MONZORA redux: ‘65 Corvair + ‘94 Corvette mashup for 2019 Challenge

After previous degreasing and scrubbing efforts, the Opti still looked terrible.

one more scrub with simple green, then a little masking:

and a shot of flat black:

and no more eyesore. So I installed the Opti and moved on to masking the water pump for its date with the sandblast cabinet. My 14YO asked if I had anything she could do, so I set her up with the water pump, balancer, and hub, and let her have at it. I decided to shoot a test area with some silver wheel paint I've had on the shelf forever, and it came out better than I expected. I shot the whole pump, and loosely bolted it up to check it out:

In general, I don't like silver spray paint, but the combination of rough cast surface and fine powdery metallic in the wheel paint looks good to me. I also like how the flat black Opti just kind of disappears, and it will be more hidden when the balancer is in place.

Tomorrow I'll replace rear main seal and install oil pan, so I can move on to powertrain mounts later in the week.

Lovin’ the colors on that. 

You may have mentioned, and I missed it, but what is that exhaust manifold? If I remember right, the lt1 head exhaust is different than ol sbc stuff?

In reply to 03Panther :

Shorty header specific to LT1 C4. Craigslist score last summer. Direct fit to OE C4 pipes. Probably marginally better than the cast iron manifolds. Got a set from the other Patrick with a different design that I think will package a lot better in mid-engine config.

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

........

Unloading post-wash, I had a little mishap.

I think the engine is OK, but Sonoma's tailgate took a beating. No more latchy:

Had to play a little ratchet strap roulette, but got everything sorted out:

Careful.  The little "mishap" I had with my engine a few weeks ago cost me my fingertip. 

Despite not having as much kinetic energy as yours appears to have.

In reply to Indy "Nub" Guy :

Well crap :=/

on the good side, fewer nails to clean or trim.

In reply to Indy "Nub" Guy :

Dude, that's so metal! Srsly, I hope that heals up well and doesn't slow you down much. That must have sucked.

Couldn't remove remove rear main seal housing with engine on stand, so had to improvise:

Paper gasket was stuck to block but good. Acid brush plus lacquer thinner plus razor blade and it still took 30 minutes:

Chucked the RMS housing into the shaker for degrease and clean-up:

then rinsed and dried via compressed air nozzle, pushed the new RMS into place, and installed with a little Loctite Blue on the fasteners:

and added a little detail to the oil pan. Special thanks to RevRico by way of paranoid_android:

Hawt.  Hopefully you only see that decal while changing oil.

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

The concours judges will see it in the lighted mirrors I'll have under there.  :-)

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Slowed me down a bit for sure, but I'll be back at it again soon For Sure.

I'm looking forward to seeing Monzora in October.

Squeezed in a little bit of work over lunch. Cleaned old sealant from threads of water pump bolts:

then applied a little RTV:

then installed and torqued to spec 30 ft-lb.

i resisted the urge to clean the intake bolts, as I'm saving that job for AngryKid2. She loves using tools and machines, and she needs something to do.

Here's where we are at 12:15AM Fri 5/22. I'm tired. Sometime tomorrow I'll describe how we got here. For now, a little eye candy.

Very nice!

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Thought it was an exclusive! Or was it just a sneak preview?

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael (Forum Supporter) :

I'm sorry my engine cheated on you. At 200k, her bearings are a bit loose.

This tread is not family friendly, too much engine porn! Looks great, I want see it mated with that Audi transaxle. 

That looks sweet!

So cam and roller rockers are aftermarket.  What else isn't stock?

What's your plan for ECU?  Can you tweak the stock one?

TVR Scott (Forum Supporter) said:

So cam and roller rockers are aftermarket.  What else isn't stock?

Not stock: cam kit (cam, springs, shims, keepers, retainers, rockers, poly locks), headers (probably the shortys i already have, although i want to build a set of 180-degree because they're easy to package in this configuration), flywheel (aluminum, uses Audi starter and clutch package)

Stock: everything else.  the Opti might be an OE replacement, i didn't notice a date code on it but i wasn't looking for one.

What's your plan for ECU?  Can you tweak the stock one?

yep, there are a couple of really good tuning and flashing tools available for tweaking the stock ECU.  and believe it or not, people are still developing new features and processes for tuning this ECU, even though it hasn't been used in production since 1997.  google "EEhack" if you've got some time to kill.  it shouldn't take much to optimize for cam, headers, flywheel, and gearing.

oh wait, i forgot to mention DOS TURBUENOS!  

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Forget the Corvair, just bring your engine down to the Challenge. I'm pretty sure it'll finish top-3 on its own. 

Hell yeah!

Dos Turbuenos?  Those from Eliot?

wawazat said:

Dos Turbuenos?  Those from Eliot?

Yep!

truth: no turbuenos for 2020. Need to shake down as-is to see if the clutch and transaxle are up for more.

so how did the intake get to looking so good? it started with a youtube search reminding me that some people have had good results cleaning aluminum parts with spray-on oven cleaner. there's "fume free", and then there's the good stuff, which contains NaOH (sodium hydroxide, aka Lye) and will eat your aluminum if you leave it on too long. i found my can of fume free, so i got to work.

before:

and after:

i did pick up a can of the good stuff at the dollar store, so i shot the intake with it while it was still wet from rinsing. it did remove some more schmang, but it also changed the color of the aluminum.  oh well.  EGR passages, PCV passages, coked oil on bottom of intake, all gone.

with that done, it was time to mask and paint.  so many features to mask: 12 attachment bolt holes, 8 injector holes, several bracket attachment bolt holes, EGR and TB pads.  problem: how to make neat round masks the right sizes? solution: stick painters tape to a flat washer:

then file through the tape with a fine-tooth flat file:

i used a ball end Allen wrench to push the tape up and off the washer, and it was ready to place over the hole. i also used flat file to cut tape around perimeters of the machined pads:

And with that, masking is complete:

i shot the intake with one light coat of silver Dupli-Color wheel paint, same as i used on the water pump:

At this point it looked good, but needed a little something to bring the old-school flavor. so i masked around the fins on top surface, and shot the top with VHT wrinkle paint.  while that was still wet, i pressed newspaper down on it to take as much paint off the top surface as i could, so only the space between the fins remains painted:

then i made a circular tape mask for the finned area on front of water pump:

and a dot for the center, and did that finned area the same as top of intake, to get the final result:

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

Here's where we are at 12:15AM Fri 5/22. I'm tired. Sometime tomorrow I'll describe how we got here. For now, a little eye candy.

My intake is the exact opposite. Black with silver ridges up top.

LT1 crank hub bolt is 7/16-20. Hole in crank hub is 7/16. Standard balancer install kit doesn't accommodate this, and it's not a size tha you can just go get a length of all-thread at Blowe's. Solution: the longest 7/16-20 Grade 8 bolt they have at Ace:

plus an assortment of spacers:

Thread depth in crank is about 1-1/4". Thread length on bolt is a little over 1". To avoid tearing threads out of crank, I set the spacer stack to allow about 10 threads to engage before contacting balancer hub, then counted 10 turns of the bolt before backing it out and adding another 1/2" to the stack.  Success!

I also bolted the intake down and made a list for the rest of the weekend (subject to change for honey-do's, family time, etc).

Go!