Saab’s Twin-Turbo V6 Prototype Is Real – KM-Tronics Is Building It Into a 9-3NG XWD

KM-Tronics has quietly placed a very specific grenade pin on the table: an OEM prototype twin-turbo V6 sourced from the NEVS sale ahead of a Saab Festival, acquired via Bas Smit, and now earmarked for a full build series that ends with the engine installed in a Saab 9-3NG with XWD.

If you’ve been around Saab long enough, you already know the pattern: the truly interesting powertrain stories rarely come with glossy brochures. They surface years later as loose ends – an odd control unit, a development casting, an engine that doesn’t match the production bill of materials. This one has all the ingredients, and Mark van Kampen is starting the public documentation from the only place that matters: what he has in his hands and what his team has physically verified by opening the engine.

Below is the cleaned-up backstory and what we can responsibly treat as confirmed, based on KM-Tronics’ own project notes and the details Mark shares in the opening episode.

The paper trail starts at the NEVS sale – then immediately gets serious

KM-Tronics’ “upcoming projects” page is unusually explicit for a shop roadmap. It doesn’t tease a “big engine project.” It names it: “Start OEM prototype engine V6 twin turbo project.”

KM-Tronics states that the engine was acquired a little more than two years ago from the NEVS sale prior to the Saab Festival, and that this particular prototype was originally meant for a Turbo X-R concept – essentially, a more extreme direction than the production Turbo X ever reached.

The same note includes the performance target KM-Tronics associates with the prototype: around 500 hp and 650 Nm.

That number matters because it’s not “tuner talk.” It’s a development target that would have pushed a factory Saab into a bracket Saab fans typically associate with much newer hardware – and it would have done it while keeping Saab’s own priorities intact: traction, all-weather pace, and daily usability.

Putting the 500 hp claim into Saab context 

To understand why this story hits nerves, you only need two reference points: The production Saab Turbo X launched XWD in a high-profile way and paired it with an uprated 2.8T V6 output that’s widely cited at 280 PS and 400 Nm, depending on market and model year.

So when KM-Tronics says this prototype was aimed at 500 hp / 650 Nm, that’s not a mild step beyond a Turbo X. It’s a different tier entirely.

And yes – Saab’s all-wheel-drive story (XWD, Haldex Gen 4 collaboration, torque distribution strategy) is exactly the kind of foundation you’d want beneath a torque-heavy V6 experiment.

What Saab actually used in production: the “normal” B284 family

In the background of this build sits the engine family Saab enthusiasts already know: the GM High Feature V6 ecosystem and Saab’s turbocharged 2.8T variants.

The GM High Feature V6 page explicitly ties the LP9 2.8 turbo variant to the Saab applications and notes the manufacturing split Saab people have repeated for years: the base engine was produced in Australia, with Saab/GM Powertrain Sweden involved in the turbocharging side.

That’s the baseline. It’s also why Mark’s project statement about “differences between the original B284 and this B284XR variant” is the right framing. He’s not claiming “this is a completely alien engine.” He’s saying it’s a prototype evolution – stronger internals, different systems, and twin-turbo experimentation – built on a familiar architecture.

Clearing up a common mix-up: Alfa’s 3.2 JTS is related, but it isn’t a twin-turbo Saab engine

Because the Saab V6 family crosses brands, it’s easy to blur lines. Here’s the clean version:

Alfa Romeo’s 3.2 JTS V6 used in the 159/Brera/Spider era is derived from the GM High Feature engine, built in Australia by Holden, and Alfa added direct injection plus their TwinPhaser cam phasing strategy.

It’s also naturally aspirated, not twin-turbo, and Alfa’s spec is typically cited at 191 kW (about 260 PS) and 322 Nm, with the higher compression ratio widely stated around 11.25:1.

That matters here because Mark describes his prototype as having direct injection and Alfa-related cylinder head cues. That combination is plausible inside the broader HFV6 world, but it doesn’t mean Saab secretly “built Alfa’s twin-turbo.” It means Saab and Alfa were operating on adjacent branches of the same GM V6 family tree, and Saab’s prototype path simply went in a different direction.

What Mark says he found when the engine was opened

In the opening episode, Mark’s most credible moments are the unglamorous ones: the parts he describes after physically inspecting the engine.

He states the prototype is stronger than a standard B284 and mentions several specific features he says were verified by inspection, including:

• a different crankshaft (he describes it as sand-cast and possibly Holden-origin)
• direct injection
• an Alfa Romeo 3.2 head
• dual camshaft sensors
• retained EGT sensors that show 2006–2007 date markings

Those are claims made in the video narrative; KM-Tronics’ project page doesn’t list these internal details, but it does confirm the direction: this is a prototype twin-turbo V6, and the series is intended to highlight differences between the production B284 and this prototype variant.

The EGT-sensor date detail is especially useful, because it anchors the engine in the same development window KM-Tronics associates with the Turbo X era and the wider mid-2000s push for halo performance.

The “why it died” story: GM, the Corvette fear, and the horsepower ceiling

KM-Tronics’ page doesn’t dance around the corporate side. It explicitly claims GM killed the project because they didn’t want a Saab “faster… better than their Corvette of the time.”

Mark’s narration adds color: executives tried a high-output Turbo X development car, liked it, then shut down the direction anyway. That’s impossible to independently prove from public documentation in a neat way – so the responsible way to treat it is as Mark’s account, aligned with a reality Saab people already recognize: Saab’s product cadence and capability often ran head-first into GM-era constraints.

The important takeaway for readers isn’t the exact phrasing of an executive meeting. It’s the consequence: a prototype path that never became a production program, leaving hardware that surfaces years later through auctions and internal sell-offs.

The missing brain: why the rumored “T9 ECU” is central to this build

KM-Tronics states the prototype was “originally… powered by the T9 ECU, a Saab-developed upgraded engine control module of the T8.”

That single line is doing a lot of work, because it ties the engine to a control strategy beyond what Saab owners associate with production Trionic T8 applications. If you’re trying to run a twin-turbo prototype with development-era sensor strategy and DI hardware, the ECU story is not a footnote – it’s the spine of the entire project.

Mark’s video framing is also pragmatic: he says obtaining a T9 would be very difficult. That implies the series won’t just be “engine in, start car.” It becomes a documentation of what it takes to integrate something Saab never had to support at scale.

Why the donor car is a Saab 9-3NG XWD – not the 9-5NG Saab originally dreamed about

Mark says Saab originally intended this engine for a 9-5NG-era application window, but he’s choosing a 9-3NG for practicality and timing, and he wants the donor to be XWD. KM-Tronics’ project page confirms the end goal: a YouTube series that documents the process and the differences versus the normal B284.

That 9-3NG XWD decision is more than convenience. The 9-3 platform already has proven packaging for the HFV6 family, and the XWD system is a known quantity in Saab terms – launched with Turbo X and documented broadly enough that enthusiasts can speak the same mechanical language about it.

Mark also emphasizes something Saab people tend to respect: he doesn’t want to pull a healthy enthusiast car off the road. The plan is to rescue a chassis headed for scrap and give it a second life.

What the series promises – and what Saab people should watch for

KM-Tronics frames this as a 7-video arc, and that structure matters. It suggests the shop isn’t chasing a single viral dyno pull; they’re building a record.

Mark also hints at a second layer that will interest the “I build, not just watch” segment of the Saab world: if demand exists, KM-Tronics will explore reproducing certain items seen on the engine, or at minimum making 3D files available to support others pursuing a similar high-output goal.

That kind of promise is easy to say and hard to execute. The tell will be whether the series shows the boring parts Saab projects live or die on: packaging, cooling strategy, driveline stress points, control integration, parts repeatability, and whether the build remains serviceable once it’s no longer a garage trophy.

What’s confirmed vs. what stays in the “interesting but unproven” bucket

KM-Tronics has publicly confirmed:

• the engine is an OEM prototype twin-turbo V6
• it came from the NEVS sale prior to a Saab Festival, via Bas Smit
• the intended concept was Turbo X-R
• the target figures were around 500 hp / 650 Nm
• the plan is a YouTube series documenting the build and the differences from the production B284/B284XR path

Everything beyond that – internal casting specifics, DI hardware details, and the “only two prototypes” count – should be treated as Mark’s on-video account until KM-Tronics publishes teardown photos, part numbers, or measured data that can be independently evaluated.

And one more point of discipline: Mark mentions hearsay about the other prototype possibly being in the United States and draws a line toward later twin-turbo Cadillac V6 development. We can confirm that twin-turbo variants exist within the broader GM High Feature V6 family – but we should not present any “Saab prototype directly became Cadillac X” storyline as fact without hard sourcing.