quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
Back in the day, my brother got a Corvair engine swap for his Volkswagen Beetle. It would bolt up with an adapter plate to mate it to the bellhousing and a few other parts, including a fiberglass hood to accommodate the engine's extra length. The car would scoot, all right, but he had problems with, IIRC, the timing gears and valve seats.

GM was trying all kinds of new technologies back then, including a turbo Oldsmobile, Buick/Olds all-aluminum V8, and the Pontiac Tempest. This was an odd one, with a 195 four-cylinder that was half of a 389 and a flexible wire rope drive shaft. The Buick version of the aluminum V8 was bought by Rover, who used a derivation of it in Land Rovers up to 2004.

quote:

Originally posted by JimTheo:

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
Back in the day, my brother got a Corvair engine swap for his Volkswagen Beetle. It would bolt up with an adapter plate to mate it to the bellhousing and a few other parts, including a fiberglass hood to accommodate the engine's extra length. The car would scoot, all right, but he had problems with, IIRC, the timing gears and valve seats.

GM was trying all kinds of new technologies back then, including a turbo Oldsmobile, Buick/Olds all-aluminum V8, and the Pontiac Tempest. This was an odd one, with a 195 four-cylinder that was half of a 389 and a flexible wire rope drive shaft. The Buick version of the aluminum V8 was bought by Rover, who used a derivation of it in Land Rovers up to 2004.

As I recall, JC Whitney had a conversion kit that was needed to swap in a Corvair engine into a VW. Lots of stuff had to be done as the rotation of the engine was different AFAIK or remember.

quote:

Originally posted by pbslinger:

quote:

Originally posted by JimTheo:

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
Back in the day, my brother got a Corvair engine swap for his Volkswagen Beetle. It would bolt up with an adapter plate to mate it to the bellhousing and a few other parts, including a fiberglass hood to accommodate the engine's extra length. The car would scoot, all right, but he had problems with, IIRC, the timing gears and valve seats.

GM was trying all kinds of new technologies back then, including a turbo Oldsmobile, Buick/Olds all-aluminum V8, and the Pontiac Tempest. This was an odd one, with a 195 four-cylinder that was half of a 389 and a flexible wire rope drive shaft. The Buick version of the aluminum V8 was bought by Rover, who used a derivation of it in Land Rovers up to 2004.

As I recall, JC Whitney had a conversion kit that was needed to swap in a Corvair engine into a VW. Lots of stuff had to be done as the rotation of the engine was different AFAIK or remember.

You are right about different rotation of Corvair vs VW engines. This company sells kits to change the rotation of Corvair engines.

http://www.corvair.com/user-cgi/pages.cgi?category=vw