1976 Chevrolet Corvette - Blue Thunder

Though a big change was the switch to a composite single-leaf rear spring for the '81, the C3s used suspension hardware that had stayed the same since 1963. And those outdated chassis parts were among the biggest items to go when Allen Rauch tackled his Corvette project, the results of which you see here.

Rauch found his C3 about five years ago, at which time he says it was neither a Top Flight beauty nor a basket-case horror show. "When I bought it, I was the third owner," he says from his Allentown, Pennsylvania, home. "It was a good driver, but it needed some work." In other words, it was a classic, all right-a classic "20-footer."

By "we," Rauch means some of his fellow Lehigh Valley Corvette Association (LVCA) members, who'd done this conversion before. "One of the main [club] guys, John Cook, had done a couple of them," says Rauch. "We decided, 'Let's go this other route, instead of putting it back to original.'" Unlike many other Corvette "restifications," this one would not involve replacing the OEM frame, as it had no crash damage or rust that made replacement necessary.

Speaking of power, it's no longer an iron-headed 350 that's under the hood. Instead, Rauch swapped in a stroker 383 built by CMS Racing Engines in Fogelsville, Pennsylvania, which uses an 0.030-inch overbored block, a Scat stroker crank, KB 10:1 pistons, a Comp Cams roller camshaft, Dart heads, an Edelbrock Super Victor intake topped by a 750 Holley, and a pair of Hedman Hedders. Behind it, the stock Turbo 350 was replaced by an ATI-built 700R4 that includes one of the company's 10-inch, 3,000-rpm-stall torque converters.

Rauch also got some assistance with the body, as he had the crew at Steckel's Auto Body in Steel City, Pennsylvania, help him strip off the original acrylic lacquer paint and primer, getting down to the gelcoat over the fiberglass. No fender flares were added to the body, however. "Everybody who sees the car comments on how the fenders are flared," says Rauch. "It's just that it's so low to the ground, and with the big tires underneath it, it actually looks flared-and longer."

In all, it took two winters to transform Rauch's '76 from 20-footer to the beauty you see here.

But he wasn't quite done. "I just changed the rear gears from 3.07s to 3.73s," Rauch says. "That woke [the car] up, like adding a hundred horsepower to it!" Rauch says he's also considered adding one of FAST's "EZ FAST" fuel-injection systems in place of the carburetor and intake that are on now.

Compared to earlier-generation Corvettes, there's no shortage of project-ready late-C3 Vettes, as at least 40,000 Corvettes a year were built during the '76-'81 model years. If you've found a "20-footer" of that vintage that you'd like to upgrade to C4 chassis hardware, Rauch has this advice: "You don't have to buy a new frame if you don't need one. You can do the job with a little bit of knowledge, the way we did it."