On to the air baffle.

The air baffle sits underneath the fan and fan housing but on top of the crankcase. Normally the baffle isn't coated with anything. In fact, I had a hell of a time getting it clean. And by clean I mean CLEAN. Old gasket fragments and gasket sealant really likes to stick. I didn't want it to rust when installation time came so I thought that I should have it zinc or cadmium plated. That would have been best. Powder coat would have been too thick and may be in an environment where the powder coat could melt. But then I thought about my plan to paint the cylinders with KG Gun-Kote because it's extremely thin, more durable than barbeque paint, extremely hard, and super heat proof. Plus, I can apply it at home. If I had a bunch of parts for this application, I certainly would have had them zinc/cad plated. But like powder coating, it's all about maximizing the minimum cost.

You can buy Gun-Kote in a rattle can from another manufacturer, but I went ahead and bought the industrial version. It's water based and the solids in the bottle take forever to mix. Even after throwing in some clean nuts and screws to work out the solids, my first attempt had lots of mucky particles due inadequate mixing. The second time around I mixed it for a half hour and finally achieved a good consistency. I also tried spraying with a Preval canister but it didn't work as well as I wanted to so I used a small touch-up HPLV gun that I picked up at Lowe's for $20. It worked perfectly.

So let's start with the cleaning process. Lots of chemicals. Lots of time with the Roxxon tool. Lots of time sanding. I *hate* sanding which is one more reason I'll never be a body guy. Those guys are some sort of wizards or something.

Almost clean:

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It's amazing how much dirt still hides in the pores of the metal even after a couple of hours of cleaning. Not for long though.

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Finally, it's CLEAN.

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Not unlike powder coating, I like to preheat the part to 150 degrees first. While it's warming up I mix the KG Gun-Kote and run it through a fine paint sieve. It's the blackest thing I can conceive of. [Note the creepy photo again, but this one has more of a I'm-the-god-of-this-oven-and-I-shall-judge-all-that-you-do mise-en-scene to it]

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Final product. I had to restart this once or twice due to the initial bad mix and then lousy spray results. The good thing is that acetone wipes it right off so that I could start all over again. It's just out of the oven after curing for an hour so it looked a little mottled still. By morning it was smooth and even.

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Good. It will be nice to be less lonely. One major word of advice that I'll address here but expand in the summary is that unless you go with the VW big bore conversion it isn't worth it. If you stick with stock Corvair pistons and cylinders you won't get any more power than a good, hopped up Type-4. But you will get more weight. BUT if you build a 150 or 180 turbo engine, then the Type-4 won't even touch it without a serious dollar investment. It might be a little cheaper depending on where you find your parts and deals. So far I'm in $2800 and all of the parts have been bought. But I still have $1500 worth of machine work to pay for. note also that I'm cutting zero corners and buying the very best parts available. From that perspective it would be very hard to beat this conversion on a bang-for-the-buck point of view. In retrospect, the best possible way to do this, other than the turbo engine, is to find the lowest cost 140 engine that's already in excellent shape and then do the big-bore conversion. You'd be bucks ahead.

Here's a quickie comparison:

Stock 140 Corvair Engine <-> Heavy, only really 110 horsepower. Cheap though. Can rebuild the whole engine for $2000.

Rebuild 140 + 3.1 or 3.0 big bore. This is what I'm doing. More expensive ending up at $4300. Expecting somewhere between 150-180 hp. Less expensive than building up a hot Type-4 1911 or 2056, but not by much. Bolt in conversion. No need to cut up a perfectly good 914 body. Can nickle and dime my way through it. Rebuilding means I'm intimately knowledgeable about my engine and I can really spend time doing things that are too expensive and time wasting for a production machine shop to do - like polishing the case and painting the innards with Glyptal paint, exotic coatings, cryogenic treatment of iron parts, etc.

Corvair 150-180 Turbo. Actual HP numbers apply. But you'll want to rig up an external oil cooler like the water cooled engine conversion folks do. Engines can be found and bought and rebuilt. Sometimes you can just buy a good one outright if it came from a reverse rotation rebuild already. Lots of aftermarket turbo, carburetor, and intake options. The Corvair was the very first production turbocharged car, so hopefully you enjoy retro turbo lag also unless you install a modern turbo. Also, I'm not sure a 901 5-speed has the best ratios for said lag. But maybe. I wish someone like McMark (or you!) would do up a turbo Corvair 914 so we can find out.

All options: say goodbye to valve racket and adjustment. Bleah.

Well the Q2 is a rutan canard aircraft that was originally built around a continental 0-200 100horse a /c powerplant. I think the weights are comparable. Others are using the corvair successfully in a /c. An injected Turbo would be very interesting in this AP.

Fantastic. There are scores of aircraft with Corvair engines on the Internet. I read through them and think that perhaps I should get into aircraft one day, but then I think of that magical day back in 1998 when my parachute malfunctioned. My bones still hurt a little. So I'll stick with the far less safe automotive option. If I were doing an Corvair powered aircraft I don't know if I would go with the turbo or just go nuts with multipoint fuel injection. That turbo has to guzzle some fuel. Still, you're obviously a million times more knowledgeable than I so I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I wouldn't go that far. Your hands on right now, and I'm laid up in bed with a back injury. My knowledge is based only on a little bit of personal experience and a lot of research. I am a huge fan of Mega Squirt and itb's, your motor would look and sound insane with high butterfly stacks surrounding that fan shroud! I wouldn't even mess with a Turbo on this AP though, go with a healthy cam optimized for injection, stout compression and start learning about MS.-Guy
Oh, when I was younger I got to see an original Yanko stinger, it was on the corsa body, man was it a serious piece of work. Nader really screwed America on that deal.

(*) Fun Fact: The Daniel Fahrenheit temperature scale is based on the lowest temperature he could make in the lab with alcohol and brine, or what he determined would be zero degrees. The high point was based on the human body which he scaled to 100 degrees. By repeatedly poking his extremely patient wife, Wilma, with thermometers he achieved his points and scale. But it turns out that she often had poor health with fevers so it's a bit high. Corrected for non-fever, it's 98.6 degrees. I wish so badly that we used the Metric / Centigrade system in the States, but frankly the goofy system we have is a LOT funnier.
[/quote]

Well at least we don't use British units like stones or fortnights or imperial gallons
I once asked a Rolls Royce engineer why they use imperial gallons/ time unit for gas turbine fuel flow when they could have more precisely used stones per fortnight.
Barefoot

I really want to build another engine. If anyone is interested, I would be happy to do one for them. It helps that I have found NOT to use the roller rockers from that one supplier mentioned in my other post. Complete shite.

Also, I would be happy to share my CIS intake design. My welding is not great, so you might want to get Mark or Scotty to weld it up, but I can supply the plans.

I'm all hot over your CIS system. I would LOVE to get your plans to build one up for myself but I have no real fabrication ability and I sold my welding gear off last year.

Coming up soon are my modifications to a set of Ford roller tip rockers. You totally saved me from getting those cheap ass roller rockers from CS, and to go with the full Clark's setup (rockers, girdles, extra deep valve covers, studs) is $1000. I'm not sure I want to spend that on a smidge of extra efficiency. So I'm splitting the difference and going with the Ford roller tip rockers. I'm working on them now and will post the modifications.

I didnt post here, bit might as well put this information here as well, that after I did a closer inspection all but one of the roller rockers from CS were about to fail and not centered. I checked my geometry while engine on stand, and rechecked, and verified that all the stuff was moving the way it was. I got the wrong parts from him when he first tried to help....check my thread for those details. The owner is not a bad person, per se, he just sells a shitty product. I have since gone back to stock with lash caps due to the valve stem faces getting messed up by the roller rockers failing.

I don't know if the reverse rotation cam set ups still use aluminum gears,
but if they do, be sure to pin the gears to the cam..
The stock key setup can fail.

As evidenced by this picture.

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This gear was in a 1965 Turbo Coupe that the owner couldn't get to run
right. He started taking it apart but lost interest.
Look at the size of the keyway. Can't imagine what the timing was like..

This is just a FWIW

Hey, thanks for chiming in.

My machinist installed my cam gear, which I picked up from Clark's OTTO catalog. It's a modified design from the original. It's made from aluminum and uses a fail-safe steel retainer ring to keep the gear fixed. You have to heat up the gear and freeze the cam, install the gear on the cam, and then lay over the steel retainer ring into a groove on the back of gear with a press and then let it sit there until the temperatures equalizes. I think that the stock cam gears needed to be pinned for exactly the damage you mention. But I don't think you need to do this for the fail-safe style.

Thanks for keeping me in check! I do so appreciate peer review.

Here you go. This shows the newer style cam gear and the steel retaining ring.

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Looks like a much better way to attach the gear.

I just checked out the Clarks web site and they
certainly don't give it away though.
I used to drive a Corvair because they were cheaper
to keep running than my 6..
They were great winter cars too.

First time I bought parts from Clarks, he was selling
parts out of his house.

So just making a quick report here. I received the rotating assembly back from the machinist after having everything balanced.

The heads, engine case, and connecting rods are off to the specialty machinist in SoCal for the 3.0 conversion. I've decided to go with 92mm thick wall pistons and cylinders (standard 66-74mm stroke) from AA as opposed to 94mm cylinders. This will drop displacement from 3.1 to 3.0 liters, but I could care less about that since this will leave significantly more meat on the heads and produce a longer-lasting engine in theory.

I've also decided to skip the roller rockers and use small block Ford roller-tip rockers instead. It isn't just what happened to Dr. Evil's rollers bought from a lousy vendor, but I've spoken to several Corvair specialty machinists who say that even the high quality roller rockers like to burn through the needle bearings. I'm not down with that. So I'm splitting the difference and going with roller-tip rockers instead. In truth even the bone-stock rockers are perfectly fine. I'll detail the modifications when they return.

One interesting note: you can do this same engine modification and use VW stroker (88mm) cylinders for even more displacement. If you do this, you can machine VW Rabbit or Honda B16A connecting rods. You know, if you wanted to go totally nuts.

The last note is that my machinist had a hell of time machining down the conversion flywheel from Starr Cooke. Cooke doesn't actually do the modification work, he just sells them. But the one I bought sucked. The step was all over the place. Both the top and bottom surfaces were horribly uneven. My machinist called up Cooke to find out what's what but he just played dumb. He was able to surface them down to an acceptable level, but it took him nine hours to do it. In his words, "Marcus, if this was anyone but you I would have thrown this thing in the trash instead of spending all day on it." Yikes. Words of warning.

I'm expecting the turnaround to take quite a number of months, so it might be a while until the next update.

-marcus

How is the work going, I have read this post about three times. I am looking for a core motor now.

Ya howsit goin? I hope your health is holding up

Peeps,

Apologies. I'm only a month past my stem cell / bone marrow transplant. I'll be down for several more months. Right now I'm spending my time in bed staying unconscious and enjoying a liquid diet in the brief moments that I'm awake. I have the strangest dreams.

Having said that, the project is still go. I'll drop in more as I'm able.

Your pal,
Marcus

Take care of yourself. We can wait.

Heel up fast Marcus, you've got work to do!

The following text is personal. Feel free to skip it and spend your time here instead: http://www.rubiksolve.com

***

I've read that our brains make decisions by utilizing use of only a tiny fraction of our rational frontal lobe parts of the brain, and most of decision making is emotional in nature due to the way we've evolved over time. Add to that that this happens at a purely unconscious level. By the the time you think you've decided on something as good thinking, you're really only rationalizing what your emotional brain has already decided for you several moments prior. It's why diets don't work. Or why we choose mates based on sexual desire. Or why anyone ever bought a Snickers bar. Or an old Porsche.

Because I've been in the dumps for many months now (although I'm up and about and healing rapidly) I've had nothing but time to really reconsider my life, and in what I think is a surprisingly rational way. And it basically sucks. I have bad habits. I spend way more than my means on my many projects, automotive or otherwise. I'm self-employed which is a fancy way of saying that I'll never be able to retire from a job that I increasingly despise. And my recent medical adventures have left me bankrupt, again. As much as possible, I really want my recovered self to do things smarter. Like finding a better job where I can ask for a good pension and six months off at a time for things like heavy chemo and transplants. Maybe ditch my car projects and use the money to buy a dependable car like a Golf TDI or a Ford Fiesta. Eat cabbage soup seven days a week to maintain a reasonable body weight. Buying loafers. Things like this.

During the past ten years I've thought that I was going to die at any moment, so spending ludicrous amounts of money on a 914 or Barracuda or tools or appliances or organic vegetables seemed reasonable. But now that I'm in serious danger of having a future, my thoughts have changed. As I lay on the couch now eating this container of yogurt trying to think about a smarter future I wonder about the wisdom of 914 projects.

My uphill battle of 914 ownership now includes the following:

- I've spent way, way more on this 914 fixer-upper than just buying a good one. The same holds true for my 'Cuda.
- The car has more passenger side long rust that I ever knew, discovered after the car was stripped and painted
- The Corvair machinist has gone missing - along with the engine parts
- I haven't worked in six months and I need to cough up at least $25,000 for more medical bills. Doable over time, but depressing.
- Thinking that a career in crime is an inevitable outcome of my life's path to date, but can't figure out how to profit from third-party arson

I haven't made any major decisions just yet. I'll hold on to the 914 for now and see if my mind changes over the coming months. But it's hard to escape the (apparently rational) thought that maybe this isn't the right path for me any more. Maybe it makes more sense to purge, burn, recycle, or sell all of my 914 stuff and take up a cheap hobby, like repeatedly solving my Rubik's cube.

Thoughts? Input is always welcome.

-marcus

Glad to hear you are getting better!!!
Sometimes removing all these additional projects can alleviate stress in your life. Immediately.
There is the danger though that when you vacate your garage you start thinking about starting up something else

On the flip side, it is really beneficial to be passionate about something, anything.
Keeps your mind in the game, your body moving, and a purpose to wake up.

There will never be a shortage of old cars, boats, cycles etc. available to work on.
You can always jump back in- when- as you said, you have your health, career, future.

For some people it's the journey, some it's the destination.

Wow... that's an eye opener. We all (sooner or later) go through some type of self worth examination if we're worth our salt and some are tougher than others. Yours is tough...
I think there's nothing wrong with buying a dependable car based on Rubiks Cube calculations of probability, but if we don't pursue what fires passion in us we're missing something. If working on these machines is what you love, there's intrinsic value in that. If running your business is getting mundane, think of what drove you to do it in the first place. If it's still worth it, do it. But then, there's nothing wrong with a good 401K...
Just my 2 cents... best wishes Marcus.

HEY! You should be able to get some assistance on the med bills. File medical bankruptcy. They can't take what you don't have. Drug manufacturers have all kinds of programs. My cousin, stage 3-4, iirc, matastic prostate cancer, gets assistance on the 'life extending' magic drugs. They retail for roughly $9k a month. Plus another monthly injection that is $6k per. Plus the usual tamulosin and finesteride (sp). Had my cousin not relocated to washington he would be dead.

Our hope for the best in job, finances,and great health. There's always a teener seat to ride in somewhere.

Hopefully someone local can go by and help find your motor parts from the crook.

I know your health has been an issue for a long time Marcus. I don't think a Purge of projects is a bad way to go at all. What you get out of the projects might be more depressing though. I know the Cuda is probably the most ready & worth the most. Although I'm sure your bike if it was up for sale would go quick too. I don't know that market but am sure it would pull good money.

The 914 is always a tough call to get rid of. I know you have put a lot into it. When I was up helping you pull the motor. I was shocked & felt bad at the passenger longitude. I know you had paid for a good paint job. So it really sucked to see that. The PO floor pans were a surprise too. First setup I had seen that way. I think you would be money ahead getting a more solid chassis than fixing that one. Always brutal to make that call. Especially when you have so much invested. Not only monetarily but emotionally & physically. I went through something similar recently with some trucks I made the mistake of buying. Finally just cut my losses & got rid of them all. I lost affair amount of money overall with them. It was still a relief to have it all gone that the money wasn't as big a deal. Was just glad to be done with them

I'm happy to help in any way that I can. I'm also more than happy to take you for a spin in my 914 when the weather clears up .

Marcus,
I hope things turn around for you. You are one heck of a meticulous engine builder.

I don't know that much about the corvair engine, just seen a rerun of Chasing Classic Cars about the Fitch Phoenix that John Fitch used a corvair powerplant. Pretty cool history, too bad with the timing of Ralph Nader.

Reality tends to get in the way of our dreams, but what would life be without them?

Dave

Since i have nothing technical to add here, how about something environmental:

Just one liter of oil in the soil can contaminate 1 million liters of ground water.



PS: I hope this all works out for you.

In that case, you *need* this:

7 Hours To Solve the World's Hardest Rubik's Cube


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4BrzJbtRZg

Nader had his say, but it was the timing of the Ford Mustang that really pulled the rug out from under the Corvair. It was a new car for '65, and a very sophisticated one, but the Mustang just ate it alive, sales-wise.

Peeps, thanks for the well wishes. As yet I'm still undecided about the long-term viability of all of this. My mind is in much better shape than my body so I stew and think and stew and think. Mostly I think that what I need is a Swedish bride and a suitcase full of money.

I spent a little time in the garage today and I forgot that I had assembled all of the parts necessary to upgrade my 1.7 liter engine to a 1911cc. That gives me something to work on when I'm able (and when the weather warms up). I'll work on that and make further attempts to get in contact with the missing machinist as time passes.

I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission.

-m.

Along with the Plymouth Barracuda. Sigh. Something like twelve Mustangs sold for every one Barracuda.

Although technically the fist generation of Mustangs were re-bodied '60-'62 Falcons. But you're right, the Corvair body was right out of the 50s and looked too vintage.

Dave, that's good info.

My view has always been that Nader actually was right to point out the things he pointed out, and much of it was true for many of the cars of that era and their appalling lack of safety. Eventually the government investigated his claims and found them to be no worse than other cars of the time, and many of the claims were debunked. But it all happened right as most manufacturers starting paying attention to safety anyway. And as DarkMonohue says, releasing new models of much more modern cars like the Mustang more befitting of the 1960s took the market.

In effect, Nader had an effect on sales but wasn't the straw man that he was made to be. My ears ache from all of the "Nader this" and "Nader that" bogeyman stuff you hear when dealing with the old Corvair gang. After 1964 all his complaints were rectified in the new model of Corvair in any event. I liken this to the Karmann Ghia - designed in the 1950s but looked too old in the late 60s. Hence it's replacement, the 914.

But from my small standpoint, and after reading Nader's book, nobody ever said anything bad about the engines. And that's the only part I care about.

new career?

become a politician !

you cant beat the work hours and the medical and pension.

and !!! no matter how bad you fuck it all up you still keep your job.... uh oh I just went there.....

Um, no thanks. I used to work in DC for the State Department. Political appointees were the worst. But you're right - it would be nice to have the job perks. But from my point of view every worker should have the same benefits those bastards do.

and don't forget to enjoy same of the simple indulgences, like pine state biscuits and some salt and straw!

There's no denying the 2nd-gen Corvair was far more sophisticated than the first-gen car, and much more modern-looking (timeless, even). The Mustang was a crude, simple car that looked fantastic and could be customized just about any way the buyer wanted. Americans largely didn't give a damn about driving dynamics anyway.

I don't think the poor little Baccaruda had nearly the options list the Ford did, either. Pity.

Anyway, sorry for the derailment. I came here as much for the Corvair content as the 914 stuff.

Just a quick question as I'm clueless- what year 'Cuda so I can drool some more?!

I have 3 914's.....one daily driver and 2 parts cars.....about a year ago I bought a Corvair (reversed cam) with the idea I would someday put it into my "72 slope nose....just found this string today and am in awe of all of the expertise and experience......really looking forward to this project now.......I plan to replace the jugs with 94mm VW......3.1L sounds good.

Thanks all

Johart,

I think you would be better off going for 3.0 liters of displacement instead of 3.1. The only difference is that the 3.0 liter engines will use 92mm pistons and cylinders instead of 94mm. I went with AA 92mm cylinders because the barrel thickness was excellent; much thicker than the 94mm cylinders I found.

My engine case and cylinders have been in the hands of a machine shop in SoCal for a year and a half now, and I wonder if I'll ever see them again.

Hopefully.

-marcus

Thanks Marcus.....I think you are right......hope you get yours in and on the road soon.....no FUN waiting.

Good news, everyone.

In the past week the engine case halves have been returned from the machinist. However, he has yet to return the pistons and cylinders. I have high hopes that those parts will also soon return.

In other good news, Tom Knoblauch has produced a pair of beautiful aluminum intakes with custom tapers to perfectly fit the Weber 44 carbs. I'm thrilled with them.

Strangely, I'm now in the position of building two motors simultaneously: the 1911 and this Corvair engine. I suppose I need to find a roller with flares for one of them...


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Nice, I've spoken to Tom a few times and hope to have him do my heads.

Indeed. I have nothing but praise for Tom. But the machinist who stole my engine parts, not so much.

People,

I'm pleased to announce that the project is back in motion.

It took a very long time to recover from the transplant and I still have complications. But I've been spending my time in night school in a machining program, so that's fun and gives me access to large, fun machines.

I've re-purchased all of the parts that I lost and they're on their way to the respective machinists for modification. After those return, it's fun assembly time.

That is all.

marcus out

Glad to hear you're back.

Good to hear things are improving health wise Marcus. Been a while & good to see you back posting

Marcus:
I'm out here in Boring, so I could always lend you a hand (muscle wise) if you need that from time to time. Fun reading about the Corvair engine project. Good luck with your project. You seem like quite the "mad scientist"? In a good way.

Kick ass!

Fantastic. Always great to have local friends. And yes, the "mad scientist" type certainly applies. I'm burdened with way too many interests and hobbies. But weirdly, all of them are expensive. Why couldn't I settle for crosswords instead?

It's great to hear from the old gang. I'm glad you guys are all still here.

*

Some serendipity these past few days:

First, Tom Knobluach is wanting to do the exactly same 92mm VW Type 1 cylinder conversion, so he's doing the work for both of us simultaneously. So I bought all the parts and he's doing the machining. Good. I also did some measuring and discovered that on my heads the chamber opening is still the stock Corvair diameter at 96mm. The outer diameter of 92mm VW cylinders is 101.10mm, so Tom is also going to flycut them to the correct size. That's better since he'll have the cylinder in hand to measure. I've seen the slop between these at a build parties off by 2mm. Yikes.

Second, another machinist is modifying the case halves to increase the oil passage sizes. The stock passages are a joke and he's got all the rigging to do it right. Weirdly, he has a very similar cancer to mine and he's been out for a while also. So I picked up a new friend.

I think it worked out better having to do this part of the operation again after pausing a few years. But what a strange path to get here. I hate to use the term but I think my "qi" is in whack.

Anyway, all the parts are shipped off. This week I'm getting the crankshaft nitrided. The crank has already been cryo'd, ground, and polished. It's not a factory nitrided crank like I would have liked, but it's cheap do to and this way the nitriding will not have lost any depth from grinding.

-m.

Hey, what's the lastest on your Corvair powered bus? Any updates? The last I saw you were sorting out the CIS system.