Mods
First engine swap .030 283 SBC with .468/.480 Speed Pro cam.\r
Second engine swap, early 70's 355 two bolt, 010 block, ate two brand new sets of cam and lifters. (283 just got new bearings and rings and is going back in)\r
Edelbrock Performer rpm intake.\r
500cfm Edelbrock performer carb.\r
Custom bracket for the stock TV cable for the B-W trans.\r
New Mopar Electronic Drag race Voltage Reg. (Studebaker used the same points reg. As Mopar did)\r
HEI distributor.\r
New Old Stock 64 upholstery in the proper red colour, wrong pattern for the 66, but very comfortable.\r
2 inch dual exhaust, using Avanti 2 downpipes, and Thrush glasspacks.\r
Used set of semi rough Keystone raider rims, 7 inch wide and uni-lug.\r
Front Disc brake conversion, using Turner disc brake kit, S10 4x4 front calipers and pads along with 68 Mustang discs and an Allstar rear adjustable proportioning valve, stops amazing.\r
Rebuilt 68 Avanti II brake booster.\r
Original radiator, re-cored to a 3 core last fall, almost works too good.
Second engine swap, early 70's 355 two bolt, 010 block, ate two brand new sets of cam and lifters. (283 just got new bearings and rings and is going back in)\r
Edelbrock Performer rpm intake.\r
500cfm Edelbrock performer carb.\r
Custom bracket for the stock TV cable for the B-W trans.\r
New Mopar Electronic Drag race Voltage Reg. (Studebaker used the same points reg. As Mopar did)\r
HEI distributor.\r
New Old Stock 64 upholstery in the proper red colour, wrong pattern for the 66, but very comfortable.\r
2 inch dual exhaust, using Avanti 2 downpipes, and Thrush glasspacks.\r
Used set of semi rough Keystone raider rims, 7 inch wide and uni-lug.\r
Front Disc brake conversion, using Turner disc brake kit, S10 4x4 front calipers and pads along with 68 Mustang discs and an Allstar rear adjustable proportioning valve, stops amazing.\r
Rebuilt 68 Avanti II brake booster.\r
Original radiator, re-cored to a 3 core last fall, almost works too good.
Build story
Well, I kept seeing the car every year at the Andcaster and Waterdown swap meets every year, price was always lower. My parents actually bought me the car back in 2008 when I worked at a quick lube shop. Later that year I got a job as an apprentice at a Volvo specialty shop in Hamilton, Ontario. The shop isn't very far from the site of the old Studebaker factory.\r
My goal was to keep the car stock, but I wanted dual exhaust, so I bought the kit and installed it, it was fairly quiet. Maybe two years later the original 283 gave up, so I found a 283 through the local Hamilton Studebaker club, paid 500 for it, threw it in the car. The next summer the original 2 barrel started leaking from every spot it could, and a friend of mine sold me an intake and 4 barrel carb for 200...and that was when the hot rodding bug finally hit me, woke that little 283 up and gave me an addiction I never knew I would get so sucked into. When I met my wife I found out her uncle was into Studebakers, having an Avanti and a few Larks hidden around. I attempted to weld a new floor and body mounts as well as rockers into it over the winter in 2012, which ended in the car sitting until the summer of 2015, when I finally finished the drivers side and did quick patches to the passenger side using scrap metal cut from a junk Volvo XC90 from work. Got it back on the road, threw on some glass packs and blasted around until it ate its cam the next summer, to which it ate two more. I pulled the heads, redid them with help from a friend who builds engines for dirt track racers around Cayuga, he taught me a lot and even had me doing a bunch of the work. I got sick of the cam problem and built a 355 with his assistance, used a set of very nice used pistons and rods, put it together and it literally ate the cam during break in, tore it down, cleaned it up and I spent a week driving it at the beginning of December 2019, parked it for the winter, since then the oil has turned silver and gritty, I have a feeling it lifters we were using are not hardened properly. The 283 has been freshened up and I will hopefully have it back together and in the car in the next month I hope.\r
Over the years I have found great deals on parts, like a perfect NOS set of seat upholstery, even in the proper colour for 200 bucks at a Studebaker swap meet, also found a very rare Speedometer in Kilometers for export cars, which I couldn't pass up.\r
\r
I love working on the car, and I love driving the thing, it might be rough, the paint might be faded and a bit chalky, sure it has dents and it leaks a bit when it rains but its mine and I feel like a million bucks cruising down the highway or around town in it. It's also really cool when you bump into someone who worked at the factory here and they probably installed a fender, or the bumper, I even know the man that either installed the dash or the headliner (which is the nicest original headliner I have ever seen), my car was built in December 65, and he isnt sure, but he switched from headliner installs to dash installation around then. \r
\r
The rest of my plan is to tear the 355 apart, clean it out and see what went wrong. Eventually properly repair the passenger side floor and rocker along with the trunk floor and just keep on driving it and enjoying it. I do hope to do the Power Tour one day when this quarantine ends.
My goal was to keep the car stock, but I wanted dual exhaust, so I bought the kit and installed it, it was fairly quiet. Maybe two years later the original 283 gave up, so I found a 283 through the local Hamilton Studebaker club, paid 500 for it, threw it in the car. The next summer the original 2 barrel started leaking from every spot it could, and a friend of mine sold me an intake and 4 barrel carb for 200...and that was when the hot rodding bug finally hit me, woke that little 283 up and gave me an addiction I never knew I would get so sucked into. When I met my wife I found out her uncle was into Studebakers, having an Avanti and a few Larks hidden around. I attempted to weld a new floor and body mounts as well as rockers into it over the winter in 2012, which ended in the car sitting until the summer of 2015, when I finally finished the drivers side and did quick patches to the passenger side using scrap metal cut from a junk Volvo XC90 from work. Got it back on the road, threw on some glass packs and blasted around until it ate its cam the next summer, to which it ate two more. I pulled the heads, redid them with help from a friend who builds engines for dirt track racers around Cayuga, he taught me a lot and even had me doing a bunch of the work. I got sick of the cam problem and built a 355 with his assistance, used a set of very nice used pistons and rods, put it together and it literally ate the cam during break in, tore it down, cleaned it up and I spent a week driving it at the beginning of December 2019, parked it for the winter, since then the oil has turned silver and gritty, I have a feeling it lifters we were using are not hardened properly. The 283 has been freshened up and I will hopefully have it back together and in the car in the next month I hope.\r
Over the years I have found great deals on parts, like a perfect NOS set of seat upholstery, even in the proper colour for 200 bucks at a Studebaker swap meet, also found a very rare Speedometer in Kilometers for export cars, which I couldn't pass up.\r
\r
I love working on the car, and I love driving the thing, it might be rough, the paint might be faded and a bit chalky, sure it has dents and it leaks a bit when it rains but its mine and I feel like a million bucks cruising down the highway or around town in it. It's also really cool when you bump into someone who worked at the factory here and they probably installed a fender, or the bumper, I even know the man that either installed the dash or the headliner (which is the nicest original headliner I have ever seen), my car was built in December 65, and he isnt sure, but he switched from headliner installs to dash installation around then. \r
\r
The rest of my plan is to tear the 355 apart, clean it out and see what went wrong. Eventually properly repair the passenger side floor and rocker along with the trunk floor and just keep on driving it and enjoying it. I do hope to do the Power Tour one day when this quarantine ends.