Salutations:

I was reading just that regarding the AERO wagon - which is why I can't
help but think that extra 70ft/pds isn't too tall an order if I intend to
pull apart my '89 2.0 liter motor and rebuild anyway..

I am going to have to do the engine and final drive on the motor home as
part of her re-hab and current fashion with my GMC 260 crowd is to go big
(and I mean BIG) block crate motors (like 590 cubic inch Caddie motors)
and re-gear the differential to 321 ratios for big time performance (big
block GM engines get into an good power band around 2800-3000 rpm).

Now - I'm not all that interested in huge performance gains in my motor
home as I intend to shed about 2,000 pounds in weight and frankly - I
cruise happily all day long at 70mph on a stock 403 (6.6 liter) engine
currently making 185hp@3600 RPM and 320ft/lbs torque with the extra weight
and stock 255 ratio. That's plenty fast for me given everything I love is
sitting around the back with juice and lego when we're on the road.

Where the saab motor gets very interesting is on two fronts. One - you
aren't all that interested in huge acceleration in a motor home, however
you are very interested in mileage.. My 403 makes 13 miles to the gallon
at 60mph cruising (although you can get into the 8 miles to the gallon
range fast booting around town). Two - as I am looking at re-gearing the
differential anyway (it's a TH425 front wheel drive out of the
elderado/toronado) - I can pretty much pick any cruising RPM I want up to
about 3800 rpm (after that the transmission starts to heat up more than is
desirable).

My investigations thus far have it that the 89 steel long block 2.0 liter
engine is fairly easy to stroke up to 2.3 and it seems to be a generally
stronger block than the later castings. Moreover - given I have an amazing
amount of frontal area to cool everything down - I should be able to deal
with the excessive heat running the turbo and engine in that RPM range
will generate - with the upside that I can shave another 1,100 pds of big
block cast iron off the coach weight AND get into the 20 miles to the
gallon range on it.

Getting it to mate to the TH425 looks pretty easy - it's not entirely
unlike the old 900 automatic tranny set-up (save that TH425 uses pretty
much the same internals as the TH400 used in the Rolls Royce through the
60's)..

Sooo - the question remains - anyone have any links on high torque builds
and custom engine management programming talent for the 2.0 16 valve block?

--

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