<VV> Painting push rod tubes(pt2)

[Andy Clark]

An excellent perspective, Lon. Thanks.

I think this all started partly because I tried to describe (poorly,
apparently) what I did to reduce oil temps by somewhere around 10degreesF
back in the same day as the books you reference.

My choices today would be in a different order. Painting the tubes would be
further down the list, but still on the list. It is SOOOOO hard to stop
doing something that you believe had (and has) a positive effect on the
problem under attack (at the time). <G>

Regards

Andy Clark
Camano Island, WA.
1966 140/4 Monza Sedan
1966 140/4 Yenko Clone
1966 180/4 Cord 8/10 #60
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "corvairs" <lonwall at corvairunderground.com>
To: <kwoodke at comcast.net>
Cc: "VV" <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2007 12:55 PM
Subject: Re: <VV> Painting push rod tubes(pt2)


>       Friends - There is a curse in the Corvair world. In the 1960's
> there was an excellent, first class book, unique at the time, by Bill
> Fisher named HOT TO HOTROD CORVAIR ENGINES. Of course the book covered
> much more than engines. It was filled with excellent advice - and was
> also filled with technology and opinions of the 1960's.
>
> . In the mid 70's Richard Finch wrote a book called HOW TO KEEP YOUR
> CORVAIR ALIVE.  It had many good ideas, and was sort of a competitor to
> Bill Fisher's book. Unlike Fishers book however, there were a number of
> rather odd opinions - the painting of draintubes just one of them.
>
> Part of the curse in the 21st century is that way too many people quote
> every word in these books as eternal fact. This ignores two factors - 1)
> Human beings, with thier own personal opinions wrote these books and 2)
> A LOT of time and water has gone under the bridge. HTHCE is 40 years
> old, HTKYCA is 33 years old.
>
> What's interesting is that, in Fishers book, many of the brands and
> techniques mentioned are never given as the only way to do something -
> they're just mentioned as what the author did or someone else did. I
> talked to Bill Fisher a number of times prior to his death and he told
> me he was surprised that so many Corvair people hinged on his every word
> in his book. This was in the late 80's early 90's.
>
> If you are truely going to build a state of the art performance Corvair
> wouldn't you want to use everything that has been learned and developed
> the past 40 years, rather than rely on old, outdated and even
> opinionated information?
>
> The fact is, both HTHCR and HTKYCA were seriously outdated by the late
> 1970's. For example, we now know (thanks to Fred Leary and the Ultravan
> people) that cleaning out the casting flash on your cylinder heads will
> do VASTLY more to help cool your engine than painted pushrods, remote
> oil coolers etc. This is only one in a long line of examples.
>
> The two books mentioned are not bibles that will stand the eons of time.
> In 2007 they're historic collectors items with some good theory and
> practices - but hardly the current the word on much of anything.     Lon
>
>
> www.corvairunderground.com
>