Saab 9³ Viggen Pikes Peak - Motorsports Almanac

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SAAB ENTERS PER EKLUND IN THE PIKES PEAK HILL CLIMB CLASSIC 07/2000 On July 4, Swedish veteran champion race car driver Per Eklund will pilot a modified Saab 9-3 Viggen in the Pikes Peak Open class of the 78'h running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb – the second oldest automobile race in the U.S.A. With a 750-HP Saab Ecopower 2.0-liter engine, this Viggen is the most powerful Saab automobile ever. NORCROSS, Ga. - The route to the top of Pikes Peak is not a challenge for the faint-of- heart. It's a 1 2-mile course of both pavement and gravel that starts at an elevation of 9,402 feet and ends at 14,110 feet. Known as "The Race to the Clouds," this event is the second oldest automobile race in the U.S. (after the Indianapolis 500) and features 156 turns with no guardrails. For the event, Saab and 1999 European Rallyaoss Champion, Per Eklund, have teamed with Trollspeed of Trollhättan to create the most powerful Saab ever – an all-wheel drive 9-3 Viggen with a Saab Ecopower 2.0-liter engine that delivers 750 horsepower at 8,000 rpm and 518 Ib.-ft. of torque at 6,500 rpm. With this amount of power, all-wheel drive and a 6-speed sequential shift transmission, the 9-3 Viggen's acceleration is in the Formula One class: 0-60 mph in 2.3 seconds. The car is geared for a top speed of 155 mph. The vehicle is constructed on a very strong tubular frame that gives both high torsional stiffness and good protection. The protection can be useful if anything goes wrong, the race up Pikes Peak is quite fast (the average speed of last year's winner was nearly 75 mph) and the course is entirely lacking in safety railings. "If you happen to get one skid too many," notes Eklund, "you're not in the way to obstruct the guys coming up behind you." Eklund labors under a handicap compared to the local and veteran drivers: he's only recently seen the hill for the first time. However, he was able to make a few practice runs in early June and is excited about his chances. "I'm really looking forward to competing in this race," said Eklund. "Although it's in the middle of the European Rallycross series, it's a great opportunity to test my skills and this car against some of the best in the world. I expect top results." History of the Race to the Clouds The first automobile to make it to the top of Colorado's Pikes Peak was a Locomobile Steamer in 1901. It took nine hours to drive, and push, the vehicle to the top. The first race was held in 1916 and the fastest time was 18 minutes, 24 seconds. The current race record is 10 minutes, 4.06 seconds set in 1994 by Pikes Peak veteran racer Rod Millen. Per Eklund Bio Per Eklund competed in his first rally race in 1964 in his father's driving school car, three weeks after receiving his driver's license. Before that, he rode as a co-driver/navigator for his father, Torsten, and his brother, Lars. He began competing in a Saab two-stroke in 1966 and started driving a factory-sponsored Saab in 1970. Throughout the 1970s, Eklund was one of Saab's most successful factory drivers and won the 1976 Swedish Rally in a Saab 96. Eklund has exceptional breadth as a driver and has won Swedish championships in rallying, hill climbing and rallycross. He has started more than 100 World Championship events. When Saab stopped its participation in the World Championships in rally in 1979, Eklund was immediately offered a place on many of Europe's rally teams. His first assignment was to develop and compete in a Fiat Ritmo for the Italian car producer. Eklund had similar assignments with Volkswagen, which launched Golf GTI at that time, Triumph, Datsun/Nissan and Toyota. Eklund is still extremely successfully, having won the Swedish Rallycross Championship in 1997 in a Saab 900 and the European Rallycross Championship in 1999 in a Saab 9-3. THE PIKES PEAK SAAB 9-3 VIGGEN 26/04/2004 The Pikes Peak Saab 9-3 Viggen was built for the classic Pikes Peak Hillclimb in Colorado Springs, USA. The race starts at 2800 meters of altitude and the finish is at 4300 meters. It is a spaceframe construction, clad with carbonfibre panels. The rallycross car used in the Euro series by Per Eklund is based on a production car but nothing remains from the production car for this car. The car is built at Eklund’s shop in Arvika, Sweden. The body panels are made by Saab in their experimental department. Three data boxes manage’s the engine, transmission and datalogging. The high altitude at Pikes Peak, with the thin air experienced at 2000-4000 meters, makes the event special. The engine loses 40% of the power at high altitude. Therefore the Saab is using a giant turbocharger to be able to keep up the boost all the way to the top. This means also the engine cooling becomes marginal so beside the driver is a large water tank, used for additional cooling, by spraying the water cooler and intercooler. The cooling system pressure is also raised to between 2 and 3 bars. The Saab in-line 4 engine is developeing 750-760 PS and creating 700 Nm of torque. It is installed longitudinal to fit the running gear which comes from Prodrive, the 6-speed gearbox is shifted in a normal Hpattern. When the car ran in the Pikes Peak Open class, it closely resembled a normal road 9-3 Viggen on the outside. For 2002 it was entered in the unlimited class and more aggressive wings were installed. They create a downforce over 400 kg at sea level. Without the wings, Per felt the car was very loose in the corners. BLOW HARD By Ken Juran Yes Virginia, the turbocharger is still a viable alternative for generating lots of horsepower and torque from a small engine with good fuel economy. But sometimes it takes a racetrack to prove it. If you must get jostled around inside a rally car, we know firsthand that it's a hoot with Per Eklund at the wheel of his Pikes Peak racer. If my right foot slips off the roll cage brace, it could take out a loom of braided cable that connects expensive engine management electronics to the all-wheel-drive Saab rally-style race car that I'm being rattled around in. That was the warning from the technician who strapped me in. But it's all I can do to hold on, much less concentrate on the exact placement of my foot. My helmet is being pounded into the upper roll cage tubing. A five-point harness keeps me only semisnug in a makeshift racing seat that's bolted down where a passenger seat would normally be. But this car isn't designed for passengers. Per Eklund, 2000 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb Open Class champion, is in the driver's seat performing a literal ballet with the steering wheel, the shifter and the pedals. He's throwing us into corners and spooling up the big-rig diesel-size turbo with abandon, as if we were running on a dirt course in the Mojave desert. But we're actually slipping, sliding and four-wheel drifting—on treaded, knobby off-road tires—around Road Atlanta, the famous road racing track in Braselton, Ga. The "brap" from the sewer-size exhaust pipe echoes off the retaining walls and through the surrounding hills like thunder. Boy, are we having fun. These particular hot laps were actually just that, for fun. But they sure convinced us that it's possible to churn nearly 800 hp from a four-
cylinder engine. Sure, Eklund's car runs on fancy 115-octane Elf racing fuel, but Saab turbocharged street cars have been burning pump gas since 1977. That was the year Saab introduced the first mass-produced turbo for passenger cars, in the 99 Turbo model. And that first turbo, as well as every Saab turbo since, has been supplied by Garrett Engine Boosting Systems (www.egarrett.com). Garrett has brought Eklund, his Saab 9-3 Viggen Pikes Peak racer, a slew of production Saabs, one competitor's car and us here to demonstrate the benefits and latest improvements of turbocharging technology. A team of Panoz Racing School instructors is on hand to offer driving tips and handle logistics as we're marched through an autocross, acceleration tests, road racing laps, a slalom and an emergency lane change maneuver. They're all designed to reveal the subtle differences of driving with high- and low-pressure turbo engines versus naturally aspirated ones. Can We Torque? So what did we find out? Well, in addition to the well-known benefit of delivering exceptional fuel economy and producing prodigious amounts of horsepower, turbocharged engines also make lots of torque. Usable torque, at that. The kind that's needed for exiting tight corners on a race track or for maintaining a car's balance through a slalom. Unfortunately, these types of situations rarely occur in real-world driving. On the street, the turbo story boils down to lower emissions (especially on diesel applications), the aforementioned fuel economy, fun and convenience. Sure, you have to alter your driving style a little if you're accustomed to the instant throttle response of a naturally aspirated V8. But when that high-pressure turbo spools up, it feels like there are two inline Fours under the hood. Then there are low-pressure turbos that can make a four-cylinder feel like a Six but still return those high mpg numbers. When driving on the highway in a turbocharged car equipped with a manual transmission, you never have to downshift for passing or climbing grades. Just dip into the throttle and let the turbo do the work. On a long trip spent threading through traffic, that can be a real boon. Garrett still believes that it can convince us stubborn American drivers to give up our big ol' V8 gas guzzlers and replace them with little four-banger gas and diesel turbos. You know, the kind that are so popular in Europe. Problem is, we all remember some of the first turbo applications that the domestic manufactures tried to sell here in the United States. Remember the early '80s turbocharged Dodge Caravans and K-cars? Oy. So most carmakers, have given up trying to market them. The sales figures just don't add up in the mainstream family-car markets. Just Saab and a handful of others—Volvo, Audi, VW, Subaru and the exotics—still believe in the technology and the benefits it offers. To that end, Saab continues to work with Garrett to advance the acceptance of turbos. So What's New? Forget about what you remember of old turbos. The newest wave of these compressors, are light-years ahead with all kinds of advancements. Principle among them, are variable-vane and nozzle types and electronically controlled and electrically assisted versions. Dr. S.M. Shahed, Garrett's vice president of advanced technology, says the company's smallest turbo can spin up to a whopping 280,000 rpm. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to imagine the kind of heat produced under those conditions and how difficult it must be to keep the bearings lubricated. Shahed says his engineers don't care what kind of oil (organic or synthetic) an engine is designed to run with. Garrett turbos run with whatever oil is available. To reduce the likelihood of coking the oil on engine shutdown (a longtime problem of turbochargers), Garrett has developed an integral shield on the hot exhaust side of its turbos to dissipate heat away from the bearings. Shahed says the next step is toward employing air bearings, which should require no lubrication because there is no physical contact of components. Garrett is working on a sheetmetal housing for its turbos to eliminate conventional cast aluminum. The result is less heat absorption from the exhaust gases, which speeds up cold-start catalyst warmup and emissions reduction. The only thing holding up this advancement is the final design of a collar around the turbo shaft that makes up for the lower burst strength of the thinner sheetmetal. Electronics will eventually take over where vacuum controls leave off. Garrett produces different types of turbos that adjust themselves depending on the load of the engine. This helps to reduce the dreaded "turbo lag," that second or so between when you dip into the accelerator pedal and you actually feel the engine pull harder. By sensing engine load and controlling the turbo with fast, sophisticated sensors and actuators rather than engine vacuum, turbo lag will eventually become just a footnote in engineering text. Garrett has also developed an electrically assisted turbocharger that doesn't rely solely on exhaust gas flow energy. At low engine speeds, an electronically controlled electric motor responds to engine load and boosts the turbo up to high-pressure speeds. At high engine speeds that produce enough exhaust flow to spin the turbo's turbine, the overrunning motor can be used as a supplementary generator for the vehicle's electrical system. The Hard Facts Most of these high-tech turbo systems are already in use on heavy-duty diesel applications. But Garrett feels they would be just as beneficial, if not more so, on passenger-car engines, both gas and diesel. Shahed showed us graph after graph of data supporting the argument. One of his figures was astounding: Internal combustion engines need 9000 gallons of air for every gallon of fuel in order to run efficiently. Naturally aspirated engines must draw this air in on their own. So adding a turbo speeds up the process and, literally, takes a load off the engine, which saves fuel. All other factors being equal, Shahed says, turbodiesel-powered cars get 50 percent better fuel economy than equivalent gas-engine cars. He says he graphed the fuel economy figures for some 200 European cars, which showed that the average improvement in fuel economy for turbocharged models versus nonturbos is 10 percent. Yet another chart illustrated that the usable torque of a 2.0-liter turbocharged engine is better than that of a 3.0-liter nonturbo engine. PER EKLUND WINS THE 78 TH ANNUAL HILL CLIMB CLASSIC IN PPO AND SECOND OVERALL Per Eklund won the 2000 Pikes Peak Open Class Pike's Peak, Colorado, July 16, 2000 - Saab’s Per Eklund Wins Th Open Class Of 78th Annual Adelphia Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Behind the wheel of an Ecopower Saab 9-3 Viggen, Per Eklund, the 1999 European Rallycross Champion, realized his dream of competing at Pikes Peak. In an impressive rookie performance, he captured first place in the Open Class, set a new record for the division and finished with the second fastest overall time of the day — 11:21.58. For Swede Per Eklund, dreams really do come true. In his first time racing the fabled Adephelia Pikes
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