Rozelle 1965 Corvette Build

[JakeR.]

Project #2 here on Pro-Touring. You might already know our Camaro whose build thread you can check out here:
https://www.pro-touring.com/threads/112450-Rozelle-Camaro-USCA-Buildup?highlight=rozelle

If you already know our other project you probably also know that my dad and I attend a ton of track events. This past year however I have been doing almost all the driving and that is where this car comes in, our 1965 Corvette project.




My dad's dream car has always been the C2 Corvette, so when this one came up for sale locally we grabbed it. The goal is for it to compete alongside our Camaro at local events while also being a car that gets driven around town a fair amount like our Camaro does. However, this car will not be seeing as much road course abuse as the Camaro and will be our autocross focused weapon, with the intention of debuting the car at Goodguy's Del Mar for its first major competition and hopefully competing in Scottsdale at the end of the year.

We picked up this car in April 2014. The previous owner had not driven it since 1981 and it had been in the same family most of its life. The flares on the car have been there for a very long time along with the two added taillights that are another cool retro touch by the previous owner.





Future plans included a brake upgrade, way more power, and a full suspension setup from Van Steel Corvettes with JRI coilovers.

[79-TA]

This car looks like a ton of fun and I look forward to watching you guys develop it. Let me know when it's ready for a baseline run at AMP!

[FLYNAVY53]

very cool....subscribed

[JRiShocks]

Very cool Jake! Looking forward to watching this build come together! If you get some step by step photos, shoot them over to Seth so we can feature it on our website!

[Peter Mc Mahon]

I love those cars, even the flares. One of the best looking cars ever made IMO. Good luck with the build, may the good deal gods shine on you.

[JakeR.]

Thanks guys!

Brett it is ready for AMP now, I just need the time to make it there! This thread is behind our actual progress. It actually edged out our Camaro by a couple tenths at the last autocross and has a lot more in it with some more development. The Camaro was on a destroyed set of tires which definitely hurt it but it's still impressive.

So in the interest of catching up to where the car is now, here's the next update installment:

Since the car hadnt run in nearly 35 years I'm sure most of you know what came next. Draining the fuel, rebuilding the carb, etc. Included in the process of getting the car back running and driving was upgrading to the Wilwood disc brakes kit for these cars, 6 piston front calipers and 4 piston rears. The conversion made sense to do since the stock calipers needed rebuilding and we knew a brake upgrade would be coming sooner or later so no need to waste money on the stock stuff. Those stock calipers were heavy too! We didn't bother with a bigger rotor than stock as the short autocross runs this car will see will not require it and it would only add cost and unsprung weight.

Don’t worry, since this photo was taken I’ve sanded this all down and painted it so its nice and clean, you'll see all that later.


To clear the bigger brakes and replace the probably oblonged rims and cracked tires the car came with, we picked up a used set of Vintage Wheel Works V40s from CarlC and put on our tire of choice the Falken RT615K. They were pretty dirty in these pics from sitting in storage but they cleaned up nice with a little work.




With the car back on the road we enjoyed it in stock form for the majority of the summer while we focused on our camaro.

[JakeR.]

And thanks JRi! I'll send those pics over soon I'm hoping to get some assembled images this weekend.

[JakeR.]

While in its stock form the car was fun, it wasn't my dads dream car. The bushings in nearly everything were shot, the manual steering with the sticky 275 front tires got old real quick and the 327 SBC in the car was lackluster at best. The factory 4 speed was also an annoyance for me, having grown up spoiled by modern tremecs.

So one weekend afternoon when we weren't racing, my dad and I teamed up and out came the motor and trans.

In its place we dropped back in the 400 ci GM small block Bow Tie race block that had come out of the Camaro earlier in the year. We had to reseal the motor and put on a new intake as the old one would not fit under the hood of the vette, even though the '67 big block hood allowed a little more clearance than what would have come on our car. With a full forged rotating assembly and 540hp,505lbf tq at the crank this motor will be more than enough for this autocross car.


Behind it we put in a Tremec TKO 600 which was an incredibly tight fit, but did squeeze in without any modifications to the car. It came from Hurst who makes this trans with a special side shifter to fit in old corvettes. Before putting the motor back in I also took the time to sand down the engine bay and front section of the frame and coat it all in POR15 gloss black.









A dual electric fan radiator was also added as past experience has taught us this big displacement small block needs a lot of cooling:


The stock exhaust was chucked at this time and the car now has a cheap and quick 2 1/2" system in place until we have time to do it proper. We are using Black Widow mufflers that we run on all our performance cars for their wicked sound.



A Borgeson Power steering box was also added with its quick 12:1 ratio. This allowed us to get rid of the massive steering wheel that had come on the car for the leverage needed to turn the wheels and replace it with something a little more autocross worthy.


Not really a performance mod but for his birthday my sister and I got my dad a new radio that fits in the stock location that you can see in the bottom right of that last pic. It is iPod compatible which I installed along with a much better speaker in place of the blown out stock unit. My dad is always more on the 'street' car side of things like radios and sound deading while I am definitely more speed oriented so working together usually ends in a nice middle ground.

One more update until we are current, suspension!

[Motown 454]

Sweet Car!

[FLYNAVY53]

What size are the wheels and tires?

[JakeR.]

What size are the wheels and tires?

17x9.5 with 275 width tires all around

[FLYNAVY53]

awesome, thanks! she looks good!