I have had a few different cars ranging from an early eagle talon awd turbo 4 cyl to a 96 240sx with a turbo lq4 swap. I have driven some corvettes and feel like they perform very well and I have also always wanted something no one else has ever seen before.

This has lead me to looking at kit cars like the GTM or a catfish even and aerial atom. All great options and cool cars but still something (almost) anyone can have. Looking into the locost 7 field that's something small and light but lacking the V8 power I want!

Finally the questions! Has anyone used a C5 driveline to build a custom tube chassis car? I know AVI makes a tube chassis c6 but one of the reasons I want to ditch the body work is again something that is totally unique. I have seen a lot of swaps into hot rods and trucks but haven't really found anyone who has done something totally crazy.

What problems might I face? My goal is to keep the finished product under 2,000 and it will stay fairly mild on power until I get a feel for the car.

Starting with car gives me a vin and from my research an easier time with keeping it street legal so does living in Indiana the rules are pretty lax here. Ideally the car will be mostly tube when finished like an atom with minimal body work and I would like to slowly add aero as the car grows and evolves.

Goals:
Sub 2000 lbs
400ish HP (starting out)
Street legal
Totally unique

Please feel free to criticize and ask questions of things I have overlooked!

 

I might be wrong on some of what I say; just my thoughts:
-sub 2000# IMO will be a tough goal
-400HP easy to do
-street legal I think might be just about impossible
-you will probably have more successful replies on a kit car Forum, this is a Corvette site after all...

 

A Cheetah perhaps? It hardly gets more unique than that these days and under 2000# should be no problem at all...





http://cheetahevolution.com/

Good luck... GUSTO

 

There are a number of kit cars that use Corvette suspension pieces and parts for the simple reason that they are cheap, available and very good as far a geometry goes as well as weight.

There are or were a couple of Cheeta kits that used Corvette parts like suspension pieces, engine and others. The Cheeta Evolution might be a chassis that you could start with, but from the looks of it that 's not a well triangulated chassis.

You're obviously aware of the GTM which uses an awful lot of C5 parts but it isn't as light as you want but it's a real car.

None of these is cheap.

There's no reason you can't use the C5 as a basis for a home brew car. You can strip the body panels off of a Corvette and drive the frame around as it isn't a unibody car.

If you want to make a "bare bones" car with a tube frame the Corvette is easier to start with than a lot of other cars and the Corvette parts are a good to use.

Once you strip off the plastic pieces you'd find that in order to make the car much lighter you'd have to shorten it up, which means a shorter torque tube and drive shaft (custom items), move the engine back some and shorten the wheelbase. If you try to use the drive train without shortening it even if you make a good tube frame it's going to be heavy and the wheelbase is going to be too long. Moving the engine back is required on a shorter chassis to keep the weight distribution correct.

If you are smart, most of the pieces you'd keep are lightweight aluminum parts and you'd get rid of the steel pieces and replace them with the lighter weight tube parts. Getting down to 2,000 pounds will be tough. Modern suspension needs a stiff frame to work and stiffness costs weight. That said a tube frame with high sills is a lot lighter and safer than a backbone frame with a good cage. Generally by the time you build a sound cage, you can throw away the original frame. I'd keep enough of the frame to keep the VIN number and work around that.

You would need to move the driver back, move the fuel tanks to the rear and then make a new frame, but that is actually a relatively easy thing to do. The backbone frame limits the driver position and if you get rid of that you can move the the driver inboard and back. Since the Corvette parts all bolt onto a frame you just have to duplicate in space where the bolting locations are and you are good to go.

A wrecked C5Z is the best starting place because it already has the 400 hp motor a better oil pan and things like that. One thing that you don't want to do is use a totaled car because that would get you a salvage title and that's a pita to work around.

 

Thanks for responses!

I have been looking for a wrecked car as a starting point that way I can recoupe some of the costs buy parting out what I don't need that's still in good condition.

I haven't seen the cheetah but I will take a look around at those links.

I really like the idea of shortening the wheel base for sure to give it a little more snappy feel. I am trying to keep things as simple as I can which is a tall order I know. The plan is really to use a fuel cell mounted behind or on top of the rear diff and move the drivers seating position as far back as possible.