<VV> Installation of pistons

[MarK Durham]

When I bought my current car in 2008, it was a one owner with 66K miles on
it.The owner did say the heads had been off for some performance work, but
that was it. She got the car when she was 16.

My wife thought great, a car with low miles, we can go drive it! I thought,
great, a 46 year old car where everything will be worn out! I was right.

So I drove the car two summers, but noticed that performance was getting
worse and I had a couple of lifters start to clatter on startup, but would
quiet down when warmed up. I took off the turkey roaster because of a noisy
fan bearing about the same time and found one cylinder painted and 5 not.
So, I thought - O.K., one cylinder had been removed, no big deal. the car
was what, 46 years old!

I pulled the engine cover to replace the fan bearing and found the cam
covered in 100's of little rust spots. The forward three cam lobes were
getting flat on top, (the three that would sit in dirty oil) and so I had
no choice but to take the engine out.

Here is what I found:

1 Three of the six pistons were not numbered. (they were all "in" with
notch pointing forward. though)
2. One of the six rods had been re-numbered. The one accociated with the
painted cylinder. Hmmm.
3. The number stamps used on the rods and caps were not consistent, even
from cap to rod on the same rod, so - a mixed set. I was not happy about
this. It could mean mis aligned rod bearings.
4. The pistons looked normal (and in good condition) for a 66K mile
engine,but why some were numberd and some not? There is a story there I
will never know.
5. I took a compression and oil ring off each piston and put them in the
cylinders to check end gaps, and most of the rings simply fell through to
the bottom, indicating severe wear of rings and cylinder walls.
6. Cylinder walls were barrel shaped, in tolerance at both ends and way out
in the middle.(It was using oil but not smoking)
7. Why was the inside of the crankcase so spotless clean? Another story I
will never know.
8. Luckily, all bearings and the crank were normal and crank journals were
in new tolerances.
9. The good news was the heads had been reworked and all guides and seats
were like new. I simply lapped new SS Tufftrided valves in. There were FC
rotaters on the exhaust valves.
10. Modified combustion chambers looked like 150 Turbo heads, but later I
found out smaller CC footprint.
11. Spark plug holes welded up and moved closer to the exhaust valve. Also,
changed to tapered seat SBC spark plugs.

Too many things out of place here for my liking. I converted the engine to
a 64-110 by modifying the case, adding the later crank, cylinder and cam
styles and did a complete overhaul with new Egge pistons on balanced and
line bored set of rods, a Isky 270 cam, .030 cylinders with chrome rings.

The head modifications have caused a fair bit of trouble. After overhaul I
was cracking spark plug ceramic in 300-400 miles, and it ran in a
cantankerous way. Upgraded Wolf Enterprises 65 carbs with 53 jets, a
rebuilt distributer, Pertronix II, and SBC spark plugs 2 heat ranges cooler
than middle range seem to have done the trick.

The engine runs smooth and strong with about 9000 miles of driving so far.
The current spark plugs are 2 years old and look in the correct heat range
and look like new. Compression is in the 190 PSI range.

Due to the modifications, I plan to add VDO CHT and VDO Oil pressure guages
to the instrument cluster this winter. I want to monitor the head temps due
to the higher than normal compression!


Mark Durham
 Hauser, Idaho
62 Monza coupe Red/Red 4 speed

On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 7:05 AM, Jerry Brown via VirtualVairs <
virtualvairs at corvair.org> wrote:

> Thanks all for the quick and great response of information.  I figured
> there must be a geometry factor there. I hope the non believers will now
> conform.  I have never put any pistons in backwards.. Always followed the
> tech manual. However, about 10 years ago I bought a A/C equipped Corvair
> and was promised that the engine had never been into.  About 50,000 actual
> miles on speedo.  Car had set up many years, so I elected to remove the
> engine and go through it.  I found a #3 in the #2 position and a #5 in the
> #4 position.  The engine got a new set of pistons and some rods.  Still
> going strong today.  I believe in doing it right the first time.  I hear
> the Fan Belt toss went great. Wish I could have been there to take it in,
>  Too Many miles to go.  We did go to the Lowcountry Corvair Assn's of
> Charleston SC, annual picnic yesterday. Weather was really great and the
> steaks tasted really good.  Happy Corvair Driving!Jerry Brown
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