Inliners International Forums General Discussion Engines Anyone here ever put a 250 into a '55 Stude?

The 289 bent Stude engine in my '55 is rather tired and I have a nice '66 250 that is homeless. I have been trying to measure things to see if I would have hood clearance problems and it seems to fit but I am not sure. I was wondering if anyone on the forum has ever done this particular swap and what problems they may have encountered. Regards...S.

Is your Stude a car or pickup, a coupe or sedan/wagon? I assume a car as there would be no hood issues in a pickup. Coupes are 4" longer from firewall to the radiator than sedans. I bet it can be done but I don't have a Stude 6 around to measure. The last Larks used Chevy 6s and the frames were basically the same from '52,except for the longer coupe. That being said the 289 Studrbaker is a much over looked engine with lots of torque and darn near bullet proof! Forged crank, big bearings and a very rigid block, hard and heavy. My son and I put a supercharged 289 in his '54 Stude wagon. It was a tight squeeze to get it all under the short hood. That's why the Hawks have a hump! Parts and speed equipment are available though prices have gone up now that Studes are being used as SBC alternatives. They are not cheap to build. What ever you decide Don't throw away anything from the Stude. The only Difference in a 259 & 289 is crank and pistons.

Thanks Beater,

The car is a 2 door hardtop and it origanally came with a 259 which someone replaced with a 289 from a '62 Stude of some sort. My worry I guess is to not set the 250 so the oil pan is below the frame, and still have clearance for an air cleaner. All else seems to measure out OK. I don't plan to get rid of the 289, the auto trans or Stude rear, or the 2 extra 259's that came with the car. But I would like to have something I could take road trips in and have parts available if ever needed on said trip...and I would rather have the inline over a Chev SB tho the 350 would be easy. The 289 does have a lot of torque and the car is a blast to drive but the engine is rather tired and I sure worry about the Stude auto trans.

I was hoping someone has already done this swap but if not I guess I can always forge ahead and find out how to do it the hard way.

Regards,

Sam

Doesn't someone with the name of Leo Santucci or something like that have a docile chevy 6 in a Stude? Somewhere on these pages a few months back is a video of the car making a run. Of course it's the same Leo who wrote the book on the 194-292 engines for performance.

He does, and it is a 292 superduperalcoholicgofaststude for sure! After looking at the available photos of his installation I don't see any information there to help...but it sure inspires me. I am mostly worried about getting air cleaner clearance. My local car club friends think v8,v8,v8, so no help there.

Jalopy, is your '45 pu a military item?

yes there is video of his ( Leo's) Stude on my web site.

Farm quota truck, certain numbers of pickups were released to agricultural projects. Manufactured 01/03/1945, the only thing left '45 is some of the body and the frame sort of. Now powered by a SBC, sorry folks.

http://www.cdpautomachine.com/leo/leo.html

remember the 292 block is taller than the 250 block. IIRC, 1 3/4" or 1.375" taller.

63, I believe the 250 valve cover will clear the hood but I am not sure the air cleaner will. I haven't looked into all the options yet for a lower air cleaner setup. I suppose one could always put a bubble on the hood for clearance but would like to avoid that if I can. Thanks. S

I was looking at a Studebaker web site and they had a listing indicating that in '65 - '66 they had a 230 in. 6-cyl engine. As they used Chevy v8, I would assume that this was a Chevy also. I'm not sure if this would relate to the '55


Will Willis

Will, you are right. The last year and a half of production was in Canada and they used first the 194 and then the 230 L6 and also the 283 V8. Hood lines were a bit higher by that time.

Any suggestions on how to get as low as possible carb/air cleaner setup would help. I suppose sidedraft would be good but I don't know how streetable they are??? Sam

Sam:
you could fab up a side draft intake, of get one from Clifford I think. That would certainly make the profile lower. There are several options for side draft carbs..Mikuni, Weber, SU, Carter YH, and a variety of motorcycle carbs among others.

Sincerely:
Paul...aka xerxes

Paul, I have heard of people using the Harley carbs on inlines. I haven't heard how well they work though. It is an interesting thought. Sam

If you look over in the racing section, there is a red '41 Chevy owned by past I.I. President, Ray Hedstrom. It ran 3 S&S Harley carbs at Bonneville. Ran great! 146.5 MPH with a 261 bored to 270.

Armond -

Did Leo try to make his inline fit in his Stude before he built the tube frame?

Will

Hie Guys!
I own a similare car to the fiftyfive coupe, which is a 1953 Studebaker coupe.
I too have been thinking of putting an inline six in the Stude-coupe, since I am also a Chevy Inline Six fan(my first classic "Amcar" was an inliner - a 1965 Bel Air 4dr post with an original 230 - Still has that car).

I posted a thread regarding a 250 fitting a Stude Coupe on this forum a while back, and another member kindly pointed me in the direction of the Leo Santucci Stude-six site.
I posted a mail to the company that has built the "Leo SuperStude" for/together with L. Santucci. I wanted to find out how they fitted the 292(esp. regarding hood clearance), what front undercarriage/suspension they used and similare.
However, they are probably a very busy company, because I posted twice, but never got an answer... - Fair enough.

I too have done some measuring and it is my
"educated guess" - and sincere hope - that I will be able to fit a 250 in there when I get to the engine. My 1953 Stude still has a lot on work left on it, and time is limited these days... Some day, though..! :-)
The original engine(232 V8 in my 1953 Commander coupe) is quite tilted backwards, if you know what I mean. The same would probably have to be done with 250 six, if the rest of the car(drive line, steering set-up etc) is going to remain pretty stock.
The "tight spot" will be in the front area of the engine bay.

The original Flightomatic transmission is btw pretty strong/ solid, so for cruising it would be possible to keep such a tranny. An adaptor plate would of course be necessary...
Most Studebaker engine an tranny parts can be fairly easily obtained from f.ex. Stude parts vendors.
If your going to take your '55 coupe to Sunday drag races etc, you will need another tranny, though. The original AT is a bit "slow" for fast acceleration... :-)

FWIW, A 292 will be too high. unless one goes totally modified(which is most likely the case with the Santucci Team drag race car. Engine bay space/hight is not the best feature of a mid-fifties Stude coupe... :-)
A souped up 250 with triple Webers(or similare), or maybe a four barrel carb connected to a paxton supercharger would probably make a "FRESH" set up in such a car.

I don't know if this helped much, but thought I'd "chip in", just in case:-)

Hey,Ralphie,cdpautomachine has been sold and was supposed to move to a new building which may be the reason you never got a response to your mail. It's now Larry's Power,but still can be searched at http://www.cdpautomachine.com

Hi Ralpie, nice to hear from you. I agree a 292 would not fit without modifying the hood. I seem to remember seeing one photo of Leo's Stude that showed a clearance hole in the hood but I could not find that photo again so may be mixing in someone else's car.

I plan to move my '55 onto a concrete pad soon and get with some serious measuring. The one problem I am thinking will occur is clearance for the air cleaner but once I get some measurements I will know. I will post the results when I get done.

I will be working on my '38 mostly this year but hope to start on the '55 sometime next year.

S

One of our local members runs a 292 with 3 Webbers in his daily driver. 292-1 292=2 A problem that may occur is steering and pan clearance. I know people like the newer, smaller front clips but the Stude unit works very well. We converted my son's to air bags, but all parts are Studebaker. The other clearance issue may be the rear carb if you have power steering. We went to no power on Jake's to clear the cast Avanti Headers. It actually steered better. The PS unit they used was the same as on some much heaver GM cars and it tended to over steer on the Stude. Another thing to consider when working with Studebaker frames is that they are thin and not very rigid. We were surprised at how wimpy the '54 frame was when we were sand blasting it. It seemed to be an early unibody design. By the time all was back thgether it was fine. A model T is stiff in comparison! :o. You could always go to a dry sump and lay the 292 down for clearance. I'll Try to get some measurements from the '54 wagon for you if it will fit in the short frame it will fit the coupe. Tom

This is a little off topic but thought it might be of interest.
I won't swear to this but if my memory serves me right after 50 years the 53 sports coupe frame was already shaped and drilled to accept the mounts for several different makes of V-8s also the front end and steering design was borrowed from a famous Italian sports car that starts with an F.
I knew of one with a caddy was a impressive machine in the 50s also knew of a few that were olds powered and they weren't to slow either.

The Studebaker front suspension was almost identical from '52 through the Avanti. A couple of brake upgrades and sway bars being the only changes. There were after market guys that put 331 Cads in them, Studilacs and Cadabakers. The Stude V8 borrowed much from the Cadilac design.

Hie again!
It has been a while since I visited this thread... There has been quite a lot of really nice spring weather here lately, so I have been pretty active outside on my spare time and forgot about this interesting post, unfortunately.

Allthough I am not the original poster, any measurements from other members will be interesting reading.

And thank you, Drew, for the tip about that machine shop moving. I'll try my luck with them again now.

A little Studebaker(coupe - Starlight/pillared coupe and Starliner/hardtop) history, just for fun:
I have a couple of books on Studebakers.
One of them only cover the beautifully shaped coupes of 1953 and 1954 and is called "Studebaker's Finest"(by John Bridges). For those inliners or others who would like to know more about those coupes that is a pretty comprehensive and good book.
The reason THE FRAMES were so thin/light had to do with the following fact:
In the early fifties Studebaker was still all about giving the customers economical cars - cars that for instance had pretty good gas milage.
One of the ways to achieve good gas mileage was, in addition to making "economical" engines and trannys(the first automatic overdrive came from Studebaker), to make the cars as light as possible.
In fact, the weight aspect was such a "big thing" for Studebaker that the design staff used the saying "Weight is the enemy" on a frequent basis, and there was even a plaque with that saying in the design directors office at a time.
Hence the production of the "Featherweight" frame that was used on the coupes, for instance.
The 1953 frame was originally even more "flimsy" than the 1954++ frames. It didn't have the extra crossmember that the '54 an later models got. That crossmember was a great improvement, and is available today for 1953 owners who would like to uphrade their frames.
This became a bit much...
Got carried away, sorry...

I would really like to fit an inline six in my Studebaker Starliner "hot rod" project sometime in a future. If I went with a Paxton(or similare) centrifugal supercharger set up, I could utilize a "carburetor bonnet" on top of the carb, and the air cleaning unit placed in conjuction with the supercharger. That way one would not have to worry about the air cleaner clearing the hood, or not, I guess.

Of course, a set of Webers, as Tom points out, would also eliminate the hood clearance problem.
And it look COOL too!!! :-)

I have seen some South American video clips on You Tube.
It seems those guys know their inline six Weber set ups.
They drive those inline cars like h... and outrun for instance V8 drag race Mavericks on the strip..!
Pretty neat..!

Someday, before I die, I hope to own a Starlight Coupe. It's high on my list of iconic cars.

They must have forgotten about that weight thing when they designed their V8s, those are some heavy mammas. A noted local Stude guy told me he once removed over 100 lbs from one!

When they designed the Avanti they forgot about the weight of the V8 also. I owned a 63 R2 and if you didn't hold the RPMs above idle when parallel parking the power steering would scream.

Larry

The Avanti was a lot like a '53 Corvette. A pile of old parts in a new fiberglass box. That doesn't mean I don't love 'em!

Yes, I know the Stude V8s are heavy lumps of good ol' metal:-)
The advantage is, together with the fact that the block also has a high nickel content, that the engine/block is very strong. There is for instance no need for hardened valve seats when building such an engine for power, and quite a lot of metal(weight...) can be bored out, milled off etc.

The disadvantage is, as allready mentioned: Those engines are HEEEAVYYY..!:-)
Kind of strange that they put such a lot of effort in to the car otherwise, but still put such a heavy lump for an engine in them.
Maybe that was the V8 overhead valve engine standard in those days, or something..?

However, IF a (souped up)250 inline six or something similare fits those Stude coupes, I bet that automobile will get a lot of "GO"-potential, so to speak..! :-)
How much lighter is the 250 R6 compared to the 350 V8, by the way?

Ralphie, I weighed a Chev 305 SB and 700R4 tranny (complete with a/c pump,alt,ps pump) a couple of years ago at about 750 lbs. The tranny would be close to 150 of that. I am only guessing but would think the 250 is at least 100 lbs lighter than that 305 (1983).

Sounds comforting, Sam. - The lighter, the better.
"WEIGHT IS THE ENEMY" ;-)

Ralphie, There were four different versions of that bent thing in the Avanti. R1 = 289 ci. 4bbl - R2 = 289 ci. 4bbl, Supercharger - R3 = 305 ci. 4bbl, Supercharger - R4 = 305 ci. DUAL 4bbl., or Supercharger. The Avanti with an R4 in 1963 set the Production Car speed record at the salts of 172 + MPH. The Avanti has the Lark frame under it.

will6er, There only 2 years Studebaker made the Avanti, 63 and 64. There was a group of folks that created Avanti II and continued production with Chevy engines into the 70s(?). They didn't use the 230.

Larry

found this on an old post... looks like 440 vs 550 or so....

http://www.team.net/sol/tech/engine.html

Great post Joe! For those interested, I have been using a small hydrolic scale from Northerntool.com

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_120532_120532&issearch=1442091

which is $230 bucks and comes in either 0 to 2000 or 0 to 5000 scale.