<VV> Cooling Boosted Corvairs

[Smitty Smith]

Smitty Says:  All this talk about running faster longer without boost or running water to go a jillian mph on the salt flats has very little to do with a normal Corvair driver.  Turbo driving can be very rewarding as they are as docile as any 95 when driven mildly.  In the right conditions though their output can be plumb scary.  Many years ago our club was caravaning to a show and headed up a bout a 3 mile climb up a mountain grade.  A Pep Boys (or it may have been a JC Whitney) big block Mustang came past with his pipes farting and rumbling, and as the driver passed me he flipped me the bird.  I dropped down to third and he did also when he saw me come out.  So away we went up the mountain.  I kept my foot buryed in it till I was past him and then dropped into 4th.  Went over the top about 50 yards ahead of him.
Did he know my head temp was over 500 and the engine was about to go into meltdown?  Hell no, and I wasn't going to tell him either.  The thing is he will remember the rest of his life that he got his ass kicked by a Corvair.  The snide comments about a 140 running as fast longer don't wash either. In a like situation where the same demands are made on both engines  the 140 would likely go into meltdown first because of the reduced cooling capacity.  (If it could even stay close to the turbo.
Another time I was on the uphill side of the Boston mountains in Arkansas and was passed by a 63 Vette.  We had a go and I finaly got ahead of him.  He will have some memories that he won't be advertising also.
So the point to me is not what everyday driving is like but what it is like during those 5 minute or 20 minute periods of time out of the 150 thousand miles in the life of the engine.  Your ice cubes in an intercooler and water down the carb and 13 to one compression hot rods will never see 150 K miles. You may impress somebody some day with your performance but then some observant guy will say,  "well hell, look what you had to do to it to make it do that.