There are certain people that have a mindset and passion for tinkering with things: engineers, inventors, and gearheads. A true gearhead can’t leave anything stock and will find an excuse to mod everything he owns, just like central Ohio native Anthony Gray. The lifelong desire to make everything he owns faster has led Gray to build one of the most tasteful looking, and hard running, 2009 Z06 Corvettes you will ever see.

The bug to modify anything with wheels was instilled at a young age for Anthony, thanks to his father. “My dad, Roger, has been in to cars since he was a little kid. Whenever we saw an old car on the street, he’d tell us ‘my dad had a car just like that’. His dad got a new car every 6 months, so literally every old car we saw he had at one time or another.”

That level of passion left a giant imprint on Anthony, and to this day won’t let him leave anything he owns stock. “Ever since I was little I’ve been infatuated with cars, motorcycles, or anything with a motor. Customizing a car and making it look different than others on the street is my favorite thing to do. Mixing color with different wheels and carbon and adding more power is my ultimate passion” he explains. The list of impressive motorized machines Anthony has owned is extraordinary to say the least, and not one of them was left stock.

All of his cars and bikes have been put to use to say the least, with tons of trips down the track and even more encounters on the streets of central Ohio. A few off the list include a 2006 Suzuki GSXR with a built motor and nitrous, capable of running 8s in the quarter mile, an 11-second SRT4 Neon, and a 2005 C6 Corvette that had ported heads, a big cam, and nasty shot of nitrous. All of these were tame compared to his LSX-swapped Lexus IS300 that had a rather healthy On3 Performance turbo and ran in the low 10-second range, all while looking like a street car.

For Anthony, his passion for the Corvette was close to his heart, and would lead to him bringing another one back into his life. In July of 2014 the desire to own another Corvette came back, and the stars aligned just right to make it happen. “I really wanted to have another Corvette but I still owned the Lexus at the time. I was on vacation, and sold the IS300 to a guy in Texas. I then found the Z06 and put a deposit on it while on vacation then picked it up the next day after I got back,” he told us.

Now that Anthony had his new ride, it was time to lay out a plan to modify this car to fit his end goal. “I’ve owned lots of built turbo cars from an Evo to the SRT4, along with nitrous cars like my old white C6, but never a supercharged car. After some thought we decided to put a blower on the Z06. I ended up absolutely loving the linear power delivery of the Procharger D1SC” he said.

With a strategy in place, Anthony got to work taking the low mileage Z06 and making it his own starting under the hood. Overall, since the 427 cubic-inch LS7 mill is very stout and able to take a large dose of boost, he left the rotating assembly stock and moved on to other areas to make big forced induction power.

No matter the angle, this car just looks dead sexy.

Moving on to the top end of the motor, Anthony added a set of aluminum Livernois Motorsports and Engineering Stage 3 LS7 heads that were skillfully installed by Jared Grabiel. To make use of the huge amounts of boosted air these heads would flow he added a Lil John Motorsports Stage 2 boost cam. This hydraulic cam has a duration of 230/246, a 644/630 lift, and a healthy 115 LSA. The stock rocker arms were upgraded with the Comp Cams trunnion kit for durability and stability under boost.

Since the OEM intake and throttle body move enough air to reach his goals, Anthony left those induction system parts in place, but made some weapons grade fuel system updates to make his Procharged combo work. An Aeromotive A1000 drop in pump fuel pump moves all the pump gas though the system to his Aeromotive fuel regulator, and finally to the FIC 80 lb/hr fuel injectors. These parts allow him to run as much boost as he wants and not have to worry about going lean at any time.

The heart of this build is a Procharger D1SC 8 rib that uses a D1 head unit. To help keep all of the boost in check from the D1 unit, Anthony added the upgraded race level Procharger blow-off valve to the system. Allowing all that beautiful boosted air to stay nice and chilled a Procharger Race Core intercooler has been implemented to the system. At just 10 pounds of boost this lethal combo made 717 hp and 637 lb/ft of torque at the wheels on the dyno.

Moving all of the exhaust gases out of the motor is a set of LG Motorsports 1 7/-8 inch headers, LG Motorsports X-pipe, and Akrapovic Titanium exhaust with carbon tips. This exhaust system creates a striking tone and mixes well with the sweet sounds of the D1 as Anthony motors down the road or just at idle.

The back half of the driveline still retains the stock transmission, but it has been augmented to handle the additional power from the LS7. “I really didn’t build this car to be a race car like the Lexus was, so besides a driver-friendly boost cam, I wanted a very street-friendly clutch installed to go along with everything else,” he says. The clutch he settled on was a McCleod RXT twin disk unit matched to an upgraded McCleod steel flywheel. All of this pushes power through a Driveshaft Shop brand aluminum driveshaft to the rear tires.

Since the stock stance of the Z06 is nearly perfect, he has not really modified the stock suspension yet at all, but has found other ways to improve the looks of the car to fit his taste. What jumps out visually on the car is the use of three-piece HRE 19×10 wheels on the front and 20×13 on the rear of the car. When extra traction is needed, some 17×11 Weld S77 wheels wearing drag radials from Carlyle Racing get bolted to the rear of the car.

The stock Cyber Gray paint on the car was already showroom perfect when the car was purchased, so that did not need changed, just enhanced. Anthony’s love for carbon fiber was the answer to his enhancement needs, so a carbon ZR1 front lip with carbon ZR1 extended side skirts, carbon rear mud flaps, carbon ZR1 spoiler, and carbon rear diffuser were all added to the car. These additions give it his trademark personal touch, and make his Z06 look scary fast even sitting still.

This Corvette has been an enjoyable journey for Anthony and allowed him to build a great car that fits his vision. “My goals for the car were for it to make 700 hp, it far exceeded it when the first pull made 757 at the tire. I asked Eric at Crucial Performance ‘can you turn it down?’..he laughed and asked if I was serious. I told him yes, because I don’t want to build a $15,000 motor” joked Gray.

Even after hitting his goal on the dyno, Anthony is not done just yet with his horsepower-fed aspirations. “The Z06 is safe around the 700 hp range, as the number’s get closer to 800 it is just too much for the rotating assembly and block. Another goal is for it to just go 10s, that’s all I want. It should go deep into the 10s but a 10.99 and I’ll be happy,” he says about his next milestone.

The gearhead-fed drive and passion for anything with a motor that lives in Anthony’s heart defines what he does with his cars and motorcycles. Every build is done in a way that quality is not ignored, and details are planned out to meet his goals each time. His Z06 has all the elements needed for a killer street car that can be driven anywhere, and have enough power to make just about any hardcore performance car lover happy.