Inliners International Forums General Discussion Drive Train chevy II mods

this is mainly just stuff bouncin around in my head and not likely to happen, but its fun to think about.

have two chevy II/nova wagons (63 and 65). perhaps swap in the transaxle/IRS from 61-63 tempest... know where two of them sit at this very moment. when i discovered them i hoped to find a pair of 215 alum v8s, or perhaps a 215 L6, but instead found the slant 4 in both cars (never knew it existed prior to that). was unable to get into them to see if they were 4 spd or automatics. that extra bit of weight over the rear might be nice though, if i ever get the 250 makin the power i'd like. looking at fuel injection, using the south american manifold (have a friend that makes regular trips to argentina) and possibly a turbo or centrifugal blower. the car's got a long way to go before that, but its fun to imagine. thoughts? anyone have experience with the tempest transaxles?


bucky

From what I understand, the transaxles are not very strong and parts are very expensive. They did put a 326 in front of them, so one may hold up.

The 4 cyl is half a Pontiac V8, not sure if it was a 326 or 389. There even was a version with a 4 barrel.

Im not trying to put anybody down, but 'Cowboy why would you want to put a transaxle in a rearwheel drive car? You are talking front wheel drive, right?!?!

I have seen this Done with pick trucks and VWs and Boy could they do some WILD wheel stands.
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REDBLACKVANS..... not front transaxle. the 61-63 tempest (when it shared unibody design with the skylark/special, and corvair before growing up to be basically a chevelle) was front engine, rear transaxle with independent rear suspension. the transaxle itself was (i believe) similar in design to that of the corvair, but flipped around and i hope a little beefier. I read somewhere that pontiac threw smallblocks in there and used em for racing and development purposes. doesn't seem to be a lot of info out there. sounds kinda fun though!

As I recall, those '61-'61 transaxles were swing axles rather than true IRS, and were quite thrilling when the axle jacked up in a corner to give positive camber and went from understeer to oversteer quite rapidly-same reason Corvairs went to true IRS in the '65 Corsa models which were OK. I guess it might be an interesting exercise to put a Corsa transaxle in something if you are out of other things to do.

Spacecowboy_81, I want one of those Chevy II's!!! My father used to have a greenish/blue wagon when I was a kid and now I want to have one. Wanna trade for my 67 1/2ton LOL???