16v B engine - a feasible solution

[Geoff]

While I was at the SOC in Colorado a week or so ago I saw this unassuming '73 99 4dr that someone had put a 16v H motor into. There were a good amount of 16v 99s there so it didn't seem like anything too special.

But, upon closer inspection some things seemed out of place... The alternator was in the stock B motor location, the knock sensor was a little out of place, the firewall was stock, and the cooling lines to the heater core were off a B motor.

It turns out some wild-hearted individual had put a 16v H engine head on top of a B motor and got it all to work. I talked to the guy a bit and he said its the second one he had done, the first being a 99T last winter. He sort of reminded me of Lyle Lovett.

He told me he had to graft the two timing covers together by using the upper portion of the 16v cover. You can see where he welded them on the passenger side:

[Geoff]

I think he used the top driver's side from the B engine and had to fill it a little bit to take up some space:

He had to get a custom length timing chain made and used a spare crank sprocket as an idler gear that attached to a custom tensioner arm that the stock 16v tensioner acted on

He had to make custom chain guides. He also had to use two B motor cam sprockets because the 16v engine has 19 teeth on the crank sprocket and 38 teeth on the cam sprocket while the B motor has 20 and 40 teeth (respectively). He cut out the centers of the B motor cam sprockets and made adapters to fit them to the 16V cams.

The car also had an 8v turbo manifold (H I think) and blanked-out turbo (only the exhaust side, gutted, and blocked off on the intake side). I think he put that on there because he knew it fit, he had it, and he wanted to get it running.

He was saying that he was thinking about making some kits. I think its a neat idea but a lot of work to do it that way. I'm curious how much he'd sell the kits for. It makes a clean install and would be more 'period correct' if used for historic racing but you'd still have the funky water pump. I wonder what he did to keep the oil pump spinning since the idler shaft spins the distributor gear which spins the shaft down to the oil pump. He must have hacked off the bottom of a distributor and stuck it in place...

[Crazyswede]

I was under the impression that the bolt holes didn't line up or there was a coolant/oil passage issue...did he talk about any of that stuff?

[DeLorean]

They do line up apparently, you just have to poke a few holes in the head gasket.

To me, that car seemed like way more trouble than it's worth. Yes, you don't have to mod the firewall and the belts still fit properly, but you still have the G-D jack-shaft and internal water pump, not to mention a whole mess of unnecessary custom made parts. I think getting rid the jack shaft and crazy water pump (as Per found) would be as much of an advantage as getting rid of the 8 valve head, well worth simply doing the firewall mod if it's going into a 99.

As interesting as that was to see, you would not catch me doing something like that.

[paulh]

I think i remember something about having to make an extra hole in the head gasket or something? The whole setup was rather puzzling to me, I was under the impression that the main reason people put 16v's in the 99's was to get rid of all the stuff that his setup kept

Paul

[Crazyswede]

As I recall the 16v is also lighter. Its still impressive that someone did it....if only for the gee thats cool factor...you won't see me running off to do it any time though

[Luke]

Thats pretty neat. Certainly solves a lot of the clearance issues with putting an H motor in a 99, the installation looks so clean, you'd never guess that it wasnt factory installed. Looks like he was running a 16V distributor, what did he do to support the end of the oil pump drive shaft?

[Geoff]

yeah, to get the oil lines to match up he said all he had to do was make another hole or enlarge an existing one in the headgasket. "It was as if they were planning for this when they build the engines"

It definitely would be heavier due to the larger block casting, and all the jackshaft stuff. Plus you'd lose power because of the jackshaft.

I'm not sure what he did to keep the oil pump working but I was thinking maybe he put part of a B motor distributor in place so that the gear and shaft were there to run the oil pump. I didn't think to look while I was checking out the car. He said he wanted to use almost all SAAB factory parts.

[99Super]

I think it's pretty slick. I thought about doing it at one time using old Triumph timing bits, but it all just seemed like too much work. I would only do this if I HAD to keep the original block. I mean, why use a B20 block and use B202 everything else?
Now, if he woulda used some DCOEs, the original distributor, etc., THAT would be cool!