Thursday October 3rd - install new side-pipe muffler (think Viper. sort of). When driving car home that evening, two things are apparent. 1) its LOUD and racy sounding (for a Svede) and 2) it mis-fired a couple of times driving it hard. Hmmmm. Dave comes over, drives it more, and it cuts out a bunch more. Not good. But this car sure is cool.
Sunday October 5th - install new fuel filter, air filter, ignition wires, spark plugs, clean injectors, clean Jetronic injection system. Successful attempt to start car afterwards? NEGATIVE. Ut oh. Car starts up briefly, runs at 3000RPM, and dies. Now what? This Swedish car irritates me.
Monday October 6th - redo everything done night previously. Correct some errors and fine tune some other parts. Successful attempt to start car afterwards? NEGATIVE. Car is cranking over, just not starting. No ignition at all. Why did we buy a Swedish car?!? WHY?!?
Tuesday October 7th - Dave invites Dave, a mechanic friend, to trace the problems we're having. He starts at the spark plugs, and works his way back. Spark plugs - good. Injectors - good. Fuel pressure - average. Injection system - looks fine. Go back to fuel tank - pump is working. Take out fuel pump. Look inside fuel tank.
(@*#(&U)(%Y&_)Q__Q)*_#)*_@)#*_)@$_)&_)*_)*YWUPJAS)(_!_)$@*+_)+_#%&*)#
We ran the car out of gas.
We fill the car up with a few gallons - and the car starts up strong. Car runs for 5 minutes, and dies. Now what?!? Maybe we stirred up some dirt in the tank and now have dirty injectors. Maybe?!? Anything at this point sounds reasonable for this Swedish piece of total crap.
Wednesday October 7th - Install cleaned up Swedish injectors. Start car up again with high hopes. Car does not start. Dave douses the car in gasoline, and creates a Swedish bonfire. Well, he should have. We officially give in. I search the forums online, and find a highly recommended Saab mechanic named Tony.
Thursday October 8th - Towed the Saab to Tony to work on. Tony, a Jamaican, gets pretty excited about the car. Turns out he is building a Saab 9000 hot rod for the race. The car has a similar engine as my Viggen. In other words, if their car is worth $500, our car is worth -$3,000. Anyway - Tony knows the car backwards and forwards.
Friday October 9th - go see Tony. Tony is smirking. Tony gets in the car, and starts it up. VVVRRROOOOOOOOMMMMMM! The car sounds like a Swedish World War...strong and racy. Car is back to life, and we're lovin' the Swedes again thanks to a Jamaican!
We also got our new wheels in...since our car sits (cough cough) a touch high, we decided to paint the wheels white like the old rally racers. Like this:
Here are our rally wheels:
And finally, a picture of the drivers.
7 days to go!!! Preparty is on Thursday, and we're wrapping up the final bits and pieces now. Sooner or later, we actually get to see what this car will be like at speed. And trust me, we have no idea how it handles. NONE.
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