My 2002 9-3 Aero

I purchased my 2002 9-3 Aero, the "Steel Sled", in December 2006 after searching for a little over 18 months for one. I was very specific to what I was after – it had to be a 2002 model (the last year for the hatchbacks); either silver or steel grey; it had to be a two door coupe and most important of all, it had to have a manual transmission. These things are as rare as hen's teeth down here and especially so in manual form, and I believe that Saab Australia only brought maybe no more than 25 (of all colour variations) of them into Australia in 2001 and 2002.

This car had one previous owner and had 73,000km on the clock. The thing was immaculate when I went to check it out, and looked virtually brand new. I got David Bascomb, my Saab Tech out at Wantirna Automotive, to give it a once over before purchase. Not that there was going to be anything wrong, but more for peace of mind. I passed with flying colours! The front cat had been replaced at one stage too.

I dynoed it at the last Saab Car Club of Australia dyno day in October 2007, and with just a Forge high flow intercooler, GenuineSaab 3" Downpipe, Abbott Racing 3" full stainless steel exhaust system, and open intake... it put down 151kW at the wheels (or about 170kW at the crank with 13% drive train loss). This was with stock ECU software, but a nice increase shown with just hardware mods. Engine output for a stock 2002 9-3 Aero is 151kW at the crank. Link here to the dyno readout from October 2007.

She is now running a Nordic Stage 4 ECU with a list of nice hardware upgrades as seen at the left there. Needless to say it runs pretty hard, and is lots of fun to drive! Plans are to run another dyno in winter 2008.

So stay tuned for updates and new pics.