I would guess ran low on oil, spun a bearing & broke the rod. Back in 1970-71 I had a 1965 monza (140HP) with 7 qt finned aluminum pan, headers & glass packs, cam and 4 primary carbs. Regularly turned 8000 rpm on stock bottom end.
i drag race air cooled vw motors at high RPM i found out the best way to make a air cooled motor live at high RPM is a forged chromoly counter weighted crankshaft. using forged chromoly i beam connecting rods .i dont know if they make the above cranks and rods for a corvair but it sure works on my 300hp vw race motors i built over the years great vid
That intake log on the heads didn't actually make much more power than the stock head. He would have been better off using bigger valves and adding a second port to the stock heads and then using 4 carbs on it. It would have worked and made just as much power without that weird log manifold.
"Typical sandrail stuff" The folks I have met running sandrails tend to be mechanically insensitive and taking shortcuts on engine builds is totally on brand for them.
Too bad. That may be one of GMs best engineered engines out of the gates. SBC was a fluke and not that great out of the gates and the 3800 was a multigenerational stepchild. Corvair motors were a curveball.
Hs anyone put a Porsche 911 engine/transmission into a Corvair?, These engines are made to be revved! I owned a 3.0 litre 911SC for 5 years, loved every moment of driving it.
