Someone was planning on flying this

Builders,

While this is far from the worst Corvair engine I have ever seen built to fly in a plane, it does rate honorable mention, and its own photo shoot. A builder brought it to Corvair College #43; to be absolutely clear, it was not his work, he just picked it up as a core, and thought he would bring it by as a good source of entertainment.

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While you are looking at the pictures, keep in mind someone out there thought this was a viable flight engine when they assembled it. This isn’t a mock up, it has a number of details that confirm the builder was planning on flying it in just this condition.  Forget the fact it has no 5th bearing and other basic issues, this is just a look at some of the details that are questionable.

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Think you can blame this ‘craftsmanship’ on white trash hillbillies?  Think again. I can look at many details here, like the placement of the condensers, and assure you the builder was a member of the Corvaircraft internet discussion group, where such retarded ideas where paraded as genius, all by people who never flew them, often motivated by fragile egos who didn’t like being told what already worked.  It would be nice to think this was assembled 25 years ago when people didn’t know better, but the spark plug selection shows it was built in the last 3 years.

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If you are building a first class, modern Corvair, know this: the people who dabble in homebuilding without ever learning anything, can not discern the difference between this piece of dung and your masterpiece. Aggravating at times, but that broad brush condemnation without thought has been very successfully indoctrinated in the masses, and there is nothing you and I are going to do about it. Our only task is to keep on our own track, learn, build and fly, and spend our hours in the company of builders who like to think.

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Above, oil temp. sender, in a location which will not allow the engine to be bolted to the mount, a location that in some flight attitudes will not be in oil, in a location far more likely to read the temp of the case rather than the oil.

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Above, grade 5 head nuts, no washers, no lube on threads. Steel and brass vent fitting, I don’t get where it is going. No sealer on valve cover gaskets.

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Above, a notoriously poor high volume oil pump adaptor, on an engine that didn’t need one (we never used HV pumps before 5th bearings) Oil pan gasket has no sealer, and has been extruded by over tightening. Very poor safety wiring, done where it isn’t needed.

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Above the detail that dates the motor: This is actually the correct plug for a 2700cc motor, but Dan and I have only been recommending this for 3 years, so the person who put this together was doing so recently. Very odd that this was the one detail they chose to follow. Bolt on head pipes is a second class idea, but I have endlessly stated that it must be done with Clarks C-12 gaskets, which are not the ones in the picture. in intake leak in that spot blows the head gasket out of cylinder #3 or #4 very quickly from the lean condition leading to detonation.

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Above, this guy did a lot of work filling the stock fuel pump hole and oil fill location…..only to put a 90 degree oil fill fitting 1/2″ away.  Look near the base of the oil fill, and there is a big couch of aluminum bolted down to the top cover. A later picture will show this was cut off from the starter mount brackets. It made me think about tanks in WWII that used spare lengths of track bolted on in random places to supplement their armor.

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OK, look closely at the distributor. It has a points plate that came from me before 2004, but the distributor is not my work. The primary thing here showing this person to be an internet reader is the condensers placement. I had long arguments with people that the condensers need to be in a protected spot, preferably on the coils. Internet experts, particularly on Corvaircraft, argued they need to be close to the points. I tried telling them the 18″ of wire wasn’t an issue to electrons traveling 186,000 mile/sec. but you can’t argue with people who know they are right.  As I predicted, 3 people with condensers mounted this way had ignition failures from putting the cap back on and pinching the wire. One of them couldn’t see it, and elected to fly 300 miles home on one ignition, telling me “Well I just had to get home for work”

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Above,  The starter is a Subaru unit like we used for many years, but instead of cleanly using the simple brackets I taught people to build, this guy elected to make these. The ring gear is a FRA-235, but look close, it is mounted backwards.  For 10 years I have told people these are prone to cracking through a web, and we have sold solid ones instead. I have no idea how this guy mounted it to the hub, either it has fasteners, or it is sandwiched, and either of those is a very serious mistake, but both were frequently endorsed on the net.

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The prop hub is held on with bolts, and I can see no method of the bolts being safetied. the shaft nut is grotesquely over size and weight. Safety wire on front cover bolts where it isn’t needed. Its a detail, but one showing the person didn’t like following proven things and invested his time in pointless things rather than where it counted.

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Above, a look at the starter and ‘elegant’ brackets. In the background you can see the spare ‘tank track’ bolted on the back of the top cover. You could see where it was directly cut off the brackets. Perhaps it was kept as ready accessible repair material. Note how high the intake pipe is. I have no idea what cowl that would fit into.  Dip stick is extra long.

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Above, get a good look at the distributor clamp.  No lock washers on the 5/16″ bolts holding the oil housing down, (This, an area of narrow gaskets subjected to pressure oil, is a much better place to care about fastener safetying  than the front cover) No sealer on the top cover gasket. The heads of the bolts were drilled, but nothing installed. Dropping a split lock washer on the bolt would have done the job in a second.

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Above, an 8 plate oil cooler, an Item I have told people to put in the trash can for 30 years. A 12 plate goes right on in its place and is worth about $20. There is no baffle between the #2 cylinder and the cooler, and it will radiate heat directly on the cooler and render it ineffective.

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Consider that we have only looked at the outside. What do you think is on the inside? What do you think this persons airframe work looked like?

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Things to take away:

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Just because this motor was an obvious pile of mistakes doesn’t mean that you should buy ones that look better, they have nearly as many mistakes. Build your own motor, none of these thing represent a ‘running start’

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Be careful that you, yourself are not taking advise from poor sources. A very smart guy told me on the phone the day before yesterday that his “Local race car shop” had sandblasted his pistons to clean them up before he installed them. How many times have I said never to listen to ‘race car’ people? The ring grooves in pistons have very precise machining to seal against the rings. Blasting, in any form, destroys this. Why did they need to be cleaned? Because they were not new when he bought them. I love they guy, but it is errors like these which are 100% avoidable.

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Wewjr

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