Since none of the three 2.1-liter Saab engine blocks that I have for the race car are perfect, Mark is not too keen on building a race engine our of any of them. He proposed another possibility. His son, Phil, bought a 1993 900S for very cheap a year or more ago because it needed an automatic transmission. Phil intended to find a suitable slushbox to drop in so he could sell the car, but good automatic transmissions for the 900 are not easy to locate. I made Phil an offer on the car, and FHR now has another 2.1-liter engine available.
Got the car started with a battery boost and drove it into the shop. Planned to do a compression check and leak-down test, but the compression check came back with about 120 psi on all four cylinders. That's pretty damn good for an engine with 240,000 miles, especially one that hasn't been run in over a year and had not gotten up to operating temp yet.
The plan is to pull the engine & gearbox on this car on Friday night at SVS in Duluth. Because of the high mileage, Mark wants to replace the timing chain and guides, but I am all for just dropping it onto a 5-speed gearbox and go racing with it as is.
