After procrastinating for a week, I got to work on the aluminum heads one morning. I had to balance the size of the combustion chambers. The process goes like this: Make a plexiglass disc with a hole in the middle, place over the chamber with valves and spark plug in place, fill with colored water from a pipette, measure volume, grind away the smaller chambers to match the largest one, repeat until satisfied. I was satisfied after 8 hours and within 0.1 cc of each other. This, along with the balancing of all reciprocating parts will help the engine run smoother, rev higher, and last longer. After that, I filed away all the excess aluminum casting flash from between the cooling fins. There was a lot there, so it will run cooler now for more power and durability. Next the heads go off to the shop again to have the valve seats staked. This process is a cheap way of assuring no valve seats will drop out ruining a piston, valve, cylinder, and head. Corvairs run hard are prone to that. The process involves bumping little pieces of metal from the heads over top of the edge of the valve seat. The alternatives are very expensive, such as screw-in seats. I also ordered a lightened, bolted flywheel and a Vega spring-loaded clutch disc. This allows faster acceleration with the trade-off of less torque while engaging the clutch. The Corvair crank has no couterweights, so there is very little mass in the rotating parts. The result is a motorcycle like throttle response. That’s like free horsepower if you know how to drive a stick, and don’t care much about standing starts. It’s more advantageous for rallying than drag racing. Another gift of free horsepower is gained from lightening the whole car. About all I can do in that regard is to get rid of the back seat and buy lighter wheels and spare tire. Everything else is about as light as it can get, while keeping winter functionality. I think I can get the dry weight down to 2300 lbs. I have small diameter wheels and tires on it now, for rallying, but might have to put larger ones on for highway driving.
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2300lbs still seems heavy for a relatively small car. I’ll have to look up the weight of my Peugeot to make a comparison.
Do you have good manuals and documentation on all the parts?
Are there specialized catalogs or magazines for Corvairs and parts?
I created a category called “darth nader project” for you. You can display all posts in a category by clicking on the category link in the upper right hand corner of the page. When you create a post, remember toset the category. Or, you can always go back later and edit a post.