Corvette-Powered Corvair Rampside SHREDS Tire Slayer Studios!

All right, Zach, oh, it's hot out. I know, dude, it is. Wait. This is how I know it's hot. Shorts. Scotto's got shorts on. I mean, I wear shorts sometimes, but I admit I'm most of like I'm a pants kind of guy, like pantalones. It's a good time. You like white pants. Blanco pantalones, you know? Yeah, of course. We right now are in the middle of a heat wave in California. And I know if you live in Texas, like 100 degrees doesn't sound crazy to you, but most places don't have air conditioning. So it's been brutal. It also happened to be the worst time possible for a buddy of mine to decide to drive all the way here from Canada in a Corvair with no air conditioning. This man, big dick. I need that proof now. He's actually the guy who bestowed upon me the F600. Does this not excite you? It's pretty cool. So it's a F600. He's been meaning to bring this thing down here for a while, and he chose the hottest week there has been in forever in California history. You know that we hit a record in Long Beach. It hit one hundred and eight last week. It's the hottest it's ever been at Long Beach. Respecto. And you chose that to drive how many miles? Fifteen hundred. Fifteen hundred miles just to come to Hoonigan. Wait, no AC. He's here for something else. But for us, just let me believe you came here just to come here. What did you come down for? So there's a big Corvair show down in Los. Or El Segundo. El Segundo. Yeah, so he came to Hoonigan just to come to Hoonigan. No one goes to Corvair shows. Nine other dudes who show up with like lawn chairs and coolers and don't even realize that he has a LS mid mounted in this thing. Yeah. So yeah, that's this. Is where it's at. Oh, God, you're beautiful. For people who don't know Corvairs. Is this still called a Greenbrier? No. This is that a ramp side. So it's a 1962 Corvair ramp side. OK. Now, did it have the engine in the back like a Corvair? The engine was back where the radiator is. OK, cool. It was an air-cooled flat six, right? Air-cooled. So this is the original air intake. Wait, wait, wait. This was a Corvair? This is a Corvair. It is a Corvair van. They make Corvair vans. See, I didn't know. Corvair 95 is the actual model because it's a 95 inch wheelbase in the vans and these trucks. Hit us with some Corvair knowledge for people who don't know. So Corvair made two styles of this truck. The ramp side, the bedside folds down. That was made for your appliance repairman guys so they could just pull appliances in. Does that open? It does. Can we hit? Can we hit him? That's why you call this thing Rampy. That's why it's Rampy. It's called Rampy because of that. Zach got excited because when he heard Rampy was coming today, he's like, ----, we're going to jump. Not all this ---- works unless... That's a big ass screwdriver. That seems very appropriate for... Man, think about engine swaps here. You just wheel it in on the car. With a fork, yeah, just come in, grab it, pull it right out. This has swelled up in the heat. It used to be super tight. And now it's just like, oh, just from coming down here. OK, so they made the ramp versions. And what was the other one? They made a load side. I don't know why they called it the load side because it doesn't open. It's just a regular truck. It's load over the side. Did you drive this here? Did I miss it? From Canada, 1,500 miles with no air conditioning in a f***ing heat wave that's affecting the entire country. So continue on. So then they made a Greenbrier, which is the van. I know there's two or three different models of that. Some are kind of like Volkswagen, they have a lot of windows. I've actually got a cargo van, Greenbrier, and then they made just kind of a regular passenger van as well. OK, these came with an air-cooled flat six originally. Obviously, that's not what's in here. Yeah, and it was right in the back where the radiator is. Look how tiny that space is, too. By the way, Corvair, most famous because Ralph Nader wrote a book called Unsafe at Any Speed. It was actually had nothing to do with the way that the engines were set up, but they basically said it was the most unsafe car. It was because they lacked a sway bar. They would actually get crazy, you know, Anyway. What's up with this cooler? So that's the battery box and computer. That is dope. Yo! Look at that, insulated battery box. That's smart. I like that. This is tight. So can we get to the business end of here? Like, what do we pack? And obviously, you know. So that's a Crate 6.2 LS3. Oh, OK. It's got a Brian Tooley Stage 3 cam in it. Tuning by RPM performance and leverage. Headers were built by my buddy Lloyd at LT Industries. We just bought a bunch of mandrel bends. You can't buy headers that fit this. Everything drops down too low. So, I mean, he's even got the collector curve there. I mean, it's sick looking. Are these all equal length? They're 32 inches, every one of them. Hell yeah. So what's behind it? So that's a 2002 4L65E and differential. That's just stock. We did build that transmission. It's got some billet stuff in it. We actually had to build it twice. We built it under the impression that we could use a Corvette torque converter and eliminate the torque tube, but you can't. So I was going to ask, how did you do this without the torque tube? So you have to do LT style guts. When I first bolted the transmission up to the engine, I looked underneath. There was three and a half inches between the torque converter and the flex plate. And I was like, you know, so I did some more research. I typically try and stay away from forms. Actually found it in a form. I'll give him credit. And you have to do the LT style guts. Then you can do a Camaro bell housing and torque converter. So it's got a yank 3,400 stall torque. What kind of form was that? Like some weird like. Yeah, it felt like the dark web. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is this factory paint? Factory paint. Hell yeah. This I did. The tailgate was green when I bought it. You know, we shined up this side here. This is where we pulled the color from. I assume this is the engine, right? You could check the oil. OK. Yeah, this is. Yeah. Before the engine was right there and you could check the oil. That's your little battery box. You can see a little tool box. It's lightweight. Yeah, good move on the upgrade there. I mean, honestly, that's a perfect spot for a nitrous bottle. And you know, you could heat it with the rubber off the tire. Yeah. Innovation. See? So let's talk about the inside because you actually. Gas cap. That is dope. Who made the gas cap? That's Crafty B. It is Crafty B. Crafty B, man. Yeah. If you don't follow Crafty B on Instagram, give him a follow. He's this dude who just makes all this really cool ----. He kind of is like the life I want when I retire from here. I thought it was Crafty B. That's why I had to ask. That thing's sick. That thing is dope. It's hot. Oh, dude, the mirror over here is sick. The license plate. Oh, hell yeah. It's the little touches. So when we sandblast or media blasted these mirrors, the back of that one just disappeared. Dude, hold on. Look at these aluminum connecting rods he's got set up. That is hot. The whole steering shaft. That's sick. I was on a pit crew for an alcohol funny car back in the late 90s, and that's the dude that did all the fab on this. Nice. That's from the engine that was running when I was on the pit crew. Hell yeah. Tell us all the things that if we're not Corvair guys, we wouldn't know. Okay, so it's got C5 suspension front and rear. So this is basically a Corvette that you sit on the hood of to drive. Yeah, yeah. Sick. Yeah. It's pretty much what it is. It's like our C5, except if you sat on the front bumper to drive it. I always wanted a Corvette, but didn't want the image. Whoa. Hey. It just still hurts so much. So obviously you did the tubs. Did the tubs there and the doors. It's crazy. I never thought about having to tub the door as well. Because most cars I drive, the door isn't over the wheel. Oh, I guess other than my van. And by doing that and sitting down, I couldn't sit on the tub. A stock Corvair, the seat comes all the way to the edge here, but I'd be too tall. So we had to move the steering column four and a half inches over. And then at the bottom of that steering column, it's a one-to-one steering box from a Nissan Pathfinder. Whoa, one-to-one. Yeah, one-to-one gear ratio. And it just, it reverses input to output. So then I've got a right-hand drive Skyline rack in this that we just rotated so that the shaft points forward. And then I took the original steering column from the Corvair. He's still computing that you have Skyline parts in here. And it has the exact same 14 mil tie rod ends. So I just undid them, bolted on the Corvette tie rod ends. We didn't have to modify it at all. I don't understand. You know what the weight of this is? 3,400 pounds. They have a fair bit. So we dynoed it. I'm going to round up one. 460, got three wheels, and 583 foot-pounds of torque. Whoa, that's really good. And it's still got the stock Corvette gearing. It's 273 gears in it. So were you like, I was going to say, but he probably was getting like 40 miles to the gallon on the drive down here. No, I think it's about, I think 16, but I was doing 85, 90 mile an hour. Hey, you make it look easy, bro. Let it cool for a second. All right, so I think I told you this before. I was telling Mr. Big Dick Wayne over here, if you want to come to SEMA Burn Yard, you should treat this like your audition. You are the official ring leader of the circus we call Burn Yard at SEMA. Where's he at right now? Because he's still got plenty of tire to show us. Right now, say he's making his way. You know what? I'd really like to see this. He's over there cooling his radiator down because clearly he's got a little more to go. Oh, he's got a lot more to go. We should still push him harder, though. Yeah, we should push him harder. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you still got a little left in it. All right. He just gave us the, I can still drive to the tire shop thing. And we said, we got a tire machine over there and no tires that fit your car. You'll figure it out. Appreciate that you have a good smoke show.