| SAAB 900 Radiator A bigger radiator has obvious benefits. Especially when you can buy a new Saab 900 Mk2 rad for �80 and std rad refurb can cost more than that. You will, however, need the early round headlight grille and it will probably need repsraying to match your car, which will add to your cost. The early grille has 7" round headlights which are easy to get new (Hella Part No: 1L6 002 395 - 261, std Halogen bulbs, about �35 each). These lights are not as wide as the later rectangular lights meaning more space pbetween them to mount the larger rad. A secondary benefit is the grille pattern which has much more venitlation than the later grille. The Mk2 900 rad varient is important becuase its inlet and exit pipes are the right way around to lead from the thermostat and to the water pump. Plambing the rad in simply requires two lengths of corugated radiator hose. The hose to the expansion tank is mounted on the top. I have not plumbed that in yet. Still pondering... The real issue, however, is that you will need to fabricate you own mounting brackets. I made a simple braket that mounts betweent the front bumper supports. The original rad mounts will have be sawn off and the horn fitting fettled with but this simple bracket does the job perfectly and can be made up very quickly and cheaply. Click here for the schematic to make your own. The new 900 rad does not have the filler cap the 96 has and relies on a conventional Header tank for filling with coolant. Replacing the rad with a 900 means plumbing in a new header tank. |
| Cooling - The Ultimate V4 Cooling System |
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| Plumbing The Rad is plumbed in to the water pump and inlet manifold with two lengths of corrugated, flexible coolant hose. It is easist to connect the bottom hose onto the water pump first and then onto the rad as you mount it. The thermostat from the electric fan is mounted into the top hose when the rad is installed. The conventional 96 radiator is filled via the inbuilt filler cap. This is not present on the 900 radiator, hence a new header tank is also needed. Apparently a Volvo 240 header tank sits nicely up nect to the heater matrix. As this is the Ultimate V4 Cooling system, a second hand plastic tank just left to site there simply wouldn't do! I had a custoimised alloy header tank made by Alloy Racing Fabrications. This was a lot more than your standard header tank but a whole lot less than many of the polished alloy aftermarket tanks available. The modifications differ from their standard horizontal tank in two ways: 1) The mounting brackets are locakted at 45 degrees below horizontal to mount it neatly on the bulhead next to the heater matrix 2) The inlet pipe is rotated 90 degrees so that it accepts the inlet hose coming in from its side, not its from as standard. Pictures to follow. Get in touch with them and they will happily do the same mods for you. Mount the header tank next to the heater matrix. It needs to mounted as high as possible relative to the engine and this is a nice clear space for it with a sound base for mounting on. Run a 10mm ID hose from the expansion nozzle on the top of the rad, across the top of the rad and along the side of the engine bay back to the bulkead. The hose is held in place with P clips. Next, remove the right angle hose that runs from the heater matrix to the water return pipe to the water pump. This hose is replaced with a short section of 16mm coolant hose. A T Piece conector is placed at the end. Anther length of 16mm hose runs from the T Piece to the water return pipe. Another length of hose conn ects the final leg of the T Peice to the outlet pipe on the header tank. This completes the circuit and allows the coolant to be filled from the header tank. |
| You will need: Early 96 or US front grille Saab 900 radiator Radiator mounting bracket 2 x corrugated coolant hose Alloy header tank 2m x 10mmID coolant hose 1m x 16mmID coolant hose 16mm T Piece connector P Clips and rivets / self tapping screws |
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