Speaking of Lionel Stone, he called me last week in search of an Avanti II owner with a supercharged chevy engine. He needs the airbox from the carburetor to make a mold from so new ones may be cast. Lionel says he's working with a man from San Diego, I think, who bought out Paxton's supercharger business, at least the part that relates to we Avanti owners, and he has no pattern for the Avanti II airbox. Can anyone help? Chris Altenburg ---------------------------------------- I've got to ask for clarification again on this. I had once before = when Don Lindner mentioned 'airboxes' for Avanti II's", but never got a = response. What's the big issue with a supercharged Chevy engine airbox. It's = the same as the original R-3. There has to be plenty of them around. In = fact, doesn;t Lionel Stone sell these......../Bob J. --------------------------------------------------- I know this doesn't answer the question on air boxes, but I think some people might want to know this: - Turbo City in California was where we got the aluminum carb bonnet for Mike Scherers giant-killer 259 Lark after we decided to play with a turbo. The bonnet was made to nstall a remote air filter on a Holly, but works great to "R2"-style blow-through a Holly carb. This may be useful info for some. David Levesque ------------------------- The question, it would seem, is "Is the Avanti II airbox for the chevy engine the same as the Studebaker R3 airbox?" I don't know if this is so. Perhaps someone else can answer this question for me and Lionel Stone. Chris -------------------------- am also interested in information on this subject. So there was a supercharger option for the Avanti II? For the RQA's and RQB's? What type of supercharger were they and are they still available? Karl RQA0291 ---------------------------- I was under the impression they were available on a special model but the performance was poor since the GM sensors could not adjust for the blower. ------------------------------- Hey........Earth to Avanti Listserv........ Pay attention please.... The post asked for a donor Airbox from a Supercharged Chevy (Avanti = II) for patternmaking purposes......... I inquired twice if there is actually a purpose built airbox for a = Chevy with no response.. I also replied that the one on my car (Avanti II/Chevy) is a stock = Studebaker R-3 box and I didn't think there is a difference. It has the = '155-something' number stamped on the upper half. Check it out ( = http://patriot.net/~jonroq/Photos/919t.jpg ), =20 so why is Lionel Stone looking for a unit that he already makes.....= ------------------------------- Didn't Blake try a blower on some cars? I read an interview somewhere where he states that the reason they were dismal failures was that they didn't have away to make the electronic controls adjust things correctly under boost. The few cars built were no faster, sometimes slower than a normally aspirated one. ------------------------------ I don't know if the Studebaker R3 box is the same as the one Avanti used for the Avanti II. If you can confirm owning the car since new and that the airbox has not been changed out for another and that it is actually an R3 box in all respects, then we have an answer for Lionel. Maybe someone has the experience to tell us unequivocally that the two airboxes are actually identical. I can't. Chris ----------------------------- I purchased my Paxton from John Erb, along with the R-3 box. He and I discussed my install at length. Before I even received the finished blower, he had shipped me a dummy casing and an original R-2 bracket to use as a template to fashion a mount for the 350 engine. The effort to create a mount was fruitless and after many months of piddling around with steel plate and a mig welder, what I wound up with was functional but kind of embarrasing to look at. So picking the brains of everyone I knew that may have a source, I was told that the '83 Anniversary model Avanti would be the one to find. You're correct in that, the reason for the failure on the '83 application was the computer incorrectly accomodating the boost. The emissions carburator could not understand 'pressure' going through it and would shut all solenoids, eliminating fuel flow. Further, it would have been illegal to replace the carb with a non-emissions model. The only '83 blower models I've ever seen always had the belts removed and I can't figure out who got this kluge to the point of production without having a working model.. Anyway in looking for the bracket and accompanying hardware I was also told that it would be hard to find one because Paxton was owed so much money by Avanti that they probably melted down any old stock they had left, out of spite. After a lot of angst trying to get a callback from or through to Paxton, I finally spoke with a rep that 'knew' about the Avanti setup and he related that in '84, the Paxton factory had a huge fire and all the engineering drawings from the stone age til then were lost along with a lot of stock, etc..........but there were still 2 of those Anniversary Avanti brackets available...and they would only sell the bracket, idler and crank pulley as a set. What choice did I have. I bit What I found was that the '305' GM engine didn't have the same mount scheme as the '350'. In order to make the mount usable, I had to add small lengths of thick-wall tubing to accomodate the short type water pump on the 350, plus a few other glitches. I also discarded the Paxton crank and idler pulley's because the used those teeny 7mm belts and mine already had a dual deep-v pulley on the blower and the crankshaft. I used the Paxton idler mount and fashioned a dual idler pulley from A/C parts. After that was done, fashioning the connector hose from blower to box was the last challenge. But it's there and it works.............../ Bob Johnstone ---------------------------------------------- Bob, If one is trying to put a 350 into his Avanti in place of the 305 (90 year model), are you saying they don't bolt right up? Or are you referencing only the use of a blower? Jim Baize -------------------------------------- Well, now we're getting back to my original point. I never knew that the factory ever put an airbox on an Avanti II. I know there was a 'bonnet' type (blow through) setup used on a '66 model and the same on the notorious '83 Anniversary model. The only reason I decided on the 'R-3' vs the 'R-2' setup was that it seemed to make more sense mechanically. I've owned the car since new, but it only received the 'R-3' treatment in 1995. The original 350 engine and lo-rise iron manifold just had a Quadrajet before and this arrangement may not accomodate the R-3 box without a small spacer to increase the height a bit. I'm currently using an Edelbrock Performer manifold and now there's about 3/4 inch of clearance between the passenger side valve cover and bottom of the box. The hood to box clearance is around 1/4 inch. So 'yes', the original Studebaker R-3 airbox is quite suitable in all regards. The bolt pattern is generic 4 bbl. and I have an electric choke AFB inside. You do have to modify it a bit to accomodate fuel & vacuum lines, and electrical connections. ..../Bob Johnstone ------------------------------- I was just speaking about the blower mount being for a long style water = pump and associated frontal engine equipment. However the 350 is a = member of the same engine family as the 305 and both should bolt right up. = The displacement difference was created by a crankshaft change, I = believe. -------------------------------