corvair in stock or superstock?

[nhramnl]

Waaay back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, there was a Corvair stocker called "Slo-Iz-Cheep". It was raced in the Mpls/St.Paul area by Roger Wilhelmy, a technician at a Chevrolet dealership in St. Paul. One of the coolest races I've ever seen (to this day) was the final of "Legal Eliminator" (basically a Saturday night bracket race made up of Stock, Super Stock and then-Modified cars), at Twin City Speedway. The contestants were Gene Pearson, with his "Impossible Dream" A/MP Camaro and Roger Wilhelmy, with his Corvair. The dial-in difference was like 8 seconds, and Pearson spent most of that literally just idling on the starting line. He caught Roger a millimeter before the finish line and won the race. When they came out into to the burnout box, you couldn't find a place to stand.

[TGould]

283Nova, The 110 hp Corvairs are natural V/S cars. The 95 hp (factored to 100 hp after Bob Shaw won the Sports Nationals in 1975) cars are natural W/S cars but have to run V/S in NHRA since no 6 cylinder cars are allowed in W/S. So, if you are going to run NHRA, the 110 is the better choice. IHRA allows 6 cylinder cars in W/S.

Tom Gould

[283nova]

thanks for that bit of info.

what about the 140 hp? mine is the corsa 140horse witht he 4 carbs, which isnt always fun to tune in.

[M&M Motorsports]

What about Dick Griffin out of Lansing, Michigan? This was a great car. Record holder too. Long time ago but NHRA didn't like his turbocharged car . As I remember , they weren't going to allow turbo/supercharged cars anymore. ??????? Times change ....

[bob shirley]

dick griffin ran away from the terrible tangerine wagon of truupi for class at indy.
car was amazing

I have a '64 Monza Spyder Turbo....150hp. She's a beast.

It's only seen the parking lot at Lebanon Valley. But so very tempting.

[Jim Wahl]

When I was in High School I had a friend who had a real Yenko Corvair! We didn't realize how rare these cars were until many years after it was gone. Real Corvair groupies can tell you how rare they are. It was friggin fast! BTW at that time I was driving a 1932 Model A Ford with a Chrysler 392 HEMI and a Powerflite trans. Jim

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[fordteacherguy]

Originally Posted by nhramnl

Waaay back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, there was a Corvair stocker called "Slo-Iz-Cheep". It was raced in the Mpls/St.Paul area by Roger Wilhelmy, a technician at a Chevrolet dealership in St. Paul. One of the coolest races I've ever seen (to this day) was the final of "Legal Eliminator" (basically a Saturday night bracket race made up of Stock, Super Stock and then-Modified cars), at Twin City Speedway. The contestants were Gene Pearson, with his "Impossible Dream" A/MP Camaro and Roger Wilhelmy, with his Corvair. The dial-in difference was like 8 seconds, and Pearson spent most of that literally just idling on the starting line. He caught Roger a millimeter before the finish line and won the race. When they came out into to the burnout box, you couldn't find a place to stand.

Slight correction: Slo-Iz-cheep was run by Dan Thorstad, white 65 Corvair, Rogers Wilhelmy's was the silver one with flames in the front...both were record holders in the area running W/S. I owned Roger's car later in it's life...painted it back to it's original red. Purchased that 67 Corvair 500 from the previous owner Who bought it from Roger) who was busted with nitrous in it at Brainerd. I ran the car for a few years (no NO2), it ran a couple under the index, then later put it back to a street car. The 110 hp had potential, but the weak point of inner axle breakage was frustrating. A unusual combo for sure, fun to drive and could do a clutch is less than 30 Min!

[Billy Nees]

I've had an itch to do a 140HP/Powerglide combo for a couple of years now. I'd love to see how it would work as a modern Stocker but I'm not getting into "collecting" to build one. Still too many Fieros sitting in junkyards.

[Stewart Way]

Back in 73-74 I got a Corvair turbo powered dune buggy from Div ll tech director John Biedenkapp. It was on a shortened VW pan. Fun car but hard to drive. Tried it in a couple parking lot events but with the short wheelbase and rear overhang, if you were in a corner and got on it, it would stop going around the corner when it got boost. Only car I ever had that would actually tote the wheels on the street.