Bob's Studebaker Resource Website


Avanti Cowl Induction

Bob Streu, Bay City, MI

Oct 2014


From the SDC Forum - Oct 20, 2014

Avanti Cowl Induction Hood??!!

Progress on the 74 has been a little slow as my painter found himself gainfully employed this year. That's good news, for him and I'm happy for him. It just sets me back until next spring for paint.

In the meantime, I've busied myself on a project I've wanted to do since I bought the 83 Avanti, build a cowl induction hood for one like the one in the SNM.

They don't make one the correct size so I found that was 30" wide and 54" long. Too long and too narrow but the height was right, so the challenge was to make it fit.

Original glass induction scoop setup.

So I shortened it, split it down the middle and framed in the center.

The problem was how do I glass the center and get it to release afterwards from the base. From a previous life I figured Glass resin wouldn't stick to HDPE very well so I bought a couple of 24"X48" sheets of black 1/8" and used it on the form to lay up the glass and glass mat layers. The hood released with little effort when mat was laid.

After a fair bit of sanding and minor filler addition it looks like this.

The base (original hood) looks like this with the hole for the air cleaner and a gasket in place. Gene R. got me thinking about hot air extraction with his post so I decided to put a gasket between the scoop and hood to let me pull hot air out from behind the radiator without letting it leak into the cool air stream. The gasket is from a W31 Olds Ram Air setup and will be the same one used to seal the air cleaner to hood gap.

Put both halves together with West Six10 adhesive and a jillion screw along the hood edge. Three days later we have this.

Setting on the Avanti

Question?? Should I extend the cowl back about 4-6 inches to cover part of the cowl? I'm currently going to leave it like this but the extension is under serious consideration.

The last picture is the cab top seal. I found a Firebird setup on Craigslist and modified it to provide the sealing area for the carb to hood gasket.

Ther's still a lot of work to do to finish it, design and cut the air vents (suggestions welcome as I have a couple of Ideas but nothing concrete) and get the final mounting done.

Bob