(rock music)
- [Tony] Okay, so one of the reasons
that we were confident to build Corvettes ,
which we have no idea about,
is right down the street
from our shop in El Segundo, California,
The Fiberglass Body,
and these dudes only mess with Corvettes all day long.
That's what they do since 1977.
This guy Steve owns the place, he said
him and the same three guys have been here the whole time.
They've been doing this day in and day out forever.
We ran into a little problem,
some of the stuff that I ordered that says, you know,
Fits most GM cars, doesn't fit Corvettes .
A big problem is that the clutch fork
is running into the foot well,
and there's no room for any of it.
And so, we need a very specific corvette clutch fork,
and we're going to go see if these guys have it.
So boom, corvette clutch fork.
These guys at The Fiberglass Body
had it just laying on a shelf.
What an awesome resource to have down the street,
I feel like we're definitely going to be back here
before this car is done.
So, here's the gig as Lucky would say,
regular part, corvette part, you can see totally different.
This is going to let our clutch work, which is dope.
(rock music)
(power drill whirs)
See if it, oh, there you go.
So, we figured out there's an interference issue
with our valve cover,
when shoehorning this giant motor into this corvette.
Our old school, super cool, brushed aluminum valve covers,
were way to tall.
The stock ones don't give enough clearance
for this high-lift camshaft, so they don't seat.
So, the solution that we worked out
is to use a valve cover spacer.
It's a half-inch spacer,
it's going to have a gasket on both sides.
We decided to use the vortec style cover because
they're stiffer, and they don't leak,
and they have a more modern gasket.
(rock music)
(power drill whirs)
- I hate to say we're badass but,
is that too tight you think?
(belt strumming)
- Yeah, it's a D, D minor.
- So, we want to make sure the 454
has a fresh supply of clean gas.
- Instead of whatever garbage is in here.
So, we're going to pull this tank out and put a fresh one in.
It's a good one.
- Who makes it?
- Tanks.
- And what is it?
- It's a tank.
- That works out well.
- Tony put the new sending unit in,
the pickup is at the bottom of the tank.
- And I'm going to do the install.
The complicated part.
Done.
(rock music)
So, whenever your mounting the fuel pump,
it's always good to have the pickup of the fuel pump
lower than the fuel tank.
It's called a fuel pump not a fuel suck,
put it in the back so it pumps the gas to the front.
That's your tech tip.
When cutting zip ties I always use fresh snippers.
Just keep them really tight and you don't cut your fingers.
- Okay, so we want to drive this car and see how fast
and fun it's going to be with 475 horsepower.
We talked to our buddies at Irwindale Speedway,
they said we can come over there and mess around,
but we've got to get there extremely quickly.
- Which means paint it black and hit the track.
(welding popping)
- Sorry about your hair bro.
- So, Dynamic Corvette sent over this unnamed bracket
for us to use on the car.
It goes on the front of a '69 corvette.
And I'll bolt the radiator support right too it.
This big-boy radiator is from Frostbite.
We use these a bunch they work really well.
- All right, here it goes.
- Radiator's in, we've got to throw a fan on it
and wire it up, and drop this down, side pipes and go.
Take us 5, 10 minutes.
(laughing)
So, we have some silencers just arrive
that Hooker makes of these things.
They should bring the sound down
to like a slightly less criminal level.
(power drill whirs)
(rock music)
We've got our Vortec 454 crammed into '74 corvette.
All systems are a go,
this thing is ready to fire up and drive.
There's no body on it, so, it doesn't matter,
we're taking this thing out to have some fun.
- It's not overheating, holds water and oil.
- Let's see how this thing sounds.
- Let's go piss off some neighbors.
- Let's do it.
I'm ready.
Excuse me here.
All right, here it goes.
(engine revs loudly)
The fuel tank and the fuel are in and hooked up.
We've got the doors off, the front clip is off,
the rear quarters are off,
then we put on our headers and side pipes.
All systems are go, this thing is ready to drive.
(engine revving)
All right, here we go.
(engine revving)