Who has one, how do you like it, have any pics, how much power, any trick stuff for them, and any other general comments on them. I'm getting one for a 23 T project and want some inspiration and some comments about them.
I have one I like it a lot plenty of power for a smaller car speed parts are out there, they are stout little motors, use a high nickle block steel crank and solid lifters are factory stock they are surprisingly heavy for their size.
Paul and DV8, are those stock rebuilds or hopped up? I like the 2x2 but have considered a 4 barrel with a Cad air cleaner. Its easier and already there. I figured to do a standard rebuild with an R1 cam and thats it. Does the 2x2 run well with your motor?
Mine's stock with Edmunds 2x2 and a bunch of dress up stuff. It runs really strong, and sounds sweet!
I'm running two stock Stromberg WW carburetors and headers on an otherwise stock motor. 2x2 runs great
got my first racing ticket with my buddy's stude V8 powered 40 ford sedan. Was the poor mans Caddy in the day, ran good ran cool, good replacement for a flatty. could get them cheep at the JY. They were close to the Caddy engine in size and looks, but less cubes.
Bought a non-running '55 Coupe with the intent of putting a Chevy in it. Found out someone had swapped in a 289 4-bbl. out of a '56 Sky Hawk. I threw points in it ans some fresh gas and it fired right up. It leaks like the E**on Valdez and smokes a bit but once I got it out on the open road all thoughts of replacing it with anything else vanished! Mine goes in Tuesday for dual exhaust, it sounds good now, can't wait to hear it with duals. They have a VERY distinctive exhaust note, you'll like it.
First was a 232, then a bored and stroked 259, then the storked 289. I have a canadian block 259. Early ones Pre 63 have byp*** cansiter type oil filter. Newer have full flow spin ons.. Other interesting engineering, Heads are interchangeable side for side. Later intake manifolds can be 2 or 4 barrel depending on how they were machined. A later two barrel can easily milled and studded for a 4 bbl. Original 4 bbls were WCFB carters. I have a 600 CFM AFB on mine. I have not started it yet but I understand they have a distinctive sound. Dual exhaust on mine stock exhaust manifolds. The 259 is supposedly the revver of the group. quiete a bit of factory perfromance stuff out there in enthusiasts hands R 1 R2 and R3 bits for more umph.
A little m***aging and some Chevy valves. Powerful HEI ignition Sikeston, Nashville, Benton, Wentzville Mo. DuQuoin Street Machine Nationals. Indy GoodGuys Every time the car makes a p***, people crowd around it in the pits to see what makes it tick. Build it simple. We like it when someone brags about how much money or exotic stuff they put in theirs. That means they are easy to beat.
View attachment 457818 I have been beating the **** out of this truck for decades and it never breaks even though everyone has been telling me it is all wrong. Stude 259 engine we pulled from a 104,000 mile Lark in 1974. Don't know how many times the odometer has turn over and over. 12,000 to 20,000 miles per year since 1974. Hauls lumber, firewood, trailered cars, roofing till the springs are squashed, pulls the dune buggies, hauls the s**** steel to the yards... 4 wheel disc brakes, HEI ignition, ported heads with Chevy valves that people say couldn't work for long, 700 R4 4 speed overdrive Corvette trans. If I nail it, it still barks the tires when it hits second gear. Its pretty peppy when its empty, but a load slows it down a bit. Every 8 -9 years or so it needs a quick JCWHITNEY ring-and-bearing kit and on it goes for another near-decade. The last 4 years or so it has had piston slap that sometimes sounds like loose lifters, but I still scream it and push it hard. It is so worn that the oil pressure shows about 20 lbs when cold, then fades away as the engine warms up. I still scream it and thrash it and it never complains. Maybe I need to find another 100,000+++ mile motor to put in soon. It's still pretty quick in the stoplight grand prix. Once it was pushed sideways a few feet by a semi whose driver forgot to set his parking brake. It has been rear ended a few times when we were waiting at stoplights taking the kids to school. After several hits, you still can't tell where it has been hit even though it has sliced open the cars that hit it. I dare not point out the fibergl*** reinforced floors, AC, or the radial tires or people will take me to task over it. You can't break these things.
Any tips there dare to be different? That is a bad *** Lark. My plan was to do a real blueprint and balance, .060 overbore, everything smoothed and port matched, R2+ cam 2x2 intake, 9.5-1 compression, home made headers and straight pipes.
Plenty of speed parts from this Studebaker vendor - Lionel Stone. http://www.studebakervendors.com/lstone.htm
I've got an early-mid 60s full flow 289 in my '53 Commander Coupe - got an R1/R2 cam, 600 4bbl, port-matched heads, & dual exhaust - otherwise pretty stock. It pulls hard and runs well - gets 20/22 on the road with the original 3-spd w/OD & 3.73 gears in the back! Great engine...
Uh, Oh. Now you've done it. You've got me talking again. Now I'll get more people mad at me again for saying this stuff and possibly insulting some favorite Stude myths, but here goes.. This is from actual track experience and years of hot rodding. The biggest things you should know are (A) First and foremost- Most experts AREN'T. I found that out the hard way. People will give you lots of "expertise" that will lead you astray, and get angry at you if you don't follow them. Picking people's brains is very important, but trust the knowledge from your own results over ANY outside advice including mine. (B) BIG VALVES, but not so big they shroud themselves by getting too close to the walls. I have found that just UNDER the "R-3 size" breathes better than the "R-3" people are so fond of. Tell that to some people and they want to fight the unbeliever. Big valves are the best bang per dollar over anything else, but be careful not to clog up the p***ageways with "too-big". Buy a Smokey Yunick book on head reworking and study everything in it like a Bible. (b+)Don't take much stock in "talk", or "expert advice" from people running slower than you. People who couldn't come close to keeping up with us were always telling us what we were doing wrong. (C) R-1/R-2 cam or similar is what we use for just about everything. Remember that any cam will seem wilder in a small engine than it will in a bigger engine. An R1/R2 in a 259 will act a bit wilder than the same cam would in the longer stroke 289. People used to send us lots of cams to try out so we could test their favorite grinds. Some spent several HUNDRED $$$ on their cam cores before even getting them ground. Some sounded mean and strong. Some FELT strong. The funny thing was that not one of them beat the track times we set with the Stude "Granatelli" R1/R2 grinds. The meanest sounding ones often made the launches a bit weaker, and yet couldn't make up for it at the top end charge as some had hoped. This was with 5,000 rpms at launch and side-stepping the clutch pedal, so don't let anyone tell you that sacrificing a little torque so you can use the too-big cams is Ok for street/strip driving. Lose some torque in the hope of making it up later, and it'll kill you. Launch at a lower rpm and you'll need the low end torque even more. But don't kill the top end either, you'll need them both on this little engine. I know people will argue and tell me the new super-lift-of-the-month grind will be the answer, but this is what works for us. More people got mad when we turned them down. Remember that Studes have very long rods, and high rod-to-stroke ratios. Especially on the short stroke 259's. Chevy guys spend thousands trying to convert theirs to long-rod motors that don't reach the Stude rod ratios. My point is that the usual CHEVY hot-cam grind may work well in a Chevy, but they were not made for Studes. A Chevy piston wont dwell at the very top of the stroke, it will pop up and pop back down, but a Stude piston will stay there a while before coming back down. The cam grinds MUST be different. So far, no one I know has improved on the "Granatelli" R1/R2 cam. Even the Granatelli R3/R4 cam doesn't do as well for our engines (I believe those were top-end-only Bonneville cams, but people still use them on the tracks and street with bad results, and don't even know they were being let down because it sounded so mean). The later "improvements" usually try to use copies of BrandX grinds that do not match the Stude engine's needs. (D) this brings up the fact that doing this stuff without a REAL ****tershield is asking for trouble. We have never had a flywheel blow, but I have seen a few cars (one Stude and several BrandXs)after they broke a pressure plate. Floors ripped open, dashes cut up, broken windshields. I don't know how their feet stayed attached. LUCK. In 1974 we started making Stude ****tershields mostly out of Lakewood Oldsmobile shields, and a few Chevy shields for special projects. There are probably still a number of them floating around somewhere. You could make your own out of a Lakewood for an OLDS engine made in early 70's or late 60's. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT buy one of those welded housings sold for Stude that are being p***ed off as "Possibly COULD be sema approved.. someday.... maybe" There is no way that a welded housing with open areas could ever contain an explosion of any kind. More people hopping mad at me now when word gets around that I said that.... here's another- (E) Aluminum does NOT mean horsepower. Aluminum does NOT help reliability. If you want to throw away performance-money for no results, buy aluminum pieces. (F) Those high dollar R-3 cast iron headers are just high dollar trinkets. I just offended another group... You could spend a few hundred ($385?? what's todays going price?) for no real reason. The best is to use REAL headers or make some. We used AMC JEEP 4-tube headers that were rebent somewhat to fit the three-outlet Stude heads with a little port divider bolted to the center siamesed Stude port. The tube headers helped. (G) This one always gets lots of rocks thrown at me for insulting a small religion... Electronic ign is best, but do it on a Delco. Throw away any Prestolite Stude distributor (1962-1964 usually, but could be retro-installed in any year V8, so beware) and stay away from any electronic conversion based on it (the Mopar conversion). No matter how much we tried, or how new the distributor, the ones built like Prestolites NEVER had good enough timing control to be useful for any kind of performance. The timing was never steady, the marks moved around. When the number 1 cyl was finally OK for a while, number 6 or 5 or something was off the mark. Nothing stayed in a good range for long, and often the marks kept moving around. ANY Delco is much better, whether its the older 1951 to 1960 (similar internally to Olds, Pontiac) or the high priced Delco Window Cap from 1961 Stude. The timing control is much better, and it really shows on the better track times. If I wouldn't have said that, more people would be paying higher dollars for the "performance" Presto and be easier for us to beat if we ran into them at the track. See, I shouldn't be talking. Don't be fooled by the dual-point version of the Prestolite, they are still awful. Sell it at a pretty price to the ones who are impressed by the words "dual Point" and don't care about the bad distributor. Dual points can't save the Presto from a bad design. Don't take my word for it, try different ones and see the differences. One will stand out if you watch carefully. On the dyno with Ron Hall's R3 engine for Bonneville, they were trying to use a dual-point Mallory with MSD box. The timing marks were unsteady and moving around a lot. I went outside and yanked the well-used stock junkyard 1974 OLDS (remachined for Stude) HEI distributor from the Avanti I drove, and stuck it in Ron's R3 engine. The horsepower went up a little. I changed the advance curve a few times and did a little grinding on the weights as Ron and Jim Lange worked on the carb and fuel. A bit at a time during the day, the power went up. At the end of the day, we had two runs left on the clock. I pulled my old used HEI out of Ron's Bonneville Studebaker engine, and put it back in my car for the long drive home. The Mallory dist. and MSD box went back on the dyno engine. The engine LOST 34 HP with just the distributor change. The junkyard HEI was worth 34 HP. (Ron later use a crank trigger for better timing control on his Bonneville record runs) When Bo Burt's 289 Hawk was stuck in the low 10's (1/4 mile 130 MPH) he asked me to make a special HEI to replace the Mopar ign he was having trouble with, to help him be the first Stude into the 9's, I made one with a hotter coil and special control module. He sent me videos of his heavy Hawk running 9.90's at 136 mph in the quarter! 289 with a Paxton. I don't build Stude HEIs anymore so you'll have to either find a used one or convert a Delco to electronic. Electronic is a good improvement, but you MUST make sure the distributor itself has enough control so the timing marks are dead-on steady and not moving around. (H) Don't be afraid of lots of advance. Stude factory was much too conservative. Although all the manuals call for a whole lot less, we usually run, as do the other three fastest Stude Guys I know, about 36 or 37 degrees total. That is without a blower. I also knew one guy who used to run right on the NHRA record with a 289 R2 engine (with a factory Paxton) in an NHRA Stock cl***. He claimed that he would lose as much as 100 HP if he went by the Stude timing marks. Use your own judgement and don't go by the factory settings. I usually start out with very little initial advance to make the engine easy to start, and then use soft springs and reground weights to bring on the advance quickly. For strictly race only, I have used a welded advance at 36 all the time, but I usually spun the engine with the starter and then flipped on the ign switch to light it up. That way I wouldn't have the ign fighting the starter at low cranking speed. You would probably be happier with a fast advance instead of a welded one. (I) High compression is over rated. For Stude V8s anyway. Beware of advice fron those who brag about high compression. Thats another hint that you might blow their doors off next time you see them. When you get past a certain point (you are probably OK, but you figure that out on your own), the extra power you get is so tiny it's not worth it. The extra compression has it's own drawback in that you will have to back off the timing and then you'll lose more power by losing the timing than the extra compression would have given you. Another example of why slightly mild gives better results than going wild. (J) Intake manifolds. I am surprised that the Mopar manifolds and adapters are still being promoted for Studes. Some people even swear by them, but when we were sent the first ones and p***ed them around to a few others, all the drag cars they were tried on, every one of them fell on their faces due to a lack of low end, and a late power band, if you call it a power band. After we reported this, we really caught HELL from several places. I am surprised to see them still being promoted many years later. What we use is a homemade "ram" manifold built like the 60's and 70's style flat bottomed tunnel rams. Just straight tubes that run straight out the intake ports and meet each other several inches above the engine. I have wanted to try a later ram with a v-shaped plenum floor like the newer pro stock manifolds, but never seem to have the time to build one. It may be hard to keep a small plenum with that design. Don't want too big a plenum on a small engine. I have done quite a few Cadillac manifold installations, but am not too impressed with the zig zag that is necessary to get the end ports sort-of matched. Be careful not to over carburate. For street hot rodding I usually use a 500 Edelbrock, or 600 Holley. Some people hate Holley, but that was always the fastest for me. Now that I have said that, I need to reveal that we use a too-large 750 Holley on the drag car 259. But keep in mind that the car leaves the line at 5,000 rpm and goes up from there. We have also tried an 850 to see if it would be too much for the little engine. It did work, but had nothing to recommend it over the 750. I believe either carb would be too large for low rpm street driving. (K) I should keep my mouth shut, and not get up for more target practice from the critics. Goodnight.
All I was looking for is a good reliable runner that will have goos street manners and now I may go a tad over that. I am getting a 63 Full Flow with trans and column to cut down. When the truck (72 Chevy) is done, the Bucket will follow. Where in Ill. are you?
dare-to-be-different, thanks for all the info. It's more info than my brain can process, really. I'll probably end up printing that and using it as my Stude bible. I'm throwing a Stude 289 into my T sedan, and I am putting a '57 Golden Hawk engine into my '57 Broadmoor wagon as soon as the T is done. I have shiny valve covers on the T and the intake milled to the right angle now, but I managed to drop my camera in the water during our little flood a couple weeks ago, I'll get better pics soon. Cool kids like Studebakers.
That's been true for a while. Lionel is a nice old guy and he pays his vendors like a slot machine and gets pretty marginal work much of the time. He will stand by everything he sells, however. I just bought an aluminum AFB intake from him and the fit was fine--had to do just a tad of port matching to the reworked heads, but it's a nice piece.
I had a machinest buddy back in the 70's named Bob Dwyer that ran a SS/IA 63 blower lark in S Fla. His shop was Precison Auto Machine. He made a block plate for the motor and said the block was so stout it did nothing. He ran a Chevy Victor intake with home made epoxy adaptors on it. He cheated the blower boost pretty bad but the car ran 11/1's back then 30 years ago. He died of diabetes. He also ran the 55 Crockagator stocker that was bad*** in the late 60s, early 70's and built a number of indoor hydroplane record holding 273 Chryslers. He was a great guy and sharp as a tack
With all the forged internal parts, I wonder if anyone made a 4-71 Blower manifold for it. I have seen the Smoljic ? 3x2 and wonder if that could be machined to fit a manifold. That would be a conversation piece.
I doubt that a Smoljan (original or repop) would be a good candidate for a 4-71 without a bunch of welding. Doing a Dyer style mount would make the most sense. But it would probaly make more sense to do a Dyer style mount on a Stone Clone of the later AFB Stude intake. That intake flowed real well on the flow bench. The Smoljan has some issues with it's siamesed intake ports, but I have never seen a blower hooked up to one. Jeff
Love studes myself, have had a couple last one a 64 CRUISER, one thing I've experienced on a couple of Stude motors is that they don't like to sit idle for extended periods. Not sure if ones I had had cast iron rings but they will seize up rock solid in our climate. If you plan on letting it sit I'd suggest shooting something like Marvel mystery oil down each cylinder.
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