The Corvette Build- Drivetrain and interior

I've been stockpiling parts since I bought the car in anticipation of the build. The drive train will be an all-aluminum LS6 motor out of a 2004 Z06 Corvette, and a Tremec TKO-600 close-ratio five speed manual transmission with a lightweight flywheel. In stock trim the motor put out 405 HP, and this motor has a bigger cam and some head work. It should put out 435 HP right now. The goal for the car is a littler more horsepower, and a vehicle weight in the sub 2900 pound range. The first step will be to get it running with the new drivetrain and ECM. Then the body and drive train will get put on a tube frame chassis that uses modern Corvette brakes, steering and suspension.

After selling off the old motor and transmission, I cleaned up the engine compartment and began fit-checking the motor. For the most part it's fairly straight forward, but the the A-arms are going to require some effort to work around. That won't be a problem with the eventual chassis, but it sure is with this one.

The new motor requires the engine control module (ECM). I ordered a complete wiring harness from Speartech, and had the ECM reprogrammed.

The new motor requires electronic gauges, and I wanted to modernize the dash. I bought a dash housing and worked on ideas.

After weeks of indecision, I liked this concept the most and went with it. I thought of making a custom panel to mount the gauges, but the original panel has a lot of style, and I wanted to use it. I'm planning to keep the interior mostly stock since Chevy really did a nice job on the Corvette design, but with some modern touches that will (hopefully) blend in nicely.

The old, and the new....

The fuel injected motor requires higher fuel pressure, so I got a new tank with built-in fuel pump from Rock Valley.

I also put in an aluminum radiator with an integrated electric fan, that will be controlled by the ECM.

Since I was replacing gauges, I figured I might as well go ahead and restore/update the entire dash and console. I took out the entire dash board, and will have the three main pieces recovered in high quality vinyl.

It looks like this after removing everything. I seriously considered replacing every harness in the car, but everything worked, and tested well. All of the higher amperage circuits needed for the fuel injection, electric fan, and A/C will all be relay controlled, and independent of the original wiring.

You can see where the interior was originally red. I'm not a big fan of red interiors. I thought of going with a light grey, but black is SO much easier to match everything.

Perhaps the four most dangerous words when working on old cars "while I'm in there". I'm going to strip out all of the old carpeting and jute, and put in Dynamat, plus Dynaliner, and new carpeting.

The interior tub cleaned up nicely. It's almost all fiberglass, so rust wasn't a problem. The brown you see here is simply adhesive residue that need sto be scraped off.

A few weeks, and $600 worth of sound deadener later, the car looked like it was made from aluminum foil.

I kept wanting to wear an aluminum foil hat with antena while I was doing the Dynamat.

The sound deadening added close to 50 pounds. This is one of the few areas where I'm OK with adding weight. The other will be air conditioning eventually.

Installing a carpet is ALL about patience. Measure 3 times before you cut, use as little contact adhesive as possible, and be REALLY careful about where you're spraying the adhesive.

Everything looks great with fresh carpeting, and all hardware and related pieces cleaned and painted.

I temporarily reinstalled the seats, they're in decent shape, but there's no side bolstering and their just not very comfortable to me. The Corvette seats will be replaced by seats out of a Pontiac Fiero that I've found within a few weeks.

Remove, clean endlessly, repaint, polish, repeat. The restoration part of a "restomod" is actually kind of relaxing. It's all of the modifications that make it tough. Every solution seems to create two new problems.

The parts came out looking really nice.

Everything gets cleaned and (at least) painted. Some of these parts are cleaner than the day they left the factory back in '65.

Even the vents, and the vent door behind the vent get painted.

I finally got the dash pads back from being recovered. That allowed me to have the dash center section coverd in matching vinyl.

That allowed me to finally start putting the dash back in, and have it looking more like a car again.

After hours, and hours, of measuring and fit-checking, I welded up some simple mounting tabs and installed the Pontiac Fiero seats. They're WAY more comfortable, and much more bolstered than the stock seats it's amazing. I'll get them recovered, and may cut down the head rests so they can recline further, like the stock seats do.

I found a stereo that I really liked. It looks totally stock, but is IPOD compatible, with the connection at the back so it doesn't show.

Fit-checking things as I go...

I really like the look of the new pedals too.

In order to mount the drive-by-wire pedal and sending unit I had to have a mounting plate fabricated. Since most of the Corvette's firewall is fiberglass, there's not many places to attach to. I drew up a sketch and had a friend fab up this panel.

I'm playing around with the idea of moving the exhaust outlets slightly to modernize the look of the back, without getting too radical.

In order to give myself some clearance for the power steering, I went ahead and canned the stock upper control arms and installed a system of adjustable upper arms and taller balls joints that allows for positive camber in turns and really improves the handling. It's from Savitske Customs, the same system I used on both Chevelles, and love.