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.

[relentless]

Ah, this brings back memories. My buddy had ran my 1.7L up to around 70mh in third passing a car, and caught second gear instead of fourth. So I was looking for a "new" and more powerful motor. Back in 1980 I started with a $250 140 Corvair engine and by the time I was done I had over $3k invested. Back then, I could have had a decent Porsche six for that price. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

You mentioned something about a stock 2.7L going to 3.1L, but as I recall the stock Corvair was 2.4L and I went .030 over on pistons to get about 2.7L. I was assisted in the engine build by "Terry to the Nth" who made me do everything perfect - or else! He even CC'd each head so we'd know exactly what the C/R was - to the drop! Keith Corp in Ashland balanced all the reciprocating parts and the engine sure was smooth. He said it would be good for 8,000 rpm.

The main problem I had with the reverse rotation engine was having the fan belt pop off a few times. Kind of a dizzy design, the belt going from horizontal to vertical and back. I tried mounting a spring from the idler pulley to the firewall but the racket from the spring was horrendous. I think I went to a slightly longer fan belt to solve the problem.

So welcome to the world of Porvairs, where we spend lots of dollars to make our cars worth-less (not worthless).

Oh yeah, I just remembered that Terry made me take the block down to the airport and have it zyglowed. They use a special dye to check the aluminum block for cracks.