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]

So, I've been spending the past few weeks learning how to apply new and better coatings. I'll detail some of my experiments here, although Mark Henry is doing many of the same things right now on his thread and probably provides better explanations.

Specifically I'm experimenting with Techline dry film and ceramic coatings, KG Gun-Kote, and powder coating at home.

I'll start with powder coating. I picked up Eastwood's powder coating kit for tinkerers and I must say that it's already saved me quite a bit of money. Every powder coat place in town charges a $125 minimum, and the Eastwood kit costs the about the same. Certainly shops need to charge minimums and I don't have a problem with that, but when I need just a few little parts or different colors this process totally saves the day and has paid for itself already with the half dozen parts I've coated so far. The process is easy, almost foolproof, and provides excellent results.

In addition to the tried-and-true basic powders like satin black, gloss black, machine gray ("grey" for the British amongst us), Porsche silver, etc. I've also picked up some high temp silver ceramic/silicon powder for things like pushrod tubes. The one splash of color I'm indulging in is RAL color #1028 - the closest color I can find to Signal Orange. From England I ordered a RAL color fan (K5 Classic with high gloss) it's extremely handy since most powders I can find are sold by virtue of RAL colors. RAL #1028 isn't a dead ringer for Signal Orange but it is quite close. Certainly closer than Nepal Orange. Close enough for highlights.

Today I'm coating my cooling fan. It's made of magnesium, extremely pitted, and very hard to clean. Any drop of water will instantly oxidize the magnesium, so I had to clean it mechanically and clean after that acetone. I walnut blasted the fan several months ago and you can see that the color is typical for oxidized magnesium.



So I gave it quick blast with more walnut and then set to work with the Roxxon rotary tool. This took a couple of hours with various bits, but it eventually came clean, and was followed up with good scrubbing of acetone and denatured alcohol.





In addition to the $40 large size counter top oven I bought from a junk shop, I also picked up a large assortment of high-heat resistant silicone plugs and caps. Experimenting with powder coating has taught that one of the most important steps is to make sure one knows exactly how to mount the part into the oven without fiddling and mucking up the powder after it's been sprayed. In the this photo I have the fan sitting directly on the rack to preheat it to 150 degrees, but in the final curing I placed it silicone-plug-side down on a thin cookie sheet and practiced getting it into and out of the oven.





This is Eastman powder #10137, or "Orange Yellow." I was surprised to find this color which is exactly RAL #1028. Otherwise I would have to pay $75 for custom color mixing. Good deal. Signal orange 914 owners, please memorize that number. Here it is in a two pound can. In real life it looks exactly like the powdered cheese one might encounter in a box of industrial/prison/orphanage grade mac-and-cheese. Thankfully the color does tone down a bit on the finished product.



Here it is strung up and ready to go, and then with the powder applied.





And finally into the oven. If you look closely you can see a goofy image of me taking the photo with my trusty Lumix camera. It has a certain "I take pictures of you when you're sleeping and I know when you're alone" vibe to it.