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I sold the car in November of 2016 to a great guy who lives only a few hours away. He is a gear head and will not only take good care of the car, but I expect it to get better with his own ideas. I'll keep the site up and going unless and until he wants to take it over.
I hope you enjoy the site. Here you can see my journey to build a V8 Corvair and the many changes I have made over the years I had the car on the road. Every Summer I drove it and every Winter I tore it apart to add some new refinement. I've come to realize I enjoy building cars more than driving them! |
Before you start on a project that by any measure will involve a great deal of time and effort, you should probably have a clear understanding of why you are doing it. As the months pass and the money flows out of your checking account, the criteria for your success is important to keep in mind. All sorts of technical challenges emerge and you have to keep a clear focus on the desired outcome.
If what you want is to put your signature on a tried and trued approach, then the original Crown conversion can still be built. I like the idea of using a big car Power Glide transmission to soften some of the torque hits on the differential. In the same vein, the four spider set-ups available now really help there as well. The big draw back for me is that Crown cars are not very comfortable due to the lack of leg room.
On the other hand, you may want to actually take on all the fabrication and engineering challenges to build a car you can say was all your own work. In my own case, I definitely wanted to create everything myself. I still ended up using the ideas of others, so I owe particular thanks to Arch Evans, Charlie Friend and a my good friend John Barnes for all their help.
I had four main criteria for my car.The car had to be very reliable, comfortable and suitable for everyday driving.
If what you want is to put your signature on a tried and trued approach, then the original Crown conversion can still be built. I like the idea of using a big car Power Glide transmission to soften some of the torque hits on the differential. In the same vein, the four spider set-ups available now really help there as well. The big draw back for me is that Crown cars are not very comfortable due to the lack of leg room.
On the other hand, you may want to actually take on all the fabrication and engineering challenges to build a car you can say was all your own work. In my own case, I definitely wanted to create everything myself. I still ended up using the ideas of others, so I owe particular thanks to Arch Evans, Charlie Friend and a my good friend John Barnes for all their help.
I had four main criteria for my car.The car had to be very reliable, comfortable and suitable for everyday driving.
- The radiator had to be installed in a way that limited the cutting of any part of the car originally painted with body color.
- I would not use the Corvair transaxle. For what you end up spending on a stock transaxle to get it to hold up, there are better options for a bit more money. I wanted something designed to hold up to 300+ foot pounds of torque that comes from a mildly tuned V8.
- The engine needed to be positioned 12 inches further back than the Crown set-up to allow for the leg room I felt was needed to meet criteria #1.
