<VV> Crank breakage.

[Dave Thompson]

You'll have to hang the crank on the shop wall. 

I have a bashed up motorcycle helmet and a broken ultralight airplane
propeller hanging on my shop wall. I have before and after pictures of the
two vehicles hanging under them. No room on the wall for the broken snow
skis. (SMILE)

Dave Thompson
Westminster, Ca 

-----Original Message-----
From: levair at aol.com [mailto:levair at aol.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 10:38 AM
To: fastvair at yahoogroups.com; VirtualVairs at corvair.org;
Yenko108 at hotmail.com; Ricebugg at mtco.com; fredsclassics at aol.com
Subject: <VV> Crank breakage.


I have finally broken my first crankshaft in 40 years of track , autocross
and drag racing. 

This particular crank has been in a mid engined, Emod car for nearly 10
years. 

  This engine is a 3100 cc that has been Paxton supercharged, turbocharged,
and Rootes Supercharged. 

  I believe that the final straw was the change to 15 x 13”  rear wheels,
11.5 wide tires in the softest R 25 A compound. It sure had a lot of
grip!!!—Apparently enough to break this old,old crank. 

No it did not have a harmonic balancer—I needed the pulley to drive the
blowers.

  The crank broke at the # 6 rod journal.

   I just got around to doing the autopsy; I broke it just before the
Corvair  Olympix.

 

 

   On another note, I just finished a weekend in the  CP Stinger at the Solo
Divisional Championships at Grissom AFB. 

   Grissom is a huge expanse of very grippy concrete. 

  My  2700cc SCCA legal carbureted  6 tube (Q-jet) , 6= 1, 1 ½” exh, 310
cam, ran perfectly at the 6800 rev limit, the car handled very well and by
all reports, I drove fairly well.

   I was hopelessly out of contention. You just can’t compete with CP cars
that can put all of their 500 HP down on the high friction long flowing
courses. And  the car weighed 1880# after running with a passenger seat and
6 gal of fuel. 

    I had fun, but I just absolutely mu
st have another 100 HP to stay in the game. It’s either a grenade type turbo
or getting the Emod car running and switching classes.. 

 

Warren