Rozelle 1965 Corvette Build

[JakeR]

Project #2 here on Lat-G. You might already know our Camaro whose build thread you can check out here:
https://lateral-g.net/forums/showthread.php4?t=48679

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 Cris at JCG found this one 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.

[Roy69RS]

Project Bluray.

[Vince@Meanstreets]

Love it but it needs something. Flares are perfect and side pipes would top the look. Not a fan of the Impala treatment.

[groovyjay]

Subscribed! I put ACP's coil over set up on my 65 coupe.

[andreb]

Looking forward to watching this take shape. I like the extra lights, cool retro touch.

[Justin@EntropyRad]

Grey one with that body won LS-Fest this year, didnt it?

[Cris@JCG]

This C2 pretty cool! The flares have grown on me since we lowered the car..

[JakeR]

Thanks for the responses guys!

We weren't fans of the added tail lights at first either but they have definitely grown on us. Same with the flairs, in all the pictures I've posted so far they look a bit awkward with how high the car is. However, now that the car is lowered they look pretty good, like Cris said.

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.

[89 RS]

Cool stuff right there! I'd say the wheels cleaned up well, looks great. What kind of motor is in the Corvette?

[JakeR]

It came with a 327 and a 4 speed, but of course that wasn't enough so another post will cover the motor swap we did. Its still a small block but makes 530+ hp. Stay tuned for that! It should be my next post and I'm almost done writing it, just need to collect a few more pics.