If you are old enough you remember when a Model T was the fastest thing
across an intersection too. A guy who wrote Chev hop up books, named
California Bill, stuffed a breathed on Corvair six into a Porsche speedster.
A friend was going to buy it and drove it for a few hours. Olds 442's
sucked exhaust! GTO's shook their heads ... A Plymouth Superbird was the
only thing that was competition to about 85 then CUBIC INCHES took over.
Wes
----------
> From: Dick Jurkowski <lsr_man@yahoo.com>
> To: ardunbill@webtv.net, land-speed@autox.team.net
> Subject: Re: Corvairs
> Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 14:35:26 -0700 (PDT)
>
>
>I guess that's why I threw this whole Corvair
>thing into the pot - just to find out if anybody
>else had a good experience with them. I had a
>Corsa when I came back from the 'nam and have
>good memories of it. ('course, anything that
>wasn't painted o.d. green or camoflage would have
>probably given me good memories.) When the turbo
>stopped working I replaced it (for lack of funds)
>with a small 4bbl Holley. I think the damned
>thing was faster with the Holley. It looked good
>too, blue with white stripes and black centered
>American mags. Then, years later, I bought a
>pile of parts from a guy I worked with, it
>included a Porsche 912 body, a mildly heated over
>corvair motor with a Holley 4 bbl, a Volkswagen
>tranny and adaptor kit for the Corvair. I spent
>most of the winter getting it together. The
>aluiminum flywheel was about the size of a Kwik
>Check bannana cream pie, and weighed about the
>same. Throttle response was quite impressive, to
>say the least. The first time I drove it, it
>looked pretty much like a Porsche, but when I
>floored it, the front wheels would depart from
>ground zero with great zest. the transmission
>was an old-old-old (1949 -50?) European model
>without synchro, and low gear was about equal to
>a John Deere. My boys and I tried about fifteen
>different setups to create our own system to
>clock it from zero to sixty, but could never get
>anything to measure it. My guess is that it was
>considerably less than 6. Only problem was, when
>I reached 60 I was rapidly approaching max speed.
> I think the car would reach all of 85 mph - but
>around town, nobody knew that - the "black
>primered Porsche" quickly became rumored to do
>over 200, 0-60 in 3 or less -eat up vettes and
>Ferarris, and jump over buildings in a single
>bound with more power than a locomotive while
>outracing a .357 magnum slug. My sons and I
>smiled and let the rumors fly. It sure was
>impressive for the first hundred feet or so
>though!!
>
>
>=====
>Dick J - - ECTA #72
>G/FCC - - XF/GR
>
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