One of the beautiful Vette displays at the Corvette museum.
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Yes…I’m going to try it again!!! Weather permitting I’ll be posting from both places, tomorrow 5/16.
Stay tuned.
Thanks for reading.
REVIEWS:
The Chevy Corvair’s swing axles and heavy tail are implements of the devil, at least according to Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed diatribe. Paul Siano, the creator of the mid-engine Siano Special, doesn’t buy any of that. He has owned, modified, and drag-raced Corvairs for more than half of his seventy years without suffering a single unintended spinout.
Siano bought — brand-new — what began life as a 1966 Corvair Corsa after supercharging a Volkswagen Beetle and owning a ’64 Corvair Monza Spyder convertible. He drove the coupe 50,000 miles before ripping out the stock 180-hp turbo engine.
A vintage Crown Manufacturing kit provided the means of upping the cylinder count and moving the engine from the back porch to the rear seat. That package included a tubular-steel subframe, an engine-to-transaxle adapter plate, a new transmission input gear, cooling-system pipes, a new shift linkage, and two new antiroll bars.
Siano’s prize possession is a rare, experimental, 283-cubic-inch aluminum engine block that General Motors pitched out as scrap. Engine builder Bryce Flinn added a roller cam, aluminum heads, and the induction overkill. Siano fabricated the necessary bits and brackets with an emphasis on minimal weight. He also added four-wheel disc brakes, Minilite wheels, radial tires, and a Ron Davis aluminum radiator.
Siano didn’t partition off his eight-pack of Weber intake trumpets, because he’s a patron of the rolling, reverberating, internal-combustion arts. Living with Webers is not for the meek of heart. When cold, they spit and stumble. When they’re up to operating temperature, they fill the interior with a combustible cloud of reversion gases. Smoking is discouraged.
Headphones are available for those rides when hearing preservation takes precedence over the din of a barely muffled Chevy V-8. Only two things keep the whirring water-pump pulley from biting the occupants’ elbows: the flush bolts that Siano installed in place of hex-head screws and every human’s natural preservation instincts
REVIEWS:
When we drove to the test track, Siano’s homebuilt special revealed evil streaks: quick but heavy steering, vague shift linkage, and a throttle pedal that offers yes and no but very little maybe. However, a few miles were enough to establish an amicable working relationship.
Offered the opportunity to redeem itself, the Siano Special settled into stride to post a reasonably impressive performance report: 0 to 60 mph in 5.2 seconds, the quarter mile in 13.9 seconds at 104 mph, and a top speed of 130 mph. More amazing, the handling balance is excellent, offering just under 0.90 g at the limit of adhesion and only a touch of easily controlled oversteer when the fourteen-inch BFGoodrich Radial T/As finally let go. The cobbled-together chassis held firm over bumps, and the dampers kept body motions nicely controlled throughout the testing gauntlet.
Back in the Corvair’s day, GM fiddled with various mid-engine sports cars, only one of which (the Pontiac Fiero) ever made it to a production line. Leave it to a motivated Corvair enthusiast to demonstrate what can be achieved by adding a couple of cylinders and relocating the engine to a more productive location.
The Specs
Engine: 4.6-liter (283 cu in) OHV V-8, 300 hp (est.)
Weight: 2600 lb
Weight distribution f/r: 44.0/56.0%
Drive: Rear-wheel
The 326 was used as the base model for the Pontiac Tempest. That was going to be the extent of the division’s uses for this engine.
For 1963 and 1964 production years that was the case.
But in the 1960’s GM had a rule that production A-body or intermediate-size car would carry no more than 330 cubic inches and none were to be sold. Pontiac had the idea that they would bring on the Tempest GTO would have the 389 as its base engine, but GM set the rules. So the best Pontiac could do was to offer the GTO with the base engine as the 326.
1964 Tempest GTO, Yes you'll find 'em with a 326
However, on the order form there was a check box to order the 389. This is how the 326 got in to one of the most famous iconic cars of the muscle car era.
1965 was the year and the 326 offered was with 250 and 285 hps in both automatic and manual transmissions.
That’s enough to make it a piece of historical automotive hardware. But there is one more noteworthy pair of shock towers this power plant was mounted between that was the 1967 Pontiac Firebird. Yup it powered up its second iconic car with a 250 hp version and a 285 hp version.
326 in a 1967 Firebird
67 F-bird
And that, fellow car crazies, was the short life of Pontiac’s 326.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
Check out Average Guy’s Car Restoration, Mods and Racing – Racing Corner page and look over Vickie and Jodie’s 1970 Camaro
Here are a couple of videos I forgot to post up.
The first is my friend Steve Fagan’s 427 vette he just finished restoring. Took 2nd place in his class at one of the largest car shows in the areas.
And here is my Mustang at the same show.
Enjoy.
Tim
by Don Roy on April 26, 2011
It is easy to envy the job of a road test editor for a magazine or web site. After all, when it comes to the world of automotive enthusiasts, you’re pretty much living the dream. Often flown at other’s expense to exotic locations, you’re wined and dined in expensive establishments and given the latest high performance hardware to thrash around in. Other times, you just get really neat stuff to park in your driveway and make your neighbors jealous.
Generally, the only rule is ‘bring it back in one piece’ and given today’s anti-lock braking, electronic stability control, hugely capable tires and other modern developments, it’s pretty hard to break that rule. So, imagine that you are on a quarter-mile track, running some brake tests for which you run up to 70 mph and stand on the brake pedal and mostly let the electronics keep the shiny side up. Say you’ve done this dozens of times on all manner of performance cars, but this time the pedal goes right to the floor just as a metallic ‘snap’ registers in your brain.
Perhaps it is not always such an enviable position to be in because that is just what happened recently to Motor Trend editor, Scott Mortara, while evaluating a Boss 302 Mustang. Fortunately, the experienced tester was able to slow the car by downshifting the manual transmission and get off the track without serious incident. What followed from there, as reported by MT senior editor Angus McKenzie, is both a PR nightmare and a curiously unsatisfying conclusion for all.
An immediate and thorough investigation by Ford, which also involved stopping production temporarily at the Flat Rock, MI, assembly plant, revealed no inherent problem with production cars. The test car, however, appeared to have its brake pedal incorrectly assembled, so that a pivot pin sheared under the extreme load and master cylinder actuation was lost.
No conclusive evidence has been identified as to how this car’s brake pedal got to the state it was in, but once you let these cars out into the hands of others, anything is possible. This is the type of thing that Ford will continue to pursue internally until there is nothing left to investigate. In the meantime, this set of freaky circumstances serves well to remind all of us that bantha poo-doo happens and paying continual attention while driving is highly justified.
Thanks Bill.
This web site claims you CANNOT tell Checker years 1960 to 1982 apart:
http://jalopnik.com/#!266317/checker-marathon
I still wonder what would have happened to Checker if Ed Cole had not died in a plane crash. Ed Cole was a GM Engineer who was ‘the father’ of the Chevy 283. The story goes that Checker was about to go out of business, and Ed Cole had accepted an offer to take the company over. Ed had retired ‘comfortably’ from GM, and wanted to have some fun with Checker. Legend has it that Ed planned to get the GM Impala/Roadmaster RWD chassis, drop in a a Mitusbishi V6 drivetrain from the Diamante, and keep the SAME Checker body panels. His goal was to keep the car in fleet sales with great MPG and long term reliability,
Knowing what I know today about Government regulation for automobiles, I have to think that Ed Cole would have prolonged Checker perhaps another few years, or so. Crash test alone cost about 1 million dollars per car model today.
My THREE cents for the day!
Happy Easter, Bill
Here this one is going to be a tough one.
Jump in the ‘way back’ machine and guess this early turn of the 20th Century car.
Name That Car
Good luck.
Remember you need 5 correct answers to win. If you are reading this on Facebook you need to chase the link and post on the blog.
Thanks for playing.
Tim
The correct answer is 1956 Continental
1956 Continental
Bob Sweeting was the first correct answer.
(No I don’t believe we are related.)
Thanks for Playing Bob.
Next one coming up right up.
Tim
