The History of the Yenko Stinger 

Sounds like you had a wonderful childhood. Lmao. always tried getting into racing just could never afford to do anything but build daily drivers we could run at local strip on weekends. best I had was a 87 Cutless with a built 455 putting out roughly 600hp. it ran pretty good but always wanted something much more powerful. guess that's the guy in me. Lmfao

I know Charlie Clark from my autocrossing days in the 80's. He prepped a beautiful car and ran well.

Thank you!

Same! I have a collection of vintage magazines and I never looked at all the corsair articles in them but after watching this I might have to go back through them.

​@@TheGearheadLounge Too much on the engine and not enough on the sway bars. I want to know about the ratio between front and rear sway bar stiffness on rear engine racers like this and 911. Did they have huge rear sway bars compared to front????

@@alan6832 My 1966 Corvair 500 had a 1 inch front sway bar I do not recall it having any rear sway bar.

@@williamomartin6960 My brain fart. That is what a base model rear engine car should have, at least 1". Did they have those from the start? If not, then Nader might have had a good point. Then the performance models could add a rear bar as well, for more experienced and bolder drivers.

The Corvair got a bad rap

@@bluesky6985 Yep, those films that show them rolling over were rigged, they did it in loose dirt because they couldn't get them to flip on pavement or even hard packed dirt, it was a scam perpetrated by a pack of no good lawyers looking to cash in. Just like the films of the Pinto's blowing up when rear ended, they couldn't get them to do it so they resorted to command detonated explosives.

My dad was almost killed in his 1st gen Corvair, it was his 1st car @ 16 in 1968. So of course he moved on to '66 Malibu SS near about 600hp, heavily modified, lol....

@@jesterokjones4954 Yea, that was a lot safer.

It's too bad they stopped making them just in time for the energy crisis, as well as 170 Valiant wagons and base Falcons.

Nader was a blowhard... people just weren't used to a MR layout car in the 60's!

Unsafe at Any Soeed had nothing to do with the 65-69 Corvair. Also Unsafe at Any Speed was not a book on the Corvair. It was a book on automotive safety. Only 30 pages of a 280 page book were dedicated to the swing arm suspension in the 1960-63 Corvair. The rest of the book was about other designs and featured other cars of the period. In 1972 the NHTSA found no propensity for loss of control in the 1960-63 Corvair proving Ralph Naders claims wrong. 65-69 Corvairs are not swing arm but full IRS, subsequently they were praised for their handling and have nothing in regards to the Unsafe at Any Speed book except for a diagram showing the difference in suspension design.

Thank you so much! Nader was the perfect example of a non car guy being allowed to have influence over an area that he had no knowledge about or passion for.

There was a handful of Yenko models... I just found out about the Nova

You are absolutely correct about Nader. Very good report but they failed to mention another model in the Monza line. It was the "Spyder". A Turbo charged flat 6 that could run 90 to 100 miles an hour for extended lengths. I know because I took my father's Spyder from Denver north on I-25 to the Wyoming state line in an unbelievably short time. Late night with very little traffic. It was a 1964 model.

Why he did not put Porsche 6 motor from junkyard??

@@hrvojeprebisalic9302 I didn't ask at the time but my guess would be huge cost difference between the Porsche and Corvair flat 6's.

Wow, you humble me! Thank you so much! I think in the future, I'm going to have to make a video of nothing but engine sounds!

Thank you for watching!

Thank you so much!

@@TheGearheadLounge Again thank You for putting this video out.

The wobble head people with their Vobble Vagens and Poser Wagens do not acknowledge the Corvair. The second gen Corvairs were far better than any poser wagen and cheaper. And ofcourse where was Ralph Nader on the German rear engine nastys??? The swing axle versions were more evil handling than a Corvair [which were not great]

@@ldnwholesale8552 I concur .

@@ldnwholesale8552 I think you miss the point of the book, which was to call attention to safety issues within the big 3 by making a case-study of one model. In hindsight a more mainstream model would have been more effective because the freakout the book generated and everything since has mostly focused on the Corvair instead of issues like side-impacts and people being impaled by steering columns that didn't collapse, or room for improvements like with safety glass. You know, the more universal issues that weren't limited to the Corvair. Despite the vast improvements made to safety after the book's release there's still people who are more interested in their two-minute hate sessions towards the man than his actual contributions.

Awesome! Thank you! 😄😄

Thank you!

Thank you so much!

Only the 65 & 66 Corsa's had the 140 4 carb. engine standard, & was available on the 65 thru 69 Monza's as a option, The 62 thru 64 Spyder engine was a option on the Monza Spyder & it was a 150 HP Turbo & 65 & 66 Corsa's offered a turbo option ,& it was a 180 HP & was only available on the Corsa model. The Spyder name was dropped after 1964 & was spelled Spyder & not Spider & 1st gen. Corvairs 60 thru 64 had the following HP ratings 80,102,& 150 & 2nd gen. 65 thru 69 had the following ratings 95, 110,140, & 180 HP . I hope this helped You out.

Yes! Thank you for the clarification!

@@TheGearheadLounge This is a follow up & correction on the 1st gen. Corvairs , In 64 they went from a 145 C.I. to a 164 C.I. & HP ratings were 95, 110 , & the Spyder remained at 150 HP ! even though a few late production Spyders had the 180 HP turbo! Exact no. is unknown

@@ACF6180T I have a 1966 Corvair Monza with 110 horsepower. I have a friend who has a turbo that will fit my Corvair but I'm afraid of Turbo lag. Will that be a problem?

Nice!

Exactly! 😆😆

If you really investigate the "timeline" of the Corvair's demise, it was the GM bean counters who killed the car. It was too expensive to manufacture a car that shared almost no components with other GM products. But Ralph Nader is still a dick!

Thank you so much!

yeah with no music.

Thank you so much!

MY BROTHER!! Crown parts, right? Same. 140hp, polished rods, rotating mass balanced, lightened paper-thin valves & heavy springs, ported within an inch of its life. Clutch was the Achilles heel. And mainshaft seals. I loved the 6-lb flywheel and 1:1 4th gear... taught me how to go in deep & come out hard -- lol-- both left & right corners!! Brakes?? We don need no steenkin brakes!! I put a '64 sunroof body on my '56 and fav trick was driving ala ship captain standing up. Fab times! I could hang with a 327 thru 2nd gear, my best street race was against a balls-to-the-wall Dart with tri-power Slant 6 -- a draw. I had actually over-tired it.. had the heavy steel chrome Astro wheels and F70-15s all around. Total blast to drive.

Yes, belt issue. Solved w oversize pulley on a late-model magnesium fan. Ring a bell?

My 4 x 1 Rochesters had their throttle shafts ground paper-thin as well, oversize inlet valves & tweaked floats... those puppies were virtual poor-man's injection. ;-)

@@stoichiometric-1184 I think we went to an electric fan drive and then used crank to alternator belt. 1970 is a long time ago, Crown is definitely the engine adapter, flywheel and clutch. I never had problems with the clutch. I had a four barrel off of a 289 Studebaker that worked like a champ. I got the hood, camshaft, manifold, adaptor and a bunch of goodies for rock bottom prices due to collecting dust at several different outlets. I lost interest after awhile and gave it to a friend/shop that built dune buggies.

Thank you so much for watching!

Thank you so much!

I agree. But actually they discontinued it because it couldn't compete directly with Mustang! seriously. They sold an enormous amount of them when debut (64' 1/2), and at that time the Corvair was improved suspension-wise (lost the swing-axle suspension) but it wasn't conventional enough to compete with it. GM thought that sales-wise it would'nt be able to compete So they ditched further development on that car in the mid 60's and started focusing on Camaro (conventional, can use compact car chassis like Nova. Share mechanicals etc) right away as those Mustang sales took off. Unfortunately they made the Corvairs untill 1969.

@@manher4335 let’s not forget that Ralph Nader had a big influence too. It’s a shame that GM was so intimidated by him !

@@RickGTI2019 Yup! "Unsafe at any speed" I think the book was called. But again, once that swing axel suspension was ditched it made a considerable difference. But the reputation of the car was tarnished because of that book.

@@manher4335 your correct about the name of the book, and that it was detrimental to the car. Oh well now we have EV’s that burst into flames 🔥, y’all gotta love technology !

Nice story!

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Thanks for watching!

Thank you!

Thank you so much!

Thank you so much for watching!

Crown conversion made a subframe and an adaptor "kit". We called them, the corv8. 👍

Corvairs are just cool, period!

I've heard of one like that back when here in Georgia.

Thank you!

Thank you so much!!

Thank you so much!

The Gen II Corvair is a sports car posing as a touring car.

The people in the know who were building performance Corvair engines used whatever they could finagle in order to turn a small displacement grocery-getter engine with NO aftermarket support into a race-capable engine. No big inch strokers... no room in the crankcase for a longer stroke that would amount to anything useful, and that's even with cutting reliefs in the crankcase and the bottoms of the jugs and machining the corners off the camshaft lobes, seeing as how the cam was right below the crankshaft leaving no room for any sort of practical stroke increase... thus bore increases were the alternative and even then one could only go so far simply because the engine was so compact to begin with. No "six-one-barrel" Webers... Corvair heads were getting cut and welded to receive Weber 3xbbl IDE carbs usually seen on Porsche 911s. Now, the VW jugs you mentioned were a real thing, with some careful machining of both the jugs and crankcase it could get you a practical displacement increase, up to around 180ci. Of course this required custom pistons, and die hard sorts would order up custom rods also although a lot of these hard core Corvair race engines still used factory rods. A lot of these mods were not legal in SCCA "class" racing but other "pro" classes could allow them. Lots of dedicated autocrosser Corvairs have been fitted with the big-inch modified engines and they do well. I know several people who own Stingers... one of them has two. Stingers are too rich for my budget... but I do have about a dozen Corvairs in the fleet, half of which are in storage and a couple are parts cars... and a ton or so of parts stashed away. :-) The best showing a Corvair stinger in serious SCCA roadracing was a few years ago, before SCCA racing began legislating Corvairs out of some competition classes by instating displacement limits iirc... Thus at the SCCA runoffs that year, two stingers were entered, one finished 7th over-all and the other finished 4th. The next oldest car in the field was 30 years newer than the Stingers. The top 3 class winners were all factory backed, while the two Stingers were fielded by the cars' owners. I think that not too bad a showing...

@@tonyunderwood9678 Are you familiar with either the Frank Gardner or Ian Richardson Corvairs? The Gardner one was utterly dominant down under. The Richardson one is harder to find good information on.

@@skaldlouiscyphre2453 Not sure if I've heard anything about either of these owners, of course I'm not as worldly as I oughta be. :-) I do know a few Corvairs were making waves outside the US, particularly in Europe. But I never did hear much about Pacific Corvairs in my circles, being eastern US.

@@tonyunderwood9678 Fair enough. It might be a stretch to call either of them Corvairs, they're both essentially a Corvair body on a dedicated race chassis. In some ways similar to the IMSA GTO or AA/GT category cars, but earlier, overseas and on smaller budgets.

Thank you for watching!

Thank you! I’m glad you liked it!

Awesome! Thanks!

Thank you so much!

Thank you! Awesome car for high school!

Thank you!

Cool!

Thank you for taking the time to watch my videos!

Thank you for watching! It was a ton of research for sure!!

The new viton o-rings fixed that .

Thanks! Man, you know how difficult it can be sitting down at the computer and writing out a script after working from home all day? 😄😄 But, I know if I want this channel to grow, I need to put in the time, and that’s what I’m going to do!

@@TheGearheadLounge I occasionally have notes but no script. But, with the detail you go into no way around it. Not only do you give great detailed information but your editing is just phenomenal. Not to mention the time you spend researching. With the work you put in it has to take a significant amount of time. Your work is so professional. Just always top notch stuff.

@dadsgarage Thank you, my friend!

Thank YOU for the awesome footage!

Thank you so much!

Thank you!

Nice! Thank you for watching!

Thank you so much!

Yeah, Nader's study used flawed methodology. Not as unsafe as he claimed compared to other cars in it's class. And he had an Agenda as his argument only applied to the original 62 Corvair. His book was published in 1965, by 64 GM had addressed all the flaws and removed the need for aftermarket parts.

@@jeffreyhutchins6527 His story above is the best evidence to support Nader I have ever seen.

​ @The Gearhead Lounge Too much on the engine and not enough on the sway bars. I want to know about the ratio between front and rear sway bar stiffness on rear engine racers like this and 911. Did they have huge front sway bars compared to rear????

@@jeffreyhutchins6527 Nope. 1960 was the origin and the swing-axle lasted thru '64. In '65 GM introduced the double u-jointed halfshafts that yielded constant camber rear geometry as the suspension cycled through jounce & rebound eliminating the bump-steer glitch. Nader was a blowhard attorney who lied profusely and was repeatedly debunked as he tiptoed from cause to cause.. and succumbed into obscurity humiliated.

Actually it was late '59.

Nice idea!

HD a 66 corsa the 4 carbs were a pain Installed ram tube and a Carter afb four barrel. Picked up significant hp Could beat any Porsche in collage Had the car until 2000.

Thank you for watching!

What cam were they using in the stage II and stage III , IV ? I can't find accurate specs. I'm putting a 140+ together for a '67. I want to hit 190-200 hp. (or more), I have the heads, valves, roller rockers, springs, lifters , headers, Holley for a one into 4 intake, (want to adjust 1 carb, not 4). I have built many sbc v8s. This will be fun.

I love that story! Thank you! I used to work at a Ford dealership, and one of the salesmen told me back in the day, someone ordered a Corvair Monza Turbo. When it was ready, an older woman came in to pick it up. They thought it was a mistake. When they asked her about it, she said “For years, my husband would never let me have any fun. Well, he passed away, and now I’m going to drive what I want!” She took delivery and smoked the tires down the street when she left! 😅😅

@@TheGearheadLounge some day I hope I get a 66 corvair. I see alot of styling from it in the Corvette . I sometimes like it better than the Corvette. We moved to Michigan after that and my mother then became the first licensed driver's training instructor in the history of Michigan and thought it at waterford mott high school alongside of Kirk Gibson's dad after school where they were teacher's.

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Thank you for taking the time to watch my video!

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100% agree!

Awesome! Thank you so much!

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I'm glad it popped up in your feed as well! Thank you for watching!

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Thank you so much!

Thank you so much! The blessings of God be upon you as well my brother!

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