<VV> Re: Corvair's handling compared

[Tony Underwood]

At 01:58 hours 08/19/2006, TimogensTurbo at aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 8/19/2006 1:17:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
>chaz at ProperProPer.com writes:
>
> > A friend bought a 1965
> > Corsa coupe and after driving it, I couldn't believe how well it 
> handled.  I
> >
> > fell in love with the car
>========================================================
>
>That's what folk that never "performance drove" their 60's  / 70's  US cars [
>including most Vettes], or were driving at the time will never
>remember....How good it WAS / IS / WILL BE.....
>
>Putting things into perspective....remember a $60k Vette  runs with the $100k
>Porshes / $300k  Ferraris...


But it won't run with a $60k Viper.


>...it's always down to the driver!


This also is a toss-up.   On a road course, sure.   But in a 
dragrace, the greatest and most seasoned driver in the world is no 
better off than the 20 year old street racer in the other lane if 
that 20 year old has a quicker car and knows how to shift.

Of course if the quicker car has a moron for a driver who revs to 
redline and dumps the clutch, toasts tires while showboating, the 
smart guy feathers his clutch and launches, snatches a 
non-powershifted 2nd gear when the time is right and he's 
gone.    I'm not the world's greatest driver by any means but I won a 
lot of drag races while going up against other cars that by all 
rights should have beaten me, but didn't.    I paid attention and 
learned how to exploit my car's strengths and avoid its weaknesses; 
it had plenty of horsepower but not a lot of tire.   Small fender 
wells in back made it impossible to fit anything wider than around 
10" without rubbing.    When I built the engine I didn't over-cam it, 
used a well recommended cam (Crower Monarch 300) which had some good 
workable duration and ragged edge centerlines...  good parking lot 
cam but kinda rough for casual driving.  But it had a midrange pull 
that would open your eyes once I put all the other stuff together to 
exploit the cam... such as a free exhaust, headers with medium size 
tubes (no huge tube headers, which actually wouldn't empty the 
cylinders as efficiently as the slightly smaller tube variants I 
used), and a good intake with the right size and length ports with a 
careful selection of carb, in this instance it was a comp series 750 
AFB, which wasn't as good on the upper top end as the original twin 
550 cfm AFBs seen on the hotted up 426s from the factory...  BUT it 
made a nice mixture to feed the engine between 3000 and 6000 rpm and 
provided a wide powerband that the 3.23 gearing (with limited slip 
and very streetable and could live with in on the Interstates) liked 
pretty well, courtesy of the cubic inches and the cam design.    Not 
easy to launch with gears like that, lots of clutch slipping, but it 
allowed the engine to really exploit the great midrange powerband it 
had, and I didn't have to waste as much time shifting, let 1st gear 
go to about 45 and then let 2nd go to about 65, 3rd gear took care of 
everything else including quarter-mile work, didn't seem to go any 
better shifting into 4th a couple hundred feet from the end, just let 
3rd go and twist it up tighter.    It would rev to almost 7000 before 
it ran out of breath, seldom pushed it much past 6000.    The 2.66 
1st (and fairly short 14" tires in back) helped the launch too... 
along with a 42 lb flywheel.    The old car would do 0-60 in about 5 
seconds and the quarter in the mid-12s, on street tires when-if I 
could get it to hook up (got witnesses...;) ).    I don't think that 
was too bad for a 3800 B body Mopar with 8" wide Goodyear radials on 
the back.

It was just about maxed out in its final form, not likely to ever 
gain any more improvement without either changing the rear gears, or 
losing some weight, or getting more tire on the back somehow... or 
all three.

I got lucky and had all the right parts with their best effects all 
leaning in the right direction, as a combo, in that car.   It would 
easily do a 2nd gear burnout from a standing start if you wanted to 
showboat, and if you weren't careful it would break the tires loose 
anywhere through 1st gear if you nailed it without watching what was 
going on... and if you hit 2nd too hard it would free-wheel them 
through 2nd.   Not good, swap ends at 50, a bad thing, been there 
done that after coming off the Interstate entrance ramp and ended up 
in the middle lane pointing backwards looking at oncoming 
traffic.     (this is not likely to ever happen in a 'Vair...;) )

Time passed and I played, experimented, and I learned the car's 
tricks and I felt confident while in it, knew what it could and could 
not do.

And , I outran some pretty reputable cars in my day, some of who 
never did admit that they really got beat, claiming their car "wasn't 
running right" etc, when they should have made it run right before 
meeting me on the long straight stretch on Jay Valley Rd out in the 
county that night...  thought that they could just "Zen" their car 
into running like they thought it should run.

I was never much of a believer in Zen, nor did I ever believe that 
God would do it for me either... although He did present me with 
enough brains to learn how to know what to do and what not to do, 
which is just about the same thing when you think about it...  IF you 
think about it.    And I had enough sense to be careful and never get 
hurt, never get caught, and never bend up a car although I did break 
a couple of parts along the way.    But I learned, made the car 
better along the way.    And I was proud of the car.  Experimenting, 
playing, racing that car set me up with a lot of thoughtfulness 
towards cars in general, as well as later exploits and ideas and 
tricks played with Corvairs, among others.


Those tricks do work with Corvairs, too, far as squeezing more power 
out of one.   You can also make a Corvair go around corners real 
quick with a little thoughtfulness and some knowledge of what the car 
can and can NOT actually do.    It's not gonna pass any seriously 
muscular cars on the straights no matter what, but in corners it's a 
different story.    It's not as aerodynamically slippery as a late 
model Camaro, so don't expect to pass one at 100+ on that long gentle 
curve if the Camaro pilot doesn't wanna get passed.    And don't 
expect the back end to stay stuck forever; press it too hard it it's 
gonna snap out from under you and, to re-coin a quaint phrase, you'll 
take a "sashay through the boonies backwards".

The trick is knowing when it's gonna break loose.   You need to know 
the car, and everything it's likely to do.    That, and basic 
performance driving skills will get you a long way towards going 
quick on the twists while doing your best to exploit whatever 
advantages the car's likely to offer on the straights so as to set up 
the next turn where the odds would be more even.


Oh...  if you have a turbocharged 'Vair and know a little about 
weight, gearing, when to shift, and some engine tricks, you can go 
dragracing in a Corvair too.   Just don't pick on a Viper... or that 
guy with the A-12 code '69 Roadrunner...   or anybody else with 4 
times as much engine as you have.


However...       First turn you come to, all bets are off.


tony..