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All About Corvairs
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Yes, I remember a VW-Corvair conversion kit, but I was wondering how much sheet metal you had to chop out, I'm sure quite a bit...it's pretty tight back there, and the Corvair is a wider, longer engine than the dinky VW.
More common back then was a Porsche 912 engine in a VW bug, and even more common was a VW engine in a 912 Porsche, which often surprised the buyer who didn't know better!
Funny, that Corvair site tells about the rear suspension changes to the 1964 model and then the total redesign of the 1965 model suspension and then claims that there was never a problem, it was all in Nader's head. Yeah, well........
Since I belong to SCCA and plan to do some SOLO running of the car I need to check the specs for that.
I hope to pull the engine next year and go through it since it is the origional engine from 65. At that time if I can keep it in the solo class I will re-cam the engine.
But from what I have read the turbo won't kick in until a certian speed is reached, I think I can take care of that by RPM management.
When I find out I will surely let you know.
Have a great weekend.
Wayne
I am restoring the car so changing the car is out for me. Since it came from the factory with the turbo i will leave it on the car.
My wife said it is a hauler when it gets up and goes, so the bottom end doesn't seem to be a big problem.
I'm more concerned with front end lift at higher speeds due to the aerodynamics of the car. I have found that Clarks offers spoilers that mount in the front with and without brake cooling inlets
and a spoiler for the rear lid.
Same for the front spoiler idea...ground effects don't take effect until one reaches speeds which are really out of the Corvair's range in a stock vehicle, I think.
Actually, I think the stock brakes on a Corvair are, for drum brakes, superb.
Actually, I made an error in the last post. What I meant to say was that the spoiler and the front air dam are, by definition, working against one another on any car. The spoiler to increase drag and push the car down, the air dam to improve aerodynamics. So, in untested bolt-on kits, 99% of everyone on the street today is accomplishing absolutely nothing by using these two opposing components...it could, in fact, make the car slower at high speed, and probably is actually.
The VW and Corvair stock heaters were pretty worthless. They used exhaust gas to heat the car. Now if they happened to have an exhaust leak, guess what you got in the car as part of the deal?
actually my favorite factory defect is the early 60s full-size Chevy. The motor mounts would break, and the engine would then fall on the steering rods, jamming them; at the same time, as the engine shifted off its mounts, it would pull the vacuum line off the power brake; AND (it gets better--wait)if the engine fell forward, as it might, it would pull the throttle linkage open. So you got sudden acceleration, jammed steering and no power brakes.
(How to safe yourself? Switch the key off and hold on tight).
The factory "fix" was a braided metal cable that wrapped around the exhaust manifold and secured the engine.
Later, they came out with a revised motor mount that had a built in restraint.
I also remember some Buicks that would always break mounts, these were a "bear" to replace!
Remember those?
What a B**** of a job!!! Like all Corvairs, this pig leaked oil everywhere! The engine had to come out, of course and by the time I was done, I looked like a tar baby, the stall was covered with oil, and I had to spend an hour cleaning off my greasy fingerprints from the white wagon!
Naturally, when the engine was out, we found the rear seal leaking oil all over the old clutch and had to replace that as well!
What a filthy job!!
And...Let's see now...I think we were charging around ten dollars an hour for labor back then.
I can still hear the customer complaining about having to pay something like 80.00 for his new clutch!
I think that guy in Boulder deserved a medal!
That was one miserable, greasy job! You can't imagine the mess!
The worts part was the fact that that Corvair in typical fashion had about three quarts of oil sticking to the engine and the underside of the car!
Tsk, tsk, tsk.
I bet that was one of the Boulder guy's secret tricks.
We didn't even know what a steam cleaner was much less have one!
We had to "make do" most of the time. Sometimes a vise grip had to suffice if the right size wrench was unavailable.
We found engine misses by pulling off the plug wires one at a time. If the wire itself was bad, the resulant shock we received would steer us in the right direction.
Besides, how would you clean the bottom of a Corvair engine even if you had a steam cleaner?
Some jobs are just dirty ones, and this was one of the very worst!
Everyone paid their bill.
Just tryin to get yer goat. Nothins quite as easy or fun as criticizing 30 yrs after the fact.
Shift:
I can't top that. I did have a mechanic though, who wasn't able to get my car done on the day promised because he was in the hospital. He had ingested a little gas while syphoning via the oral suction method.
The same guy left a wrench in the engine bay once. I stopped at a light and heard a tinkling sound. As it was a Fiat, I naturally figured something had fallen off. I looked underneath and there was this lovely Snap-On wrench; one of those brake job types, with the huge offset. I brought it in. He was delighted. He said "You FOUND it!".
He was a great guy though.
He tried to sell me an apparently clean MGTD in 1972 for $5K. I said "Puh-leaze! What kinda rube you take me for?" That was high for a TD back then.
I am looking to buy a 65-68 Corvair to use as an "around town" car here in Atlanta...
1. Create low-end boost by raising the exhaust gas temperature: enamel and wrap the manifolds, cross-over etc.
2. Use a larger, 2-barrel carb. The stock carb restricts boost.
3. Have the turbo blow through 2 Rochesters (the same used on the base engine) instead of sucking through the stock 1-barrel. Apparently this gives you boost at the top of first gear instead of third.
4. Use the big-valve 140-hp heads.
Each of these tricks has a downside--like engine failure--unless they're done right. I can provide more details if anyone's interested. Also, of course, they're not for someone restoring their turbo to original, unless you're OK with telling people these are "period hop-ups".
I'm not sure about changing the cam. The stock turbo cam is the base engine cam, designed for low-end throttle response. Using a cam with more lift and duration would take away what little low-end that engine has, unless it was ground by someone who really knew what they were doing. The problem is massive turbo lag, something computerized engine management has minimized. This may be only good thing about new cars.
I had a Fitch Corvair for a time, and John Fitch merely modified the stock engine (non-turbo) and it was a great little car.
it was a 66 corsa. put dual webers,hi-vol. oil pump,inline cooler & fan, forged pistons, viton oil seals, lowered it with 15" whls. and urethane bushings all around, it handled like a large scaled go-cart. it turned out to be quite a fast and fun car to drive. all the corvair needed was a bit more time & refinement during its heyday. but ralph nader needed the corvair to boost his career to new levels.
.....our version of the water-cooled Porsche?
Gene from Dousman, WI
vair-vert@excite.com
The '64s had a modified rear suspension, with a leaf spring attached to the transmission case to increase understeer.
I am more inclined to believe him more than a young lawyer trying to make a name for himself. Back in 1972 congress made a study of the early corvairs to see what they could find and it was discovered that they were actually more safe than most other cars of the time. Unfortunately the car was already three years in its grave.
Only one person that I have talked to about my and other corvairs actually stated it correctly," Corvair.That is the car that made Ralph Nader famous!" Most others say,"It is the car that Ralph Nader killed." That is not true. Chevy had already decided to kill the corvair before his book even came out. The decided to put all their efforts into the camaro to put in competition with the ford mustang. The mustang is actually the killer of the corvair.
Nader was pretty harsh on the car, it is true, but the facts seem pretty certain that the average and somewhat careless American driver, as opposed to the fastidious and knowledgable head of a Corvair club, could not safey cope with this car's weird handling characteristics. With a bad maneuver and underinflated tires, you could go over all right. Seeing is believing, and I personally would never ride in a 1960-63 Corvair being driven aggressively unless I was driving it or Phil Hill was. I urge enthusiasts to be careful with the early Corvair cars and seek expert advice in getting them sorted out.
I read "Unsafe" just before I got my license, had a '60 Corvair given to me, totaled it and then bought two more Corvairs. I mean, if you don't take your life in your hands every time you turn the ignition, what's the point?
By the way, Shiftright, what model Alfa were you chasing down that Corvair with?
Just off the top of my head:
Carter YH side-draft one-barrel, maybe the same one they used on six-cylinder Corvettes. TRW turbo with 10(?) psi of boost. Horsepower increased from previous 150 to 180 with a larger turbo and carb. 8:1 compression. Base engine small-valve (not the 140-hp) heads. Valve timing varied by year, but I think the '65 used the base engine cam. Pressure-retarded distributor advance, so that the timing was backed off as boost increased. HD bottom end parts.
It's been thirty years (?!) since I bought my '65 turbo, and I only drove it a few years, so someone more recently into Corvairs may have better information.
I saw an early coupe yesterday, and I think the '60-64 styling has worn remarkably well. They seemed a little funky back in the late '60s but now maybe I prefer it to the '65-up. On the other hand, I saw a '52 Nash on the road a few days ago, and I thought it looked good, so maybe I go for the rounded look.
I owned 2 Corvairs in my younger days, a 1960 4 dr and a 1962 2 dr Monza 4 speed. I was young and foolish and just drive the crap out of those cars and never came close to losing control. They were wonderful little cars and so far ahead of their time the rest of the industry was trying to play catch up for years. The '64 version had a really great rear suspension that was stolen from the 'Vet, then they changed the body in '65 and changed the suspension again.
jpstax, The supercharger predated the turbo by at least 50 years. I may be wrong but I believe the Corvair Spyder was the first production car to use a turbocharger and it was full of innovations like sodium filled valves to get rid of the heat.
If that dirt bag Nader had a truthful bone in his body he would never have written that phoney book.
It was full of false statements and outright lies and was written for two purposes. 1. to make money and 2. to make a name for himself. What a shame to have killed that great car for such selfish reasons.
The story that Ralph Nader killed the Corvair is a complete myth, although it makes for a good yarn. It is quite well documented by auto historians that GM had issued orders to replace the Corvair soon after its introduction, as they were looking for a front-engined conventional car to compete with the much more successful Ford Falcon. This is provable by the appearance of the Chevy II compact in 1962. Given the lead time necessary in those days to produce a new model, it's obvious that GM had the Chevy II planned even before the Corvair came out in 1959. With success of the 1964 Spyder, they held onto the car a little longer, but as soon as the Mustang came out in late 1964 the Corvair was doomed.
GM is the only entity to blame for the disappearance of the Corvair. The car was not on trial, corporate negligence was, and GM wasn't found guilty of anything except stupidity, for which (fortunately) people are not thrown in jail in America.
As for flipping over, you'll never get me in a 1960-63 Corvair unless I'm driving it--I'm convinced they are very squirrely cars in the wrong hands...they aren't,by the way, the ONLY car I won't ride in unless I'm driving, so I'm not singling it out. Army Jeeps, Suzuk Samarai and HOnda 3-wheel ATVs are a couple of others that I think can be deadly.
One problem with the early Corvair was the very very slow steering. At 8 turns lock to lock (!), it might be true that the average driver couldn't get into too much trouble by yanking the wheel (like GM test drivers did and flipped over), but if there was trouble, with 8:1 steering it's not likely you'll pull out of a tail-around either.
The problem with the turbo was that all the boost came at or near 5000 rpm, a rev speed most American drivers didn't have a clue about at the time.
I guess I also mentioned 4 times that I had a Fitch Corvair (1966) and loved it.
I was pretty young but I think that what happened was that he put a wheel off of some new pavement (on a highway) onto a shoulder that was a few inches lower. He turned the wheel to get back onto the road surface and maybe overcorrected. I think he got into a kind of oscillation (like what becomes a 'tank-slapper' in motorcycles) that got greater for a few cycles, rather than dying away. I think we got a little more sideways with each correction, rather than a little less, and I think that the car was rolling a lot on its suspension, threatening to roll over.
This proves nothing. Means nothing.
I just like to hear myself talk.
But it was enough to scare the heck out of the normally unflappable Dad, who took it easy and drove extra carefully after that, though he did buy another Corvair - a '65.
I think 'squirrely' is the right word.
The supercharger is a belt- or gear-driven accessory that takes lots of power to drive. The turbo is supposedly more efficient because it uses the heat of a waste product--exhaust gases--to drive the turbo impeller.
Turbo lag was a problem because they'd use a relatively large turbo that took a while to spool up. Now they use smaller turbos, either one for a small increase in torque like the VW 1.8, or two small turbos for power and torque like the Supra.
Yes, a smaller supercharger pulley will spin the blower faster, creating more boost. However, as the owner of a GTP, I can say that more power is one thing they don't really need. Better quality control, yes, more power, no.
This is the kind of trivia that pretty much shut down the trivia conference.