*10/21 V is Vince Granatelli, J is Joe Granatelli

Notes on classes:

One of the things that Studebaker drivers encounter on a regular basis is skepticism. I have boasted for years about my conquests with an R-2 Super Lark that I bought new in 1963. The average reaction is “yeah, right.”

So when I heard that Ted Harbit had purchased George Krem’s beautiful red R-2 and was planning to race it right here in Michigan September 8 and 9, I immediately invited friends. These guys listened to my tales about how the little red car was going to kick butt and I think the general reaction (though not to my face) was , “yeah, right.”

We introduced ourselves to Ted when we arrived at the track near Stanton and admired the beautiful little car. As the track announcer said “You’re not going to find a sweeter car on the strip this weekend.!”

But looks was only part of it. The car performed admirably, just as I knew it would! My nostalgia kicked into high gear the minute Ted started the engine and I heard that beautiful sound. We didn’t see every run but Ted won every race that we watched. The first one we saw was against a Ford Torino 429. Before they were half way down the track the announcer allowed that this race was all over. Ted’s reaction time and his shifting were masterful. This guy is a real pro! He continued to take them on, one by one, and known them down, one by one: Olds W31, Malibu 327, Buick GXS, GTO 400, Dodge 440 6 pack, and on and on. Each time, those of us in the stands got a little more noisy and the number of Studebaker boosters got a little larger. People were loving it.

The shoot out was scheduled. The Stude Tomato was paired up with a 61 Corvette with two four-barrel carbs and the champion had to take two out of three. The Corvette never got to make the third run! It was all over in two! In both races, Ted reached the quarter mile in less than 14 seconds. We left not realizing that he would have an opportunity to show Studebaker’s superiority one more time to a Yenko Camaro whose 427 cid V8 was defeated by the Plain Brown Wrapper last year. What a great weekend for Studebaker and for me and my friends. Friends who no longer say “yeah, right!”

Ed note: I trust we can expect to see Doug, his friends and their Studes again next year. Put it on your calendar. The Friday and Saturday after Labor Day. Same place.

This article will explain what was used to make an R1 and R2 engine. I am ignoring the R3/R4 engines because that is a whole article in itself.

There are many misconceptions about the components of an Avanti engine. Many people think that every part of those engines were a special high performance part. I think this happens because it is common for the big three to produce special heavy-duty parts for performance engines. They do this because the standard bread and butter engines are engineered (read that cheapened) to be suitable for no more than standard use. This saves them a lot of money. Let’s use the venerable Small-block Chevy as an example. An engine in a Caprice will have a thin wall two bolt main block, a cast crank, light duty connecting rods, small port and valve light weight heads, a very conservative cam, and a thin tooth type timing chain on a weak aluminum/nylon sprocket. The special high performance Small-block will typically have a thicker high nickel four bolt main block, forged crank, stronger forged rods, free-flowing large valve heads, performance cam, double row roller timing chain, and a few other special items. This also holds true for Ford and Chrysler. Studebaker did not have the financial resources to produce the variety of parts required in order to make their engines application specific. Given the quantity of units produced, it might not have been cost effective anyhow. Consequently, they engineered their engines for worst case scenarios and light duty applications resulted in gross over design. Some heavy-duty parts were added as the need arose just as a few special performance parts were manufactured as needed. All Studebaker V8’s have a forged crank, a thick high nickel block, and adequate connecting rods. This brings us back to the Avanti engine. By 1962, the big three were producing 400 plus cubic inch engines. Studebaker needed a performance engine for their new Avanti that would compete with the big three but could not spend much money on it. According to Otis Romine, work on hopping up the existing engine was already underway when Andy Granatelli showed up with a supercharger in hand hoping to sell it to Studebaker. I don’t know who is responsible for the final product but I believe they combined information learned from the Holman and Moody compact stock car 59 Lark project with input from Andy. They simply hot-rodded the standard production engine knowing it was plenty strong enough to withstand this type of use. This article will examine what was done to make more power. It is surprising how many of the components came right from the parts bins. Some of these are easy to spot by nature of their early part numbers. What follows is a rundown of the engine parts and where they came from.

Block Initial high RPM testing revealed an oil drain back problem. It seems the window in the valley was too small and in the wrong place for oil to drain properly. Revising the casting solved that problem. Along with that, a host of other changes were made to update the block. A full-flow oil filter was added, drain holes for the heads were enlarged, and the freeze or core plug holes were bored through for use with industry standard cup plugs. These changes were put into production in mid 1962 for the entire V8 engine line. That’s right, the only difference between a full-flow 259 and an R2 block is the ID number stamped ahead of the valley cover. The parts book shows a separate number for an R1/R2 block only because all blocks were supplied fitted with pistons. The Avanti pistons are different than standard 289 production items, as are the 259 pistons. The bare blocks are the same.

Pistons The intended use of the Avanti engines necessitated a new piston. That was also an item that could be redesigned and manufactured cheaply. The standard piston used 1950 technology for its design. The new R1/R2 piston was made with then current industry standard design. It is a flattop piston made with a high strength cast aluminum material and has a non-full, slipper style skirt. It is lighter and stronger than the standard piston plus has less operating friction. It also raised compression.

Connecting Rods These are used as is from the standard production engine.

Crankshaft This also was used as is from the standard engine. The 289 crank did change in mid 62 at the same time the block did. The length of the snout on the front changed slightly and possibly a minor balance value change. If you use an older crank in your Jet Thrust engine, check the snout length in assembly with the vibration damper so you don’t bottom the bolt on the crank and get the rotating assembly balanced. The tri-metal bearings used in Avanti engines were actually put into use in all engines beginning in 1961.

Vibration damper This is an R engine only part. With increases in power you get increases in crankshaft deflection. The new damper better canceled that deflection. Evidently the engineers felt that the saucer type damper was at its limit in a standard engine. The damper on a Jet Thrust Lark or Hawk is the same basic part as on an Avanti with a V-belt groove cut into the inertia ring for driving the water pump and alternator. The timing cover also changed slightly with the damper. A degreed timing plate replaced the single pointer.

Camshaft This is another item that was produced specifically for the Avanti engine. The camshaft is the heart of a performance engine and it is relatively inexpensive to alter the profile of the lobe. The R1/R2 camshaft (1557663) is conservative by performance standards but it was a dramatic improvement over the standard cam. To this day, it is a very good street performance cam for any Studebaker V8.

Timing gear The aluminum timing gear (1685777) actually was a heavy duty part used on police, taxi, and truck applications starting in 1961. There was also one produced for six cylinder applications.

Cylinder heads R1 (1557571) and R2 (1557580) heads were new for 1963 part numbers but were used on all engines. The difference between these two heads is the combustion chamber size. They gave an R1/R2 engine 10.25 or 9.0 to 1 compression respectively. On a dished piston 289, those figures dropped a point and a half. The ports are the same as the 1955 and later heads.

Valve train The valve springs on a standard V8 will only control valve movement to about 5000 RPM with the stock cam. With the more aggressive profile of the Avanti cam, a stronger spring was needed. The spring that was used is about 25% stronger than the standard one. It allows the engine to spin up over 6000 RPM before valve float will occur. That spring (188645) came right from the parts bin. It was used on the President Eight. The intake valve (683876) is a standard production item dating back to 1955. The exhaust valve (683875) also dates back to 55 but it is only used in heavy-duty applications. It is made of better material than the standard part so it can better tolerate heat. The rest of the hardware (i.e. Pushrods, rocker arms, and tappets) are standard production items.

Ignition Prestolite was already building a high performance, dual point, counter clockwise rotation distributor for Chrysler. It was easy for them to put these internals in a Studebaker housing. This was supplied in all Jet Thrust engines.

Intake manifold and carburetor 1962 was the end of the line for the WCFB Carter four barrel. The current AFB was replacing it for all the customers Carter supplied. Studebaker was one of those. This required a revision of the carburetor pad on the current manifold casting and it was used on the entire line from 1963 to the end. There are two versions of that basic part. 1557843 is used on all the standard engines and the R2. It can be identified by the two small slots below the carb between the left and right chamber of the intake. 1557472 is the same manifold without those two slots.

All four-barrel engines used an AFB from 63 on. The standard engine used a small CFM sized version but I don’t recall what size it was. The R1 used one that flows about 500 CFM. The R2 uses a special built sealed unit with foam filled floats.

Miscellaneous The valley cover on an R series engine is different from the rest by the fact that the breather hole was eliminated. The crankcase is ventilated through a tube added to the side of the oil pan. That was also an R series only item. The other addition was a windage tray added to the oil pan. There were a few other alterations to accommodate the supercharger or other external equipment.

As you can see, the vast majority of these engines are nothing special. The standard Studebaker V8 was a good engine to begin with. There is no such thing as an Avanti block, head or crank as there would be with a Corvette. A few years ago, a friend from Chicago needed a block for his 63 R1 Avanti. He called asking me if he should buy a used one from another Avanti for $400 or a late 259 block for $50. I told him they are both the same, buy the cheaper one, and to save the damaged original so he had evidence of the correct serial number. If the casting numbers were close enough, he could have restamped his number in the replacement block. Service blocks were not stamped so the installer could transfer the original number. None of that was important to this person and the 259 block worked fine.

Andy Beckman compiled this list of the first use of JT engine parts

The time was late summer/early fall of 1969. Several weeks earlier I had been to my first Studebaker Drivers Club meet in South Bend with my 63 Superlark. (It was the same weekend as Woodstock) On this occasion, I had just returned from the dragstrip where I had spun a bearing in the R2 I had built. I had used an older partial flow block for the build up and had not addressed the oil drainback problems associated with the older engines. At 6500 RPM, the oil pump picked up air and there went the bearings. At the South Bend meet, I had been salivating over a certain brown 64 Challenger with an R3 engine in it. (George Krem’s) It was the first R3 I had ever seen in person. I decided to try to buy an R3 rather than rework my damaged R2. A call to Paxton Products put me in touch with Joe Granatelli. He informed me that he no longer had any heads or connecting rods. I bought a short block from him that would be built with production rods. He also supplied new rocker arm assemblies, head gaskets, small fan blade; a high output blower pulley, a few new belts, and an R3 tachometer. This was all for the sum of $750 including shipping to Milwaukee. The crate containing B-110 arrived on December 5 1969. (My 19th birthday). I assembled the engine using my reworked R2 heads, an Isky ST-5 cam, and a new set of headers that I built. The engine went in the car sometime in May 1970 along with a 4.55 rear end. The pressure was on to get this thing together and running because I had just received an invitation from President Nixon to take a few year vacation wearing a green uniform starting June 15th. With about 500 miles on the new engine, I made a few easy passes at the dragstrip on about June 1st. It ran 13.90 at 100 MPH shifting at about 6000 RPM. A few weeks later I was in basic training at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky and the car would not run again until 1982. The Wisconsin Region sponsored a swap meet in 80 or 81 and renewed my Studebaker enthusiasm. I dug the car out in 82 and drove it to the South Bend meet in 83. That same year, I drove it to the Car Craft Street Machine Nationals and it was pictured in Hot Rod magazine. I drove it sparingly the next few years but it was obvious it had lost something. Power was down, oil consumption was up and the pan was leaking oil. Dropping the pan revealed the cause of the performance problems. Paxton Products did a poor job of assembling the rods to the pistons. The clamp bolt for the wrist pin had worked loose on cylinders 5 and 6. The wrist pin started to scratch the bore in those two cylinders. That engine (B-110) came out and in went a 289 I removed from a rusty Champ truck. (The engine that eventually became the Madison 2000 Monkey Wrench 289 Auction Engine). Fast forward to 1999. Doug Crall was looking for an original B numbered block and I was looking for an unnumbered service block to use for the restoration of 63V28392 (My Superlark). A trade was made and now Doug owns B110 block. The internal rotating assembly from that engine will eventually be installed into block PJ323 and I will probably add B-110C to the engine number. You now know the travels of this engine from the time it left Paxton. There is one curious thing about B-110. It was delivered in a Studebaker box with a label stating it was 1557834, which is an R1/R2 short block. My guess was that by this time, they were building R3’s out of regular R2 short block assemblies. Does anyone have any insight into this?

JTN has recommended the NAPA 3039 as a replacement for the element in the glass bowl fuel filter found on all R1 and R2 JT cars. This NAPA part is identical to the Wix 33039 and can be obtained in Canada from NAPA as part # 33039. This item is not remotely constructed like the original Stude / AC element. The 3039 uses a pleated, accordion style of filter surface and the original is a cylinder of sponge paper. NAPA still carries the 3039 but no longer supplies a gasket with it. A gasket is required to seal the filter element against the metal filter housing with the bowl pressing up from the bottom. The gasket is a flat ring of rubber material whose dimensions are 2 1/16” OD and 1 5/8” ID. The ID should rest barely outside the ring of tiny flow holes in the top of the 3039. JTN is not aware of any other aftermarket item that will fill the bill.

Transistor Ignition on the GT Hawk For the 1964 model year, Transistor Ignition was offered as option 196 on the Lark and Hawk models. JTN is seeking an example of this option factory installed on a GT Hawk. We want to determine where the ignition module was mounted.