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:-)
