Thanks, all. Progress has been really slow the last couple months, too many home projects and winter preparation. I really want to tear into the 6.2 sitting on the engine stand and begin converting to LS3 specs, in the meantime I am gathering some swap parts like LS3 manifold, injectors, rail, etc.

 

Ls3 swap!!

Thats awesome

 

Yeah, I have a separate thread that goes into more detail on the swap itself.

 

rad

 

For the first time in this entire thread I have something "aesthetic" to post about this car. I am by no means a real stance enthusiast as I hate the stretched wheel phenomenon but I can truly appreciate high quality, genuine, period correct wheels that look great when paired with functional fitment.

Back in 1999 I was a starry eyed 11 year old with an already healthy obsession with anything automotive. As a big fan of the original Gran Turismo simulator on PS1 back in '97 or so, I was even more so excited for GT2 to come out that year.



One of the coolest features (in addition to the very realistic cars and tracks) was the ability to customize your cars with aftermarket wheels at the "Wheel Shop".



I always loved the classic looks of wheels from BBS and usually put some variant of those on my favorite cars in the game. Fast forward almost 20 years and here I am, casually surfing Craigslist to see what's out there for my C5. The ad said C5 Corvette BBS wheels...



Which immediately seemed unusual as I never thought BBS had made anything for this car; I figured they were some crappy reps in a BMW bolt pattern or the seller was just plain confused. After some research I found out BBS actually did make a set of LM wheels for the C5...

2 hours later I'm reluctantly pulling up in the seller's driveway, greeted by an '03 Coupe and 2 late model MX-5s. The guy must be an enthusiast, I think to myself...



Looking over the wheels, they seem legit if not very unusual....but, the part numbers and sizes checked out and they were real.









It turns out the wheels came on the red '03, which the guy had just recently purchased. He was returning the car back to stock and didn't need the wheels anymore. He had bought the car from the original owner, who was an older gentleman and bought the wheels brand new at a cost of almost $1000 each and decided to drive the car year round. What do you do when you drive a car year round in the NE US? You put Mud and Snow tires on it....

by https://www.flickr.com/photos/nogiba/, on Flickr



I kindly paid the man his asking price of $350 and loaded them up into my trusty steed.





So for now, the OEM C6 wheels will stay on until I have a chance to test fit the LM's. The initial plan is to see how they fit with or without the .375" spacer up front and the 1" spacer out back. I absolutely plan on reverse mounting the faces to gain some offset and make the lips stand out visually. Once that's figured out, I'll have the faces refinished (probably in the factory BBS silver) and polish the lips myself.

 

Nice grab! I see one of them is the 17x9, are the rears 18x10.5?

 

 

17x9 front, rears are 18x10. Offsets in the low to mid 50mm range.

 

Glad you're enjoying it! Reading and posting build threads is one of my favorite hobbies. If you're bored go look me up on LS1Tech (user: LQ4-E39) and find my 6.0 LS BMW swap thread.

 

Went on a cruise with some Euro trash. 2x E39 M5 and Saab Turbo X.



Unearthing cool history


Moment of truth








Immediately go to WalMart to buy tiki torches as a test drive


Forgot to mention, they came with cool vintage TPMS programming magnets!




Quick cleanup with some Meguiar's Compound to see if I could breath some temporary life back into the faces (click for video)

by https://www.flickr.com/photos/nogiba/, on Flickr

 

This thread is amazing

 

Subscribed.

 

Friday night I began disassembling the rear BBS wheels to see if any machining or modification would be necessary to reverse mount the faces on the rear wheels. Luckily, everything bolted up perfectly!

I began by removing the hardware holding the faces to the barrels, 8mm and 10mm 12 point sockets each. Went very quickly with the help of an electric impact.


The faces came out easily with a couple taps from a rubber mallet.


Test fitting a reverse mounted face (foreground), and a standard mount in the background.


Another shot - can you tell which is which? It's a subtle but nice change.


All hardware is getting a nice soaking. Check out the factory threadlocker that was applied in Japan, in a different century!


Out doing old man Corvette things


Back on the C6 wheels for now, parked with my other daily which is lowered using much more ghetto methods.

 

this is such an awesome build.

 

It just occurred to me that I never posted up the link to my LS3/L92 6.2 swap. I took apart the car in February, it was running by late May of this year.



https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...to-c5-frc.html

Here is a general picture dump of my activities since then

Maiden voyage after the swap for some random parts


After a proper wash and cleaning, I started to put some miles on it and cruise









One of my favorite recent shots on my favorite local driving road


Feeling patriotic during the week of 4th of July




Out at the local ice cream joint


Playing with the N2MB No Lift Shift feature, which occasionally shoots fireballs (although not on command). Apparently the pressure was too much for stock junky mufflers.


Which prompted me to whip up some straight pipes

 

Also made sure it was still capable of hauling things other than ***

 

Nice tow truck!

 

 

Awesome thread. I'm trying to keep my FRC build up to date, not as intense as your thread though.

 

First year storing the car for the winter. Every winter since I've bought the car has been spent disassembling, upgrading, cleaning, etc. This year I just cleaned up the interior, put some dryer sheets and moisture absorbents inside, removed the battery, added Sta-Bil, and stuck it on jackstands. See you in 6 months!

















You guys didn't think I could leave anything alone for that long, did you? I naturally picked up another project to pass the time with.

https://ls1tech.com/forums/forced-in...rbo-build.html