Everyone dreams of owning that car "driven by a little old lady to church on Sundays." Kevin Ivey actually has it. Whether it looks it or not, Kevin's Corvette was totally stock when he first purchased it from an elderly woman who owned a breakfast restaurant near his home in Holly Hill, Florida. She drove it to work and, unknowingly, taunted Kevin when he saw the car sitting in front of her business. He knew that someday it would be his and, in March 1993, the object of his desires became a reality.
Kevin had special plans for this Corvette. He immediately started the transformation and still drove the car daily. The engine was rebuilt and the cylinders bored 0.030-inch oversize at 54,000 ticks of the odometer. Kevin wanted to add a Greenwood body package and paint the car DuPont Bright Blue Pearl Metallic instead of the original Medium Grey Metallic.
And since he was modifying the car, Kevin decided to turn up the mods another notch by removing the door handles and painting the halo over the passenger compartment black to blend in better with the tinted windows. Kevin's Corvette now has electronic AutoLoc actuators to open the doors remotely. Once all of the body panels were installed and the door handles shaved, Kevin and friend Doug Sparks took the car from Kevin's garage to Classic Auto Body where the new color was applied. Up until the actual paint squirting, all of the work was done in Kevin's two-car garage, with Kevin building a solid workshop of tools to get the project finished.
When it came to personalizing his Corvette, Kevin wanted to make sure there wasn't another one like it, inside or out. For the inside, he wanted to go with the high-tech, electronics look. That included upgrading from the factory stereo with a Pioneer DEH-55 DH receiver, an SDV-P7 DVD player, and an 8-inch-wide screen LCD color display. The system pumps the sound through a duo of amplifiers, a GMX-904 (400 watts) and a GMX-802 (200 watts) feeding the four Pioneer, TS-A6966, 6x9-inch, three-way speakers and two Pioneer TS-W1240, 12-inch subwoofers.
To feed power to this powerhouse of sound, Kevin's car utilizes two Optima batteries. Other interior modifications include black leather seats with bow ties embossed in the seat headrests, a bow-tie-embossed armrest, as well as a deluxe rosewood wood-grain dash kit.
For the exterior, Kevin painted the brake calipers to match the car's paint and wrapped them with 17x9.5-inch Billet Specialties GTX-07 rims wearing 275/40ZR17 Michelin Pilot Sports radials.
To prove that Kevin's Corvette isn't all show and no go, he's modified the MAF, added a high-volume fuel pump with an adjustable fuel-pressure regulator, an Edelbrock big-base intake manifold with high-flow runners, feeding on air from an Edelbrock 58mm throttle body. To increase the amount of fuel available, he installed ACCEL 24-lb/hr injectors. Making sure he gets all the power possible by burning all the available fuel is the responsibility of the MSD 6AL ignition and Bosch Platinum Plus-4 plugs.
Kevin took the electro-mechanical approach to changing the characteristics of the engine. He installed a custom PROM to control the fuel and installed a Crane CompuCam to take care of the valves, ensuring that the best air/fuel ratio for optimum power is obtained. So spent gasses could exit as easily, Kevin used a Flowmaster exhaust with a 3.5-inch Y-pipe.
While Kevin already knew what he wanted to do and had a place to do it, there were a few things he didn't feel he could tackle by himself, like the paint and rebuilding the 700-R4 transmission. Classic Auto Body took care of the paint as previously mentioned, and The Corvette Clinic brought the transmission back to working order, upgrading it with heavy-duty internals. Kevin has invested a lot of money in his Corvette; but, above all that, he has a major time commitment into personalizing his ride. He'll admit that there were "a lot of late nights" getting the car to this point, but if you ask him Kevin will be quick to respond that it was all worth it. That is evidenced by the fact that Kevin admits he will be keeping this one for a long, long time. And who can blame him?