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]

Good question. The flywheel is a custom part that's been produced by many manufacturers for decades. Crown, KEP, Otto, and others have made them. It's essentially a 130 tooth solid flywheel that has a built-in pressure plate. See photo #1 of this thread. The actual clutch disc and clutch are stock VW/Porsche parts and you can use any item you want. The 130 tooth flywheel is basically where the transition happens. The flywheel bolts to the crankshaft, and then the tooth arrangement allows for use of the stock starter. If you just swap the pinion gear in the gearbox, you would then have to use a reverse rotation VW starter or a stock Corvair starter with a small adapter. Somewhere I have the rest of the clutch pieces. When I find them I'll post pics.

Also, someone else asked about displacements on the engines. The very earliest 1960 Corvair engines were 140cid, but after 1961 a 145cid engine was made an option. With 1964 models (the great transition year) all displacements went to 164cid (2.7 liters).

-m.