R2 Engine Heads, Casting 1557582

[Dave Pacella]

Hello. This is my first post. My father had a 1963 Studebaker Avanti with R2 engine (full SN: 63RQ-2162-R-3054); He purchased this car from the original owner in 1979 and sold it in 2012 via E-Bay motors to a guy from Ontario Canada ("i-deal-it"; quite a character and some story here); Anyway I pretty much learned everything I know about cars and stuff from my dear dad. Me and my brother were with him often when he worked on the Avanti and watched/helped him slowly restore the engine bay. He had parts chromed at Paul's Chrome up in Zelionople PA sometime in the mid 80's; He loved this car and it showed. Put tons of work in it. I helped him install electronic ignition module at one point; Anyway, sadly, the car is long gone i'm sure, probably in Switzerland or who knows...One dream my dad had was to flat bed the "A" to a guy in Ohio to totally rebuild the engine. Somewhere along my dad's Avanti ownership journey, he acquired a set of R2 engine heads from Special Machine Operation out of Houston, PA; I remember clearly as a boy, when we would take drives out there to "talk shop" with the shop owner. I think I still have the oily smell of that place in a memory bank, lol. Part of my dad's dream was to have  the R2 heads re-machined to install on the freshly bored out 289 to 304.5 CI bringing the block up to R3 spec. Not sure if that was actually doable but it sounded pretty legit to me; In any case I just visited my mom and dragged the heads out of storage (bottom of a shelf inside the garage where they sat for a LONG time); I blew them out with my air compressor, sprayed and wiped WD-40 on most surfaces, and installed some of the valves to check operation. As far as I can tell the heads are in very good shape. Any rust is surface only. I have a very flat table and the heads appear to lay perfectly flat with no visible warps or signs of stress. Of course a more thorough inspection ought to be done at some point; I have no use for the heads. I promised my mother I would try to sell them and figured this would be the absolute best place to see if anyone is interested. If someone had a wild hair and installed on a block with flat top pistons -- could get 9:1 compression, which is what my dad always dreamed of doing;

Cheers and thanks for reading!

Dave 

Edited July 22, 2020 by Dave Pacella
added content

[chdonley2]

Dave:Please call me at 530 401 3189

I need these heads for my 63 Avanti endurance race car

[studegary]

I suggest posting them in the For Sale section of this Forum and also in the Studebaker Drivers Club Forum.  It may help if you give a general idea of where the heads are located (because of possible shipping).  

[mfg]

Hi Dave...Interesting story!....I would be interested in purchasing those heads if folks ahead of me pass on them......Thanks, Ed

[Dave Pacella]

Hi all; quick update! Heads are on their way to a better life in sunny NorCal! I always knew they would go far in life, lol; I'd love to see pics of them in operation someday. My 100% Italian Dad is sure to be smiling from dimension_Heaven --"Avanti"!

Cheers all,

Dave