I am an old Corvair owner from way back and had many turbo Corvair cars. You can really improve the power on that engine from the stock condition . We have found the actual HP of that engine with the one barrel Carter YH carb is probably in the 110 HP range. The 150HP numbers they offered up back in the 60's were pre SAE numbers and inflated because the dyno run was made without the alternator or cooling fan hooked up or a muffler installed. The way to really get that engine to go is replacing the stock carb with a Weber 45 DCOE dual throat side draft carb and a modified exhaust housing to bring the boost up. That engine was under carb'ed as a way to limit the boost. The exhaust housing to turbine clearance was way loose also, this made for a situation to have boost only come up in a high load situation. Reminds me of the modern Ford eco-boost system on some F150 trucks.
I had an engine putting out an actual 250HP at 20 lbs of boost and it was daily driver reliable. The engine was in a 73 Porsche 914. Word of caution, the corvair engines are not cheap to work on.. maybe more than the VW engines if you want to go fast. I think there is still some guys in California hot rodding these engines for sand rails. Again to me it is like knocking my head against the wall because it feels so good when I stop. Using 50 year old tech. when modern technology is available for the same or less giving me more makes sense. Maybe because I've been there and did that already. To each his own I say.
