R3 Numbers!

[DWR46]

Anthony: Please check your messages.

Dyke Ridgley

[DWR46]

Anthony: I am still waiting to hear back from you.

[mfg]

I wonder if the one or two experimental 340 CI Studebaker engine blocks, that made it out of the factory, had any type of numbering I.D. on them?

[Nelson]

On 4/19/2025 at 6:24 AM, mfg said:

I wonder if the one or two experimental 340 CI Studebaker engine blocks, that made it out of the factory, had any type of numbering I.D. on them?

No they didn’t number them. Even the standard casting number was on them. They were cast on Veterans Day 1963 by the date code. There is a V or N (?) cast into the side of the block. This block was discussed in an old SDC thread.

[mfg]

17 hours ago, Nelson said:

No they didn’t number them. Even the standard casting number was on them. They were cast on Veterans Day 1963 by the date code. There is a V or N (?) cast into the side of the block. This block was discussed in an old SDC thread.

I would imagine the rare R3-R4 type cylinder heads would bolt right on to the prototype 340… without the needed cylinder chamfering found in the smaller 305 CI blocks.

[Geoff]

On 4/21/2025 at 8:50 AM, mfg said:

I would imagine the rare R3-R4 type cylinder heads would bolt right on to the prototype 340… without the needed cylinder chamfering found in the smaller 305 CI blocks.

That's what I've heard from J. Pepper, that the heads put on the last of the performance Studebakers would have been more at home with the 3.875" or 4" bore blocks. Oh if only Studebaker could have been in business exactly 10 more years, and bowed out with the oil crisis, Dec. '73.
Due Cento could have returned to Bonneville on dry salt and recorded 200 MPH.
Maybe ... possibly ... a privateer team campaigning a 5L Challenger in 1966-1972 SCCA Trans-Am?