventurbo]

Lots of blue smoke from the oil poured into the bores to gain compression.

And there was water in it...

[melle]

Only see this thread now.

Sept 11, 2014 12:36:25 GMT sventurbo said:

To allow the removal of the driveshafts Haynes states the use of wood to hold the upper wishbone up... I absolutely hate this and I wish I knew of another method.

Use brake pads next time.

What are you doing with the old engine?

[sventurbo]

That would make sense! Good tip.



I will be taking the gearbox off and getting it refurbed - for the likely chance that I damage this one.



I am unsure what I will be doing with the rest - it has a cracked exhaust manifold and a randomly occurring demonic screeching noise that I could not explain...

[melle]

Hard to locate the sound from the vid, but it sounds like the water pump to me. Crank pulley would be my second guess. I'm playing with the idea of dropping a T8 in my 900i. Meant to do that three years ago when I bought the car but never got round materialising the idea for some reason.

[sventurbo]

At this point the car was LPT with an intercooler (running on wastegate). It would only boost to 4/5 into the yellow, sometimes all of the yellow on a cold morning. (9-10psi)

I wanted to convert the system back to using the APC so I could run higher boost levels whilst retaining the knock detection.

The APC box, solenoid and connectors were all left over from the T8.





The solenoid was reattached to the front of the engine bay.



The Lucas system intake run has a very slightly different angled pipe right after the MAF - a hole is needed to attach one of the solenoid pipes.



The remaining two solenoid pipes connect to the waste gate and the compressor side of the turbo. On the T8 the compressor nipple is blanked off and this connects to the throttle body.





Whilst I was in there I pulled out the intercooler to check for any damage.... it was grimeyyyyyyyy!





I spent a while cleaning it all off with hot water and it went back in much cleaner!!

[sventurbo]

The first trial running the "full boost" provided the results in this video...



Lots of boost - it will do this until it detects knock. Boost gauge is reading (20-21psi). 

I moderate the boost pressure with my right foot on daily driving - I will however be cranking the wastegate back to reduce boost levels!

[ejenner]

You want more ignition advance really. That will make use of the boost. Trouble is, if you advance too far you'll start to get knock. But just as much as you can really.

I did a similar conversion to an old 8v a couple of years ago. I went 8v injection to 16v injection. That job comes with the added fun of computer controlled ignition installation.

www.saabsforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=694


I can refurbish your gearbox if you want someone good to do it. Other people will be willing to have a go but only some of us know how to do it properly. I'm building two more by the end of October and have done probably about 30 or 40 in total by this stage.


This is one of the chillcast gearboxes which I built for my 99 track car. Has a Quaife LSD and long ratios to make best use of boost!




This is an example of a pretty standard rebuild, just has a strengthened diff cover.




The holy grail of Saab 900 modification though is the installation of Trionic 5 engine management from a Saab 9000. I've done quite a few of those conversions as well.

This is the guide I wrote for carrying out the conversion: www.saabsforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1382

And here is a video of my convertible before the conversion to T5. I didn't really care about that engine so I just locked the wastegate shut completely. Awesome power from a standard turbo! Then I did the same thing again with a hybrid turbo. Amazingly it all held together until I decided to restore the car and changed the engine.

[ejenner]

Oct 8, 2014 15:47:33 GMT melle said:

Hard to locate the sound from the vid, but it sounds like the water pump to me. Crank pulley would be my second guess. I'm playing with the idea of dropping a T8 in my 900i. Meant to do that three years ago when I bought the car but never got round materialising the idea for some reason.

I'd avoid 8v engines. The k-jetronic fuel system is good when new but as it ages, and worse when it gets to 20 or 30 years old, the control mechanisms which vacuum diaphragms, springs and heated wires tend to degrade and the whole engine just becomes a nightmare to try and control. If you're a well keen bead-scratcher who wants to start messing around with vacuum gauges and pumps, multimeters, emissions testing gear, spark plug tuning and all that kind of stuff then k-jet is great as it will provide you with months and months of amusement. I much prefer the more modern engine management where the most challenging problem is a broken wire or failed box.

Just follow this example, or my one, and convert to 16v.

[melle]

How long have you had an 8V? Seriously, if you do your best to try and understand the K-Jet system you'll find it's not perfect, but perfectly serviceable. If I would want a modern engine I'd buy a modern car.

[sventurbo]

ejenner - I like your threads! I realise now I found them before - the 99 build was great!

Do you have suggestions to why the car would be idling low after warming up?

It is very frustrating having the car try and stall when rolling to a stop in neutral.

The car is running very rich - I have already replaced the DV and FPR - probably need to do temp sensor and lambda sensor...