<VV> RE: Head musings

[Tony Underwood]

At 05:18 hours 11/02/2004 +0000, Adrian Capriotti wrote:
>
>In the case of the Porsche versus corvair engine, the cam(s) placement
>is the single differentiating factor. Most of the other bits are the
>same. 

But it's bore spacing that kills the idea.   Not only do the heads not come
close to mating with  cylinders, but the camshafts also can't work even if
they *were* turning in the right direction (which they do not).    It would
be easier to dig up some specs on the prototype "Cammer" Corvair engine
heads and reproduce them.   It certainly would be easier than modifying the
Porsche heads to fit the Vair engine, camshafts notwithstanding.    By the
way, the  Cammer was good for over 200 hp naturally aspirated and that was
with 1960s tech.   With todays tech and some fancy fuel injection and
electronic engine controls it likely could crank out a bit more,
particularly if it had some cam changes/improvements to suit the engine
controls.   After all, if you have to do all these mods, you may as well go
first class.   


>Just to clarify the numbering thing all of the 9** incarnations
>are considered to be 911's - amongst them, the more well known being
>901/902/915/930/964/993/996, plus many more between. 

Don't you mean they're all 901's?   The 911, 930, 912, 915 etc are all
built on the 901 platform.   


Now:     Would  anybody by any chance have any sort of idea where some
decent tech data on the Cammer might be found?   I've asked this before but
evidently nobody knows anything about the engine or its
legacy/history/development.    I'm not anywhere close to being set to
reproduce those heads or much of anything else on that engine but I'd love
to learn as much about it as I could.   I sure would like to have seen it
end up in a production car, or at least maybe a limited production GT
variant of Vair even though by 1966 such an idea was already a dead duck in
the middle of the burgeoning horsepower wars and bigblock engines and pure
musclecar performance.    GT cars were doing good business in Europe but in
the USA it was all revolving around pure street-legal (hopefully)
acceleration capability and not even the highest strung up variant of the
Cammer in any lightweight body GM was able to cook up could compete with
something really brutal like a '67 Dodge Dart GTS with a 440 Magnum engine
stuffed into it... or a Ford Fairlane with a side-oiler 427... or maybe
even a Nova with a 327-365 which was pretty strong in its own right.    All
these cars were in the same over-all size and weight class as a Vair...
until of course the larger engines/drivelines begin landing in them which
starts adding weight.    A bigblock basemodel Dart weighs around 3100 lbs,
the Vair is ~500 lbs less, give or take.    There's a lot of compensation
over those 500 lbs when you double the horsepower and triple the torque.    

Thus, the Cammer died, already obsolete before it ever got started.     

However:       

Oddly enough, that same "obsolete" Cammer would look right at home in many
of todays modern cars...  and I for one have not failed to notice that it
resembles the Subaru XT-6 engine in more ways than one, particularly the
heads.     

Somebody go tell Smitty I mentioned the S-word.    Or, maybe not...  

Not sure how I'd explain how I got my 6'2" 250 lb ass whipped by a 70+ year
old curmudgeon.          

  
I still wanna find data on the Vair Cammer engine.  Maybe Dave Newell knows
something...?   Anybody know his e-mail addy?    


tony..