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]

I'm not dead yet.

However, I am totally bummed about my Mars-One application being denied with a stupid form letter. Seriously. I've written better notes on paper napkins at late night diners. I think those bastards would reconsider if only they had brains to realize that I was always the ideal candidate; it's obviously their selection criteria that's faulty. OBVIOUSLY. Two words for them: Apollo I. Now that my life has no meaning again, I'm back to working on my Corvair engine.

There will be a bunch of updates soon. Over the past few months I've had a bunch of bottom-end parts (crank, cam, etc.) crogenically treated. After getting them back I sent the crankshaft off to be ground, polished, indexed, and balanced. It should be available any day now. In the meantime I've been slowly, slowly, slowly cleaning and polishing the secret innards of the case halves. The part I'm not going to reveal to anyone is the probable application of GE Glyptal paint to the interior. It's a hot button topic and I totally don't care about that controversy. We can argue, classic Greek-style, all day long on another thread about it's merit. While we're at it we can punt around PC vs Mac, Coke vs Pepsi, Girlfriend vs Your Mother. Frankly, I enjoy making arbitrary decisions and then following through with them. Like Glyptal paint. Makes for good mental exercise.

I have also collected other parts including all of the remaining reverse rotation parts like cam gears, idlers, and alternator fans. The new Melling lifters are here. And I've contracted out to have a pair of custom-made intake manifolds produced to accomodate my Weber 44 IDF carbs that are currently powering my 1.7 liter engine with the magic of 28mm chokes. That gentleman is Tom Knoblauch of American Flat 6 fame. He normally produces intakes for the Weber 40s, but he agreed to make intakes for the 44s just because he's cool. The charge is $275 for the pair, which I feel is extremely reasonable.

In clutch news, I found a specialty 215mm 130-tooth conversion flywheel that will allow me to use the standard size clutch and pressure plate for the 901 transmission. Previously I had a Bus conversion flywheel (180mm) and clutch pressure plate that I bought as a VW reverse rotation kit. To this day I don't know if it would have worked in the 901 or not. Maybe some long winter even as I loaf about with my cats grieving over my past mistakes I'll pull out my old tail-shifter and see how it would work. In other news, I have a VW bus clutch, pressure plate, and 180mm conversion flywheel for sale.

I also ended up buying an Otto-20 reverse camshaft from Clark's to replace my previously purchased stock specification reverse cam. That cam is now also for sale.

Somewhere along the way I found myself staring at upright 914-6/911-style cooling fan/shroud combos like this one:

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3833213

.. But they require a load of bread to capitalize. Star Cooke sells the complete package of shroud, fan, and alternator for $1500. When poking around eBay I was unpleasantly surprised to find that the 911 fans alone cost $300-$600. Add in another $200 for the magnesium housing. And another $200 for the alternator. Earlier this week I looked at having a fabricator make just a fiberglass shroud from the original molds from back when they were more commonly sold. It looked to be doable right up until I realized that I don't want to spend that kind of money on a fancy fan. Anyway, as it turns out they don't cool effectively due to the lack of correct internally baffling to direct the airflow. My hopes for coolness have become dashed, and it feels exactly like having a crush on a Playboy bunny only to realize that she's half my age and I'm forty and all she wants to talk about in real life is scientology and Justin Bieber.

So soon there will finally be some actual assembly for your viewing pleasure. All that's left now is raising capital for some 140 heads and the machine work for the VW piston & cylinder conversion machine work. If someone finds some money laying on the sidewalk please throw it into an envelope and send it to me so I can steam the stamp off of it.

Forward, comrades. Thanks for being patient for the World's Slowest Engine Build.

-marcus