<VV> Corvair heater

[chartzel at comcast.net]

A friend of mine actually made a hot water heater for his Corvair. He used late smog exhaust manifolds with the vertical tubes removed and plugged. He drilled and tapped the front end of the manifolds for a pipe thread. He put an electric water pump and reservoir in the engine compartment to supply water thru steel tubes down thru the manifolds and then up front to a big oil cooler used as a heat exchanger. The system actually worked for a while until the water got so hot in the manifolds that it turned to steam thereby vapor locking the whole system! Oh well, you never know until you try what will work. Maybe a special manifold with more water capacity would not have boiled the water so soon. The small port thru the stock manifold just didn't flow enough water to keep the system functioning. At least there were no oil fumes in the heater! 
Clark Hartzel