Hi again. I am Aaron. I live near St. Louis.

I posted a while back looking for a salvage C5 to build into a track day car.
I bought a non-salvage titled 1997 C5 right as the Corvette inflation was really taking off.

I got word from a friend that someone would be selling a project C5 and I went with said friend to check it out and drove it and I bought it. After getting it home and working on it for a while, I can say this thing is a complete basket case, minus the engine is strong and no issues with transmission or differential.
I got it for a 'good deal'. I am the 8th owner. It's been through at least 2 accidents but it has a clean title and 88k (allegedly) miles. I also believe that someone had it as a 'bat mobile' vette cart and then slapped body panels back on it at some point. It has a remote clutch bleeder and some sort of non oem C5 shifter, so I have no idea what has been done to it. It had a bad misfire below 2k but new wires solved that. I have 'all' the parts for it, but many of them are all the 25 year old plastic that is brittle and cracked into a million pieces.

It has an issue with the rear suspension. The minimum camber on the drivers side is -4 and the maximum camber on the passenger side is -2. The rear cradle seems to have moved and I attribute that to the accident(s) it's been in. I've tried to ghetto move it back into place, but I won't know really what the issue is until I drop the cradle and take a look. The frame appears to be straight, no odd bends anywhere or areas of repair. Control arms are straight. No idea. So I can't get a true alignment until I get the rear subframe and suspension dialed in. The tub is cracked and off center, but I'll deal with that this winter.


So far:

Lowered
Z06 shocks
"Upgraded" radiator
Braided lines all around
drivers mirror

All new tie rods
All new wheel bearnings
all new rotors, pads
All new end links
Plugs, wires
New fluids
new battery

Coming up:
1220411 ECU + Relocation to passenger footwell
Racing seat
New rear axles
Who knows wtf else
drivers / pass window motors
body work, I have 2 good condition rocker panels but need an inductor or some creativity with a heat gun to get them off of the cut frame sections that are living in my garage. I have both headlight assemblies off the car and will be fixing them up as well. The motors both operate and the modules both function.

So, here is my 'project' and pictures from when I bought it: (it doesn't look much different now)


nner tie rods


My goal was to get it mechanically sound and drive it around but that has taken longer than I anticipated. During the winter I'll be removing all the body panels, fiberglassing what I can and spray painting it so she'll be at least a 20 footer.

 

This is better in the C5 General section so moving it there.