When you think of late model Corvettes, the first thing that comes to mind isn’t massive bumper-dragging wheel stands at the dragstrip. The factory independent rear suspension is designed and intended for carving corners, not wrinkling the sidewalls, and the transaxle, differential, and half-shafts are all potential points of failure waiting to occur.
For dedicated drag cars, a solid rear axle is the preferred solution, but retrofitting this seemingly old-school technology to something like a C5 Corvette used to be a project entirely in the realm of expert fabricators, working to produce one-off conversions. Recently though, Moser has introduced a complete package to convert these Corvettes to a solid 12-bolt axle with multi-link suspension, and a plethora of different options to match your needs.
Obviously, it’s not a straight bolt-in replacement since you’ll need to clearance the center tunnel to accommodate a forward-mounted transmission, plus perform some other non-trival work to adapt the car from IRS, but the kit handles the critical aspects of suspension geometry and mounting locations for you. And as you can see from the video, it hooks – hard.
Some purists may cringe at the idea of cutting on a Corvette to turn it into a drag race car, but cars from the C5 era are lightweight, plentiful, cheap, and a fantastic starting place for the track toy of your dreams, so we say “go for it!” We guarantee that the time and money spent will be well worth it when you see the look on people’s faces when you drag your own Vette’s bumper past the 330 blocks…