Bad idea of the day: corvair

yea I read that about the Paint. sux, good paint over spray can never works for me either I think spray cans take longer to dry. BUT ask a painter, oh yea you have.

Kreb wrote: What about the engine rotation problem? The Corvair is a reverse-rotation motor. Changing the Subaru transmission for rear-engined config is pricey. The SVX engine would blow up a VW tranny, and Porsche trannys aren't cheap either.

why not a FWD suby tranny or an audi tranny turned around?

Dusterbd13 wrote: In reply to Ashyukun: Were a ways out. So dont hold on account of me. We still have to get the car here, after retrieving it from a partially collapsed building in the back of a heavily vegetated lot. And my wife has to find a job. So, right now we are at planning stage. I want to have a clear idea of where we are headed prior to beginning. Unlike the amc which was more of a ping pong ball in a blender approach. Ive seen macstrut front ends and suspension used in rear engined builds before. My bet is that it cant be any worse, and if set up correctly would be worlds better than the factory stuff from the corvair. However, you have made we think about torque steer. Would that be an issue since the toe would be fixed? And stampie, unless you are offering a ridiculously chep caddy setup, it ain't gonna happen. Even then, it probably won't happen due to the goal of retaining the back seat. Ive found a tbread where a guy used a 3800 supercharged engine and trans, kept the back seat and rear suspension. Which tells me that the 60*v6 will fit even better. Maybe.

Macstrut suspension has some form of bumpsteer inherent in its design. So you get to pay attention to minimizing bumpsteer within the working range of the suspension travel. You do this by moving the inboard toe pickup points around until the bumpsteer is reasonable. I'd suggest modelling this in a suspension program before going full scale.

The Fiat x-1/9 was called one of the best handling mid-engined cars of the time and it had a Fiat 128 drivetrain and macstrut suspension moved to the rear and no sway bars. Its entirely possible to get it right, especially if you start with a good front suspension and pay attention to the details. The GM Fiero didn't start with a good front suspension for the rear and it didn't get it right until it was nearly done. Toyota got it right on the MR2, again, they tailored the suspension to the use.

Figure you'll want a bumpsteer gauge and someway to fit dummy struts to allow the suspension to move through its desired range once you get to the point where you've got corners mounted to the car.

Bumpsteer shouldn't happen if the inboard links are fixed and the tie-rods, rod ends, ball joints and upper strut mounts aren't damaged. Ensuring scrub radius is near zero helps, but that is hard to accomplish with mac strut front ends, not impossible, but difficult if you want a decent tire width.

Did chrysler not make a FWD V6 drivetrain where the engine was in a North-South configuration rather than the more typical sideways FWD? I think it might have been the Concorde? This would look cool enough in the backseat

Realize this might only come in an auto-box, but for low-buck mid engine goodness with no adapter needed, this would work.

NOHOME wrote: Did chrysler not make a FWD V6 drivetrain where the engine was in a North-South configuration rather than the more typical sideways FWD? I think it might have been the Concorde? This would look cool enough in the backseat Realize this might only come in an auto-box, but for low-buck mid engine goodness with no adapter needed, this would work.

Yes, all the LH platform cars used this arrangement - Interpid, Concorde, 300M, etc.

SAABs also used a north-south engine arrangement with a FWD transaxle, offered a manual option, and they put the clutch at the front of the engine.

mad_machine wrote:

Kreb wrote: What about the engine rotation problem? The Corvair is a reverse-rotation motor. Changing the Subaru transmission for rear-engined config is pricey. The SVX engine would blow up a VW tranny, and Porsche trannys aren't cheap either.

why not a FWD suby tranny or an audi tranny turned around?

pretty sure just turning it around would net you 1 forward gear and 5/6 reverse gears. flipping it over and turning it backwards would get your gears going the right way but then you have to worry about oiling with it being upside down

MadScientistMatt wrote:

NOHOME wrote: Did chrysler not make a FWD V6 drivetrain where the engine was in a North-South configuration rather than the more typical sideways FWD? I think it might have been the Concorde? This would look cool enough in the backseat Realize this might only come in an auto-box, but for low-buck mid engine goodness with no adapter needed, this would work.

Yes, all the LH platform cars used this arrangement - Interpid, Concorde, 300M, etc. SAABs also used a north-south engine arrangement with a FWD transaxle, offered a manual option, and they put the clutch at the front of the engine.

Yup, Auto only (based on the same internals as used on the Minivans and Prowler, so options available for aftermarket control and upgrades).

The early Audi's were available with FWD in a north/south. The Quattro cars were the same, just with the rear driveshaft and differential added. The 944 used the same 016 transaxle in the rear, down to the bellhousing (with a hole added to pass the shiftlinkage through).

Why not a front engine/rear transaxle arrangement from a 944 or even a wrecked C5?

I had planned to do a 914 with a 300m drivetrain once. Until the 914 split in half.

If this was destined to pnly be a challenge car, that drivetrain would be perfect. Or if it was a 2 door.

For some reason I cant get past keeping the 4 door functionality and style. Sleeper if you will. My brain refuses to go anywhere else.

SVreX wrote: I did forget the 6" wheelbase difference. I was gonna solve that problem with box flares.

Or just change the wheelbase a bit or something.

The Escort Cosworth was an Escort top half on a Sierra XR4x4 floorpan.

edizzle89 wrote:

mad_machine wrote:

Kreb wrote: What about the engine rotation problem? The Corvair is a reverse-rotation motor. Changing the Subaru transmission for rear-engined config is pricey. The SVX engine would blow up a VW tranny, and Porsche trannys aren't cheap either.

why not a FWD suby tranny or an audi tranny turned around?

pretty sure just turning it around would net you 1 forward gear and 5/6 reverse gears. flipping it over and turning it backwards would get your gears going the right way but then you have to worry about oiling with it being upside down

you can't flip the ring and pinion like in a VW or Porsche box?

As for the saab, I would not recommend, they are fragile units and getting harder to find parts for

Stefan wrote: Macstrut suspension has some form of bumpsteer inherent in its design.

Not necessarily. You can design a MacPherson strut (or, properly, a Chapman strut when it is in the rear) to have any toe curve you want, including zero.

I've noted that FB RX-7s have essentially no bump steer, which is unfortunate because this means they have a lot of lateral load positive steer due to it being a rear-steer design. Meanwhile, the FC suspension (which is front-steer) has a crapton of bumpsteer and I find myself having to reset toe every time I adjust ride height, which got so annoying I stopped using it as a tuning tool.

Chapman struts can mount the toe link to the control arm so that lateral load doesn't affect toe. GM fullsize FWDs used to do this, before they went to some weird trailing arm with a toe link to control bushing flex setup. Kind of like an FC, actually, without the swing link. Toe curves are meaningless when you factor kinematics (calibrated bushing compliance for fun and profit) into the mix.

My favorite kinematic design besides the Volkswagen ramped bushings are the subframe mount bushings on the rear of the 318ti. They have something like 40-50mm of travel. Under acceleration the diff nose shoves the subframe up and you get increased anti-squat since the trailing arms' pivots go higher. Under braking the subframe droops down so the instant center drops a bunch, to prevent brake hop. The bushings look like those funky, vaguely NSFW shake-weight things, and BMW didn't put a Guibo on the rear of the driveshaft because it needed to gyrate around by design.

Also, those VW ramped bushings? That provide outside wheel toe-in in the back of A2/3 Golfs? Some autocrossers finally figured out that if you install them backwards, you get outside wheel toe-out under cornering load, which gives you some righteous rotation without having to sacrifice grip.

Dusterbd13 wrote: So after the challenge we will be starting on nect years car. 63 corvair 4 door. Its REALLY rusty. Im not sure it's worth saving. Regardless, bear with me. Plan is challenge/utcc/one lap car. The idea: take full 3400 drivetrain and suspension and cradle from a malibu. Stuff in place of the missing corvair drivetrain. Build 2x3 rails going to the front. Add another malibu cradle and suspension up there. Or something like that. Is this mental? Anyone do something like this? Better idea?

Sounds like a bad idea to me. Rusted out Corvair that won't be worth anything near what it costs to restore, repair, modify. Never mind the time involved. Personally I'd rather see you put the time and money into the Duster (better idea?). Been waiting on an update to see how the rear spring sliders work. I'm guilty of having too many projects going at the same time and learned my lesson. I remember a certain guy wrote this a couple weeks ago.

"well...

truck is broken. duster only sort of runs. challenge car needs finished. but the miata is good!"

In reply to NOT A TA:

You're absolutely right. And to be honest, you state exactly what i need to do and SHOULD do.

I'll probably either listen, or completely regret not listening.

But, still a fun bad idea of the day to discuss regardless!

I personally would drop the body onto a fiero chassis, cutting and shutting as needed to get what I wanted.

"But, still a fun bad idea of the day to discuss regardless!"

Get another one of us knuckleheads to do it and watch from the side.

Ill sell it at a loss if someone promises to do it. 25 bucks.

Flip one of the engines 180-degrees so you can do double burnouts while standing in place.

LanEvo wrote: Flip one of the engines 180-degrees so you can do double burnouts while standing in place.

Dusterbd13 wrote: Ill sell it at a loss if someone promises to do it. 25 bucks.

If it were a convertible I'd probably consider it worth arguing with SWMBO that I should get it...

Ill loan you a sawzall....