Headers for Studebaker engined Avanti's...

[Gunslinger]

I was at Corvettes at Carlisle yesterday and there was a customs headers designer and fabricator there...Kooks Custom Headers. I asked them about Studebakers and Avanti's, and by coincidence, one of the owners of the company owns a '63 Avanti which what was described as all original condition.

I asked about headers for Avanti's and Studebakers with Stude engines. I was told they could certainly design, engineer and make headers for the cars, though they haven't yet. As long as they had the car to make measurements and test fits, it would be no trouble. Costs would depend on how many units would be sold, which is likely a small number.

I'm just tossing this out for anyone who might be interested in having professional quality design and construction headers for their car. They're located in Statesville, NC. The headers they had on display certainly looked like quality, but for that venue I would expect their best to be on display.

Their website for anyone interested is Kooks Custom Headers

[PackardV8]

Never hurts to ask. The one chance we might have here versus the other header manufacturers is this guy owns an Avanti. If they want to be good guys, they can design, manufacture, stock and sell a header on which they will never show a profit. What sort of follow-up do they want?

jack vines

[Gunslinger]

Never hurts to ask. The one chance we might have here versus the other header manufacturers is this guy owns an Avanti. If they want to be good guys, they can design, manufacture, stock and sell a header on which they will never show a profit. What sort of follow-up do they want?

jack vines

I didn't talk to the guy with an Avanti. When I talked to the sales rep and mentioned Studebaker, he volunteered that one of them owned a '63 Avanti that was original and correct. It could always be BS talking, but he seemed to know what he was talking about.

He seemed appreciative about my saying I would spread the word about them. He also said they could make headers for any car as long as they had the car physically there to take measurements, check clearances, etc., to make a tuned set of pipes. Like most manufacturers of any product, the cost would be based upon expected sets produced. I'm sure just one set could be expensive if all the costs weren't going to be spread across a number of sets to be built. If just one set was to be designed and built and tested, that one buyer would pay the entire learning curve of R&D.

Even if they designed a set for an Stude Avanti, that doesn't mean the set would fit a Lark or Hawk, etc. Maybe if they would design a set of block hugger style for a Stude engine, that would be a plus in and of itself and require minimal time and expense compared to a set of Avanti specific (or Lark or Hawk specific) full length tuned headers.

If someone had a real idea of how many Avanti and other Studebaker owners would be serious about wanting quality tube headers made, they could be approached about it and maybe some dollar figures could be crunched to see how reasonably they could be fabricated.

Like you said...never hurts to ask. The answer is always no if you don't ask.

[PackardV8]

Now, having said it doesn't hurt to ask about headers, I'll take the other side and say my experience says the typical street-driven R1 will never notice the difference, other than increased noise in the cabin. A blueprinted R2 or R3 with enough valve spring to get to 7,000 might pick up a few horsepower through the mufflers. On the drag strip with the collectors open, it would be worth maybe 10-20 more. Problem is, for those guys who want to race in Pure Stock, headers aren't legal.

jack vines