Marcus' Corvair conversion, 914-C6 Options

[r3dplanet]

A few years back I got all excited about doing a Corvair engine conversion for my 1971 car. The project waffled. Numbers were crunched and chewed. Thought and diagrams and opinions were drawn out over long winter evenings.

One particularly rainy winter evening, I found an ad on Craigslist advertising a warehouse full of Corvair parts including engines. So my pal Rory and I drove a hundred miles into the boonies late one rainy night to what turned out to be an unmarked, geographically isolated, former slaughterhouse illuminated by a single 60 watt light bulb. No cell phone reception, no escape. We were met by a couple of toothless brothers who couldn't stop talking about Daddy. Seemingly they only did what Daddy wanted them to do. Daddy wanted them to sell the stash of Corvair parts. Daddy wanted them to steal my Toyota cargo van. Daddy needed to approve the transaction of cash for an engine. Daddy, it turned out, was long dead. The two brothers kept trying to separate Rory and I, and the creepier of the two brothers kept demanding my car keys so he could test drive my van, despite my insistence that it wasn't for sale. For the first time in a long time, I wish I had a tazer gun on me. The brothers eventually showed us exactly what I wanted - an RD code 1965 110HP engine. Fearing for our lives, Rory and I muscled the engine into the van while the brothers went to find more stuff for Daddy to sell to us, or you know, maybe a club or some rope or a ball gag or something.

I left the $100 on the bench and tore the hell out. Rory and I laughed all the way back to town, ever so pleased that we were neither killed, nor raped, nor eaten. Plus, we were one up on a Corvair engine.

So with a provenance like this, and seeing JRust's new car, Dr. Evil's project, and 914coops Nader's Nightmare all take shape I've finally decided to get serious about my own project: the VW-Porsche 914-C6.

The "C" stands for Corvair.

[r3dplanet]

That front engine mount plate is the bearer of mysteries and a handy place to keep an assortment of extra fasteners and probably some chewing tobacco.



The valve covers on the later engines like mine are held on with four bolts and these elongated strips of metal to spread the load. Apparently this makes for an excellent seal.



The head for cylinders 1-3-5 showing its glorious hydraulic rockers. The nuts that hold the rockers down thread onto special studs that double as the nuts for the lower head studs. You can see the upper head nuts and they are RUSTY. It took a few days of Kroil, swearing, and heat to remove them. But hey, they held their torque.



The engine is missing most of the sheet metal tins, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. But what little there was removed easily.



Three nuts hold the exhaust log. Once removed, it popped right off. This design uses no gasket.



Off come the bottom head nuts.



I ended up having to drill off the center top head nut and then use a cold chisel to split it. It's too tight in there to get a nut splitter. Underneath was one incorrect sized washer.



The pushrods are removed and marked for the sake of developing good organizational habits.



Then the pushrod tubes are pulled. If these are straight, I'll clean and paint them and use some new viton rings on reassembly. They're made of aluminum steel.