Daily Slideshow: How to Wake up your '81 'Vette

The Question

How does someone come to the decision to base a build around an early-'80s C3, out of all of the Corvettes they could start with? For Frank Cagle, the idea came after years and thousands of dollars spent on a 1967 Chevy II Nova Super Sport, one that wore Chip Foose's signature. The Nova functioned more as a Ming vase than an automobile—he showed it but it didn't get driven. It was time to get a car he could use. As Cagle told Super Chevy, "I said to myself, 'What do you want to drive that looks sporty and is not what everybody else has?' The C3s just stood out all by themselves."

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The Answer(s)

Cagle had his heart set on a red-on-red C3, and he didn't have too much trouble finding one—the trouble was that the first one he found was too good to alter. After he bought the car he had a change of heart, "I got to looking at the car, and everything on it worked—the seat-belt buzzer, light dimmer, even the clock was working. I said, 'I can't destroy this car—it's in too-good shape!'" Cagle said. He decided to sell it and look for something he wouldn't feel bad about modifying. Some eBay work netted him the perfect candidate, a red engineless roller with extra parts that a shop in Florida painted for a customer who never came back to get it. After three years a mechanic's lien turned into a title for the Corvette, and a trailer ride later Cagle was off to the races.

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Inches

Waiting in his shop, were not one, but two big-blocks in need of homes. Saint that he is (he already passed on chopping up a mint original), he gave the smaller one, a 468-incher, to his son for his '72 Camaro. That left a 540 ci big-block, built by Jon Barrett Hot Rod Engines in McLoud, Oklahoma, for Cagle's Corvette. Built from a GM Performance Parts Gen IV cast-iron big-block, the engine also features All-Pro aluminum heads, a Comp Cams camshaft, Probe 9.5:1 forged aluminum pistons, and RPM forged rods and forged crankshaft. The engine is topped with an Edelbrock Air Gap intake and an 870-cfm Holley Street Avenger carb. Cagle, in true Corvette-guy fashion, wanted to run side pipes but wasn't crazy about the factory RPO N14 pieces. Instead, he went with 4-inch Hooker 'Show Tubes'... after a little work was done to match them up to his McJacks headers' 2.5-inch collectors. The black headers fit in nicely with the '81's blacked-out trim.

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Fitting In

Fitting the Barrett engine took some doing too—its tall valve covers (necessary due to the tall roller-rockers) didn't help, and neither did the changes Chevrolet had made to the C3's engine bay after the factory stopped offering big-blocks as options. "I had to take a 4-inch notch out of the firewall just to get the valve covers to clear," Cagle said. He also needed to notch the front crossmember by two inches to clear the 540's crank pulley. Backing up the massive big-block is a Monster Transmissions & Performance-built 700R4 overdrive automatic, which feeds power back to a 12-bolt rear end, linked to a custom four-link suspension system that replaces the Corvette's stock IRS. The 12-bolt houses a 3.73:1 Auburn positraction differential and Moser axles, and handles the 'Vette's 635 lb-ft of torque. 

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Off the Trailer

So how happy is Cagle driving a car instead of a tow rig? "When you get out on the road, it's an absolute dream. I'm only running about 1,800-1,900 rpm at 75 [mph], and with the four-link keeping the rear tires straight and the Steeroids rack in the front, it drives like a dream. And it's extremely quick!" Cagle shared. So has he hit on the perfect solution for spicing up lackluster C3s? We think he might be onto something. And he's not wrong when he says, "Right now, the C3s are the next group of cars that people are going to be able to go out and purchase at a pretty good price, build back to a nice driver car, and still be able to make some money on it, and not get upside-down." And we know legions of C3 fanatics that won't argue with him when he says: "...but if you want to make a nice restomod out of a C3, that is the best-looking Corvette body style ever made." Just take a page from Mr. Cagle's book and leave the mint ones be. 

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