Hello MBWorld! My name is Tim and I work as a fabricator and technician for Heinlein Racing Development in Ledgewood NJ. Recently we have started on a journey that will lead us to 156 turns and 14,000 feet of elevation. This project is slated to run at Pikes Peak this year. We are a few weeks into the build and have made some really good progress. Today all of the tubing arrived for the cage fabrication to begin, this is where things really start to get fun (at least in my metal dust infused opinion).

Now, for a bit of a disclaimer, we understand that this combination of vehicles is not for everyone, but it is for us. We are pushing for something totally unique and certainly one-of-a-kind. For the MB purest, cover your eyes, cause this is gonna sting.

Here is the simplified rundown of the project:

- C230 Hatch
- C6 Corvette frame and drivetrain
- 6.0L twin turbo v8 that we shooting to produce 800-1000hp
- Extensive body modifications including a fully custom widebody and aero package
- PPTT spec-ed roll cage
- Upgraded brakes and suspension
- AIM dash

Now for some pictures, keep in mind there is TONS more to do, but I would like to share where we are right now and will contunie to keep this updated as we move along. We are going to be setting up a live stream camera so anyone can check in on progress, I will link that once it is available.

The C6:




Gut and strip to the frame:





The first time the 2 chassis are relizing what might be happening to them:



Days of cutting and grinding:



First test fit, not too bad!!!


Wider wheels for mock up:


C230 Sedan front end supports welded on:


Sedan front end on:



Starting to look mean!



A VERY ROUGH mock-up of the body to get an idea of what we are going for:


That's where it sits today. I will be starting to cage tomorrow. The list of sponsors is growing, we have a pro driver signed on, this thing is going to be an animal!

 

SWEET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have to ask, why was a C230 Coupe chosen for the body?
I think I may know the reason.

Fwiw, for others, the C6 chassis is a world class platform.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...eife_lap_times
On older C7 is ~~15th in the standings at 7:13.90.
A 2012 Corvette C6 ZR1 is a few places behind at 7:19.63.

 

The answer to the question nobody asked.

 

Cage work got pushed back to this week. We decided to get the front of the body down a bit lower on the chassis. This required us to sort out the doors before we went any further. We decided to do a half door on both, the cage will have door bars there anyways, so the bottom half of the door opening is unused. After some thinking, we came up with a good plan for adding in the 3rd hinge we checked the functionality of the door. Really wanted to make sure there was no binding and the new bottom hinge is in the same axis as the top. Thanks to math and our eyecrometers, the new hinge location worked perfectly. I then added in a few braces inside the door which would function as the new bottom edge of the door and new edge of the sill plate.













We hired a photo/video guy to help us produce a weekly video documenting the entire build. We have been shooting time-lapse along with various other work, should have some short videos ready soon. Live stream camera was installed this weekend, so we will have that available soon too!