Power -- 2015

New Forged pistons an 0.030" bored cylinders -- circa summer of 2012 or so...

Painting bored cylinders with HT paint

Wishing I was a Corvair mechanic -- lots of head scratching, before I found there was a more reliable way !!

Through several abortive projects, I have managed to continue to putter away on my pet engine, envisioning building a 100hp or so, fairly standard Corvair aviation conversion under the encouraging eye of my good friend, the late Gary Richmond of Missouri who was using the Corvair he'd built for his Wagzilla, a Wag-Aero based project – eventually I wised up to the fact that my serious mechanic days were far behind me (if they'd ever existed) and we jump-started the power portion of the project by engaging Bill Clapp (Azalea Aviation in Georgia) in the spring of 2015 to do the hard part. I "donated" all the parts, fasteners and sub-assemblies I'd been fawning over to Bill who made sushi out of them (or something else), it was the original basket case. Among his other talents (Bill also designs and builds the SaberWing aircraft kit and is a flight instructor -- pretty much anything to do with light aircraft he does...) Bill is a long-time expert at the fabrication and Corvair assembling; he started with Corvair cars which morphed into a solid understanding of aircraft power.  He builds his configurations using a flight-worthy crankshaft, appropriate camshaft, his Independent Front Bearing (IFB) and of course, the myriad skilled tasks needed to modify the heads, ignition and electrical systems to produce an airworthy assembly with no belts -- he delivered a running 2700cc engine on time, on budget and with zero fanfare.  "My" engine was cold when I got there, but waiting on the test stand -- it started and just ran on the first bump.  This is the one thing that has kept me going as this engine has run for an hour or two -- as other have noted, the Corvair is nothing if not smooth, wonderfully smooth, sounds rich and in its Azalea simplicity, is pleasing to the eye (or at least mine).  Gotta get the CH701 done so it can fly.

Azalea (YouTube) Vid on the Spyder/Corvair
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyLG39_OW0U&feature=youtu.be

Bill Clapp running in my Spyder-Corvair for about an hour at his old Azalea shop in Georgia.

Off the test stand after it cooled, Spyder-Corvair nearly ready for the trip back to Virginia

Safely in Virginia, the beautiful machining on the unique IFB is apparent.