Insane

I bought a fiberglass IROC front bumper from Stinger Fiberglass and of course had to modify it to make it unique to my car. I started by reinforcing the grill opening so that I could remove the license plate mount in the middle and fabricate a custom grill insert. The original headlight bar was bonded to the inside of the fiberglass shell and modified to fit BMW E36 headlight housings. The lower spoiler was sectioned and extended 1 ½” down to be level with the ground, glassed, and bodyworked before paint.

I added a set of Kindigit smooth door handles. I filled the original handle and lock holes, fit the new handles, TIG welded everything, bodyworked, and paint. The pictures tell a better story.

The rear bumper and diffuser began with a concept drawing from my imagination which is shortened 6” flush with the taillights. The original steel bumper support was sectioned and formed to follow the curvature of the car and foam was attached and shaped to make a male buck which was laid up with fiberglass and reinforced to create a mold. The final piece was hand laid fiberglass in the mold. The part was removed from the mold, flanges attached, body worked, and painted to complete the bumper. The diffuser was cut and formed from a single sheet of 1/8” aluminum and TIG welded. The final product it is surprisingly close to the concept drawing.

I modified an IROC hood from the recycle yard to make a one of a kind extractor hood. The center sections were cut out and new hand formed pans were made from 20ga sheet metal, TIG welded, bodyworked, and painted. Custom grills were made from stainless steel wire grate to match the front grill. The ducts are aligned with the cooling fans on the radiator.

I decided to use Baer brakes on this build because they were willing to work with me to add modern brakes to a C4 suspension. At the time they had a kit for the front, but did not make one for the rear because of the integrated parking brake on the single piston calipers that were original equipment on the Corvette. They sent me a set of billet aluminum spindle adapters to add C5 rotors and calipers with a drum type parking brake inside the rotors. The system consisted of 14” rotors and 6 piston calipers at all four corners. I incorporated a hydra boost unit and the C4 ABS module to complete the system. Dozens of feet of 3/16” stainless steel tubing was handed formed to tie it all together.

To begin with, this system was built specifically for this car, LS swap, and suspension. A custom transmission cross member had to be fabricated in order to fit dual 3” pipes. The headers are Speedway stainless steel 3rd gen LS swap units with the #3 tube modified for the R&P steering shaft. An X-pipe and two 18” X 5” MagnaFlow “mufflers” were added to complete the system. I TIG welded the entire system in my shop and it has a titanium ceramic coat with polished tips.

This all began with a challenge from my brother that this could not be done. I took a rolling chassis of a 92 Corvette and installed it in my 84 Z28. It started with removing all of the brackets and sheet metal associated with the live axle rear suspension, K-member, and front strut suspension. The rear frame rails were reinforced with 3/16” plate formed to the C-notch where the original coil springs resided and new fabricated brackets for the C4 center section were installed. The rear wheel wells were widened 1 ½” and pockets formed for the upper and lower control arms in the forward section. The strut rods, control arms, and toe rods were fabricated with rod ends and CrMo tubing. A pinion support was added to the transmission tunnel and uses a poly body mount. The front frame rails were sectioned 18” and new 30” rails were installed at 13 degrees for improved anti-dive geometry. Brackets for the upper control arms and coil-overs were attached to the frame rails. A custom designed K-member was fabricated to accommodate the LS engine and rack and pinion steering and positioned 2 ½” back and 2” lower for better weight distribution. The transverse leaf springs were replaced with coil-overs with 400 lb. springs front and 300 lb. springs rear. Splined front and rear anti-sway bars round out the suspension. All of the design, engineering, and fabrication was accomplished in a 2 car garage with no lift or frame table.