1962 Corvair, Ducati 1199 Panigale engine swap

[3nickammo3]

Hi everyone! This is my first forum post. I want to start documenting the Ducati engine swap I currently have going on with an EM Corvair.

I bought this car for $1000 and the floor was pretty rotten (sitting in a field in WA), but it actually did fire right up with a battery install and a little boat gas tank.

After welding up the floor, I still need to brace the subframe near the A-arms a bit. Anyways I put in a pertronix, some carpet, painted the interior, new brakes, and re-wired the whole car with a universal harness. I did all of this with the intention of driving this car all over the place, but for some reason I ripped out the perfectly good flat six without ever having driven the car (Lol!).

A motorcycle engine swap in a car has been a dream of mine for a long time, but you need a lightweight machine and a motor that would make it worth it. Another factor is the lack of reverse gear in motorcycle transmissions. The Corvair transaxle actually works out pretty good to make up for this, you simply run a chain to the input shaft of the transmission and then you get two transmissions in a car! 24 forward gears (4 x 6) and 6 reverse gears.

The Ducati powerplant comes in the form of a v-twin out of a 2012 1199 Panigale S. Rated at 195hp at 10k rpm and 95 ft/lbs of torque at 9k. Three months of dealing with electrical components and paying the Italians $600 for a key to get past the interlock system on the “bike”, it fired right up. The throttle is fly-by-wire which is strange to hold in your hand and rev the engine with nothing but 2 wires. The stock exhaust tucks nicely under the motor, but the engine is quite tall, I will have to get creative to hide this thing.

The engine cradle is done, and the rest of the corvair is partially put back together. If this week I can finish machining the hub that will fit a sprocket onto the input shaft, then I will be able to final install the engine for the time being and complete the upper engine mounts.

There is so much to be done still and I can’t wait to share it all. I have attached all of the photos I currently have, but I plan on taking much more from now on. If you have any questions I would love to answer them.

Thanks for checking it out!
-Nick

[bbodie52]

Frankenstein Approved.jpg (118.92 KiB) Viewed 2524 times

[Beers]

Very cool Nick. That is definitely a new one, using a Ducati engine. Looking forward to seeing the progress.

And knowing how Ducati’s sound at rpm, this will be one wild sounding Vair. Definitely post a video once you get it started

[doug6423]

[3nickammo3]

Ok I meant to post a couple small updates but I was procrastinating, so here goes a massive one (Sorry this is going to be very large, also the reason some of the photos are weird is the focus on my phone is broken).

I’ll start by explaining the first major problem I had to deal with in this project, the fact that the corvair motor spins the “wrong” way. As I’m sure you all are aware, the flat six spins counter-clockwise as if looking from the front. Luckily I read enough random forum posts about engine swaps in ‘vairs to learn this fact or I would have been very disappointed about halfway through my project lol.

Obviously the bike sprocket spins counter clockwise, which sounds good in theory, except that if the sprocket faces the transmission it is now spinning the wrong way. To change direction you need gears, which was my initial plan. I was going to take some quick change rear end gears and make a box and use it as a transfer case of sorts, except if anyone has heard straight cut gears at speed then you would understand why I didn’t go that direction. So since pulleys (or chains in this case) don’t change direction, then I just designed it so that the sprocket faced the rear of the car and now two chains would drive the input shaft of the transmission with an intermediate shaft mounted on bearings between them.

(Early cad drawing of the shaft fitting under the engine mounts)

All of the components (bearings, shaft, and sprockets) of this system can be easily acquired from McMaster Carr and they give you a CAD file for all their components which is nice to design stuff with. I can change the ratio by simply changing any of the sprockets including the one on the Ducati.

I created a hub with two bearings in it to support the end of the input shaft of the transmission in the absence of a pilot bushing and a crankshaft. I centered the hub in the bellhousing bore using a dial indicator just like aligning any bellhousing in a sbc for instance. I simply turned down the end of the input shaft and welded a piece of stock to it and turned it down to 1 inch, then I cut a keyway into it.

(Hub test mounted to bellhousing with shaft in it, pictures of shaft)

Honestly I have little hope for the longevity of this shaft. The ducati still has the transmission so in lower gears the torque is multiplied to be much greater than what the corvair engine ever had. I think if it breaks I’m going to have a shop make one out of a fancy alloy, and if that breaks then I’ll get a Porsche transaxle which opens up a whole other can of worms but for now I’m going to pretend like I’ll baby it so I can sleep at night.

Annoyingly I cannot remove or install the shaft with the engine in the car.

(Hub on car with shaft installed)

The problem I’ve spent the most time on in the last couple weeks is the wiring (not the corvair part).

(Spaghetti in the engine bay)

I like to believe that I’m pretty good at automotive wiring as I have completely wired multiple cars now from scratch, but this stupid Ducati harness gave me some trouble. It all boils down to the fact that there is no motorcycle here, and this harness was designed to be draped over fairings and plastics and such. I don’t blame Ducati engineers obviously, but I find it interesting that the 40 pin connector for the dash (front of bike) and the 40 pin connector for the black box (whatever that is, its at the back of the bike) are the same, meaning I had the entire harness either backwards or upside down. Anyways I have cleaned it up a lot but it will never be what I want it to be and that's ok because It will work.

I want the dash to be at the front of the car, which actually only meant I had to extend 6 wires to the front. Two of those wires are CAN bus wires which if you are not familiar with that’s fine they just have to be done right or none of the bike components can talk to each-other. The only other part of the bike I moved to the front was the left handlebar controls which is what you use to get through the menus of the dash. Luckily this was already attached to the dash harness and it meant all of that was done. You might be wondering, if it's a fly by wire throttle why did I not move the throttle assembly to the front as well? I’ll get to that later.

(Random photo of interior)
[

The ducati key is in its transponder in the engine bay at all times and turned to the on position. I have it hidden so no one can see it as the whole assembly cost 600 bucks and I only have two keys so I’m scared of losing it. When you turn the key on in the corvair it gives that box 12 volts as well as the kill switch wire, turn the key to start and the solenoid on the bike is given 12 volts. That concludes all of the wiring on the bike, the only parts left on the car currently are windshield wipers and taillights.

Here is the finished upper mount and the heim joint adjustable engine mount I made, as well as the most current photo of the engine bay wiring. There will be an air box that mounts to that piece that surrounds the throttle bodies, eventually. The heim joints let you move the motor left and right and adjust roll slightly to help align the chain.

(Sorry for the mess I am not good at cleaning up my tools or honestly even taking photos lol)

The fuel system in the car is the same as any fuel injection setup that hot rodders do. A 60 psi stock oem pump with pre and post filters mounted under the car feeding a return style regulator down to 45 psi. I installed a new sending unit and pickup but of course I forgot to take photos of this whole setup, but it is tested and working. The pump is very loud and annoying, I want to get a quiet one of some kind.

(Photos of ridiculous alternator setup)

Here is my solution to the Ducati stator only outputting 9 amps. That is a GM 1-wire alternator mounted in a way that I can drive it with a v-belt pulley on the end of my intermediate shaft. I am not proud of that hole I cut in the “firewall” but it was late and it will be hidden by the radiator. I know of many people that run alternators off the front of their ford 9 inch, so why can’t I do the same? Technically if you are sitting still, you can just put the bike in any gear and have the car in neutral and the battery should charge just fine. The alternator is also spinning the wrong way but everything I’ve read says it should be fine, time will tell.

(Photos of 1992 Jeep Cherokee radiator)

Here is my current cooling solution. Since I have no plans in the near future to make the hood fit on this thing, I decided to just easily mount this $80 stock Jeep radiator without hacking any sheet metal on the car. I have 3 electric fans on the way and am going to build ducting to attempt to cool this thing down. Honestly I have no idea how well it’s going to work.

(Photo of chain)

I got to make one of the chains, I am waiting on a masterlink for the other one. I should be able to align these in the next week or so, and then start the thing up and watch the wheels turn.

My solution to the gas pedal problem is to use the stock linkage under the car, and then just make it turn the throttle from the Ducati at the end of it back near the engine bay. The throttle from the Ducati is literally just a handlebar grip with wires coming out of it, and I like stuff to look stock so the gas pedal is very important to me (lol sarcasm “keeping stuff stock”). I haven’t made this yet but it seems very simple.

As far as the corvair side of it goes, I have rebuilt all four drum brakes, made brake lines, and got new hoses. This car has the single pot master under the dash so I ordered a dual pot wilwood remote reservoir setup and am going to make it work. I also ordered a single wheel and tire to attempt to test fit, I like the gold as it is so ducati esque.

(Photos of wheel and tire)

lwg-lw90-50744f_xl.jpg (39.37 KiB) Viewed 2327 times

205-60-15 on a 15x7 with 4.25 backspacing

(Photo of old Ducati logo)

I want to think of some cool nickname for this thing and I am definitely going to use this logo somewhere on the car with Panigale or 1199 in an emblem.

Ok I know this post is already insanely long, but I wanted to share some of my philosophy behind this project and also explain my approach to some things that I do. If you’re wondering why I’m not attempting a restoration on this car, the reality is that it would never get done. I have a bucket list of insane cars I want to build, and this one is one of them that I am ok with being a “rat rod”. Now with that being said, there are some things that you can never cut corners on. All of the fabrication and machining has to be sound, I don’t like worrying about things that I’ve made breaking. Wiring has to be safe and done correctly, I never want to see a project car burn to the ground. Sometimes it’s ok to be blunt about making stuff work (such as the alternator setup and poorly cut hole), because at the end of the day I want to drive this thing and enjoy it. And anything can be fixed or updated later, but my philosophy is to get out there and see how it does.

I do plan on owning a restored EM corvair lakewood someday though as that is in my top 3 cars of all time.

I’m not sure if this is against forum rules but I am going to post a picture of my first project car (and largest money pit) that I did restore completely (not to stock lol) as well as a hydroplane my buddy and I built that we race around the island I live on. Just to give more of an idea of what I’m all about, cars that make people say “what is that thing?”.

(Willys with blown small block towing D-MOD hydroplane)

Thank you guys for reading through all that, and if you have any questions or suggestions just let me know.

-Nick

[bbodie52]

I want to think of some cool nickname for this thing and I am definitely going to use this logo somewhere on the car with Panigale or 1199 in an emblem.

Here are three variations of an idea for your logo or a display sign...

[3nickammo3]

Thanks Brad! Something seems right about that vintage wing emblem with corvair inside of it. Now if I can just think of some nickname involving Ducati, Corvair, or Panigale. Nothing seems to roll off the tongue.
-Nick

[3nickammo3]

Update for January 2022.

Been slow going at the shop, as the project gets closer to completion stuff starts to take longer of course. I have completed the brake overhaul, including my own mount and pedals for a remote reservoir dual pot master cylinder mounted under the dash. Does anyone know if this has been done before? I found no record online of a dual pot master being mounted in the pre firewall mount em corvair. Maybe it was a waste of time, but the job is done.

The Wilwood clutch master cylinder definitely has too large of a bore and stroke for the bike clutch slave, but I’m going to try to use it at first and affix something else later. I only took a couple pictures of the mount, and then the reservoirs for clutch and brakes are under the hood with hose running through the firewall.

I also have uploaded a youtube video of the engine running. The microphone on my phone doesn't do it justice, this thing sounds unbelievable.

[Messed up share link, posted in another reply]

Here is a photo of the tire and wheel combo I got (blue protective paint still on white lettering), the rims are more gold than they appear in the poorly lit shop. They look very Ducati-esque.

Stuff left to do before first drive:
-Bleed brakes
-Bleed clutch
-Throttle
-Shifter
-A bunch of tidy up work

I am getting so close I can taste it.

[3nickammo3]

[doug6423]

[Beers]

Wow

[mathygreen]

After welding up the floor, I still need to brace the subframe near the A-arms a bit. Anyways I put in a pertronix, some carpet, painted the interior, new brakes, and re-wired the whole car with a universal harness. I did all of this with the intention of driving this car all over the place, but for some reason I ripped out the perfectly good flat six without ever having driven the car (Lol!).

A motorcycle engine swap in a car has been a dream of mine for a long time, but you need a lightweight machine and a motor that would make it worth it. Another factor is the lack of reverse gear in motorcycle transmissions. The Corvair transaxle actually works out pretty good to make up for this, you simply run a chain to the input shaft of the transmission and then you get two transmissions in a car! 24 forward gears (4 x 6) and 6 reverse gears.

The Ducati powerplant comes in the form of a v-twin out of a 2012 1199 Panigale S. Rated at 195hp at 10k rpm and 95 ft/lbs of torque at 9k. Three months of dealing with electrical components and paying the Italians $600 for a key to get past the interlock system on the “bike”, it fired right up. The throttle is fly-by-wire which is strange to hold in your hand and rev the engine with nothing but 2 wires. The stock exhaust tucks nicely under the motor, but the engine is quite tall, I will have to get creative to hide this thing.

The engine cradle is done, and the rest of the corvair is partially put back together. If this week I can finish machining the hub that will fit a sprocket onto the input shaft, then I will be able to final install the engine for the time being and complete the upper engine mounts.

[County98]

That's amazing!

[3nickammo3]

Quick update pic of the wheel and tire combo.

Planning on attempting test drive this weekend.

[bbodie52]

[3nickammo3]

First test drive was last Friday, broke the input shaft where I welded the extension on. Not sure what happened, zero penetration. Worst weld I've ever done.

Remade shaft and drove again, very loud and seems pretty quick. Did not have the bike shifter installed, so the Ducati was in 3rd gear and I shifted 1-4 in the car. Fly by wire throttle broke when I took it apart to install under the dash, it registers 0-50% throttle so I ordered another one. I am excited to see what 100% does and not having a dead zone.

Brakes and clutch seem ok, alternator seemed to charge the battery and the motor did not overheat with the two electric fans running. Chains stayed tight

No photos or videos but I will take some in the next week or two.

-Nick