Corvair Forum

I thought all the corvair engines started with TO and then some numbers. What gives?

Ed Stevenson

The Issue With Aluminum
This choice made problems for Chevy and GM: aluminum is much more expensive to produce than iron, and GM had no plant devoted to molding things out of aluminum. Thus, GM would have to either build its own plant or convert an existing one.GM started talking with Alcoa Reynolds Aluminum in 1954 about such a plant, but didn't strike a deal until 1956. Then GM needed to find a new plant site, and after a time decided upon Massena, New York, as the ideal. In 1957, a deal was signed and Chevy began to build their own foundry to mold the Corvair engine parts. Chevy committed itself to buy over 37 tons of aluminum from Alcoa. Chevy was now fully committed to producing the Corvair, their only car with an aluminum engine.

Couldn't find another engine plant.

T - Tonawanda
11 November
10 Day of week

Factory installed engines begin with the letter "T", followed by four numbers indicating the month and date of engine production (no year shown, unfortunately), and ending with a one or two-letter Suffix Code giving the engine configuration, transmission type, and target vehicle designation. The Suffix Code can overlap several model years that may include an engine displacement change in the series.

Some replacement engines or engine cases may have a number stamped on the cases that does not follow this pattern.



T1110RD

T = Tonawanda, New York (GM Tonawanda Engine Plant)
http://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/comp ... wanda.html
1110 = Engine =manufacturing date (month and date). November 10th.
RD = 1965/1966/1997 110 hp, 164 CID, 9.0:1 Compression Ratio, with Manual Transmission — Corvair 500 and Monza Model Series

Likely Matching Cylinder Heads: 3856743*, 3856759, 3878561, 3878562, 3880707*, 3880708*, 3883858, 3883862*, 3878566
* From attached CORSA Corvair Technical Guide 1+2 - Corvair Code Numbers
(Disagrees with Clark's Corvair Parts table)

So those Capitol letter I'm are suppose to represent a number 1.

That was interesting 64. I currently work for Arconic in Iowa. We use to be Alcoa but they split and now Alcoa is mainly focused on raw materials and we do aerospace and automotive at our location. We currently have the largest stretcher in the world as well as the largest hot mill in the world. We also provide a proprietary sheet skin for the automotive industry which is being used on more vehicles every year. The Ford F150 being the most widely used one to date.

Ed Stevenson

toytron wrote:I thought all the corvair engines started with TO and then some numbers. What gives?

Ed Stevenson

I didn't realize that the picture didn't post the first time. Ed Stevenson