A Subaru WRX-powered Corvair | Low-Buck Tech

Internet car forums are full of swap ideas like this, where a particular feature of a car and a particular feature of an engine make them seem like a good match. Both the Corvair and Subaru share a horizontally opposed engine design, so they’re theoretically compatible–but not that many people have turned this idea into reality. With a Lemons race as the deadline, however, the Nader H8Rs had to get off the forums and into the garage to make it happen.

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The team, made up of self-described “old-fart hotrodders, motorcycle racers and general knuckleheads,” admired the Corvair design–especially the elegant shape of the updated 1965-’69 version. But they had no particular allegiance to the stock air-cooled flat-six, which turned out to be fortunate because the $300 1965 shell they found rotting in a Texas field didn’t have an engine (or, for that matter, floors). 

After considering a V8 swap, the team came across a wrecked mid-2000s Subaru WRX complete with a running 2.0-liter turbo boxer-four. With that on-paper similarity between the WRX and Corvair layouts in mind, the team set out to combine the two. 

It wasn’t quite a bolt-in proposition. In the rear, a custom engine cradle was fabricated using stock Corvair lower control arms and custom uppers. The engine was placed much farther forward than in a stock Corvair–much of it wound up in what used to be the back seat. The stock Subaru transmission was modified for two-wheel-drive-only use.

Up front, the Corvair retained most of its stock suspension, but the team continues to struggle with bumpsteer and alignment issues. As each Lemons race is effectively an extended R&D session, they hope the car will be a little better every time they show up. 

A competition fuel cell was added up front, and with the WRX engine sitting toward the middle of the car, the radiator and intercooler were installed behind it. Cooling has been an issue–with a maze of coolant pipes and the radiator sitting nearly flat, the team figures it isn’t using nearly the full capacity of the radiator. The elaborate tube routing also affects the turbo system–with several feet of pipe running through a probably-too-large intercooler, at one point the team figured there was 15 seconds of turbo lag. Just another couple of minor items for the “things to improve” list. 

A build like this is clearly a tougher path than bringing, say, a stock Miata, but Lemons is one of the few venues in road racing where unusual builds like this are encouraged. And in the end, many aspects of the car hobby are about setting up unnecessary challenges just to solve them.

Although the team is the first to admit that the car is still a work in progress, one initial drawback has definitively improved with time: “For the first 20 laps, there was a constant stream of rust particles flying around the entire interior,” says team captain Jim Tharp. “The flow is diminished now.”