Thirteen years ago, a new project car graced the pages of LSX Magazine – A 2000 Corvette dubbed Project Y2K. The goal was simple: Take the 11 year-old, 50,000-mile car and transform it into an everyman’s supercar. Over the course of the next six years, the team at Corvette Online did exactly that, taking the car from a stock cruiser to an eleven-second, 470-horsepower, nitrous-breathing street/strip car. However, that’s where it stopped. It got parked in 2018 and has sat untouched since. Until now that is.
While Project Y2K is no more, the car itself once again lives on. However, as with any car that has sat for an extended period of time, we have our work cut out for us getting everything back in fighting shape. The first step in getting the project underway is exercising the gremlins that tend to move in after sitting dormant for six years.
Our immediate plans are to get the battery and charging system back in order, and track down the mystery battery drain that is apparently all too common on C5s. We need to take the old Plastidip off of the nice OEM magnesium wheels and get new rubber on there. We also need to diagnose and fix an overly rich idle. Also on the shortlist is to replace a broken knee bolster and get a new shifter installed. We’ll likely find at least a few other things that need attention before we’re comfortable enough with the car to take it on a road trip, but that’s part of the journey we signed up for.
Once the C5 is back to its former daily-driver reliability on the road, it will be time to have some fun with the now 24-year-old, hundred-thousand-mile Corvette. While it lived at the drag strip in its former life, this time around, it’s going to do what the Corvette was designed to do — turn. We’ve already got a killer base for that with the Pfadt coilover suspension, so all we’ll really need is seat time.
The Japanese might call it kishi kaisei. A European might call it a revenant. We’re calling it Project Honey Badger.