Rick Moroso's Y2K Corvette is definitely not his Dad's

By Jeff Burk.
Photos by Dan Emerson, courtesy Rick Moroso.

As many of you are aware, Moroso Performance Products head man Rick Moroso not only runs the business that bears his family name but he is also a serious, died-in-the-wool, drag racer.

For the past several years Rick has been campaigning the 'Vette that his dad started the family business with at NMCA events in the Hot Street Class. [See Dec.1999 issue of DRO for feature on the old 'Vette] The only problem has been that while the old 'Vette was fast it wasn't fast or quick enough. So Rick decided to retire his Dad's 'Vette and not only build a new car but a new Vette that would keep the Moroso family tradition of fast Corvettes alive.

What Rick and his guys at the company shop in Connecticut did was to take a new generation C-5 Corvette and make it into a new generation race car for NMCA/NSCA Hot Street competition.

As we go to press the new car is going for testing and then Rick hopes to take the car to the NMCA finals at Atlanta.

Before Moroso took the new 'Vette to the track he was kind enough allow DRO to give our readers this exclusive look at his new ride and give us a little information about it. We think it is one of the trickest and slickest street-legal race cars ever built. We think you will agree.

The ultra sano C-5 'Vette is painted with Corvette Pewter color paint. The Moroso technicians installed Strange Engineering brakes on all four corners which required special offset wheels. They had no problem with the rear wheels but couldn't find front ones so they used these GM "space saver wheels." Rick has some custom wheels coming but DRO thinks the "space savers" are way cool! You can't see it in the photo but Rick has retained the stock interior, even going to the trouble of replacing the stock gauges with aftermarket ones while retaining the stock dash. They even took the stock seats apart and reinforced them with steel to meet safety regs. As the car sits with Rick in the seat it weighs 3113 lbs, which is just about exactly what it has to weigh with the current 375 cubic inch engine.

After some of the NMCA street car racers petitioned the sanctioning body to allow them to use wheelie bars, the NMCA agreed but restricted the length of the bar so that the wheels wouldn't extend past the rear bumper. DRO thinks that is a good rule. It will eliminate the bumper-scraping passes that have occurred in some classes with the resultant damage while the short bars will allow these cars to get the wheels up. We really like the way the exhaust exits behind the rear wheels. By the way the wheelbase on this C-5 is 104.5 inches.

The powerful sparks of these ignitions will ignite high revving, high compression engines to produce great throttle response, a clean idle and incredible power throughout the entire rpm range!



	Capacitive Discharge design produces powerful sparks through high rpm.
	Every spark is at full power, even each multiple spark, for complete combustion.
	Adjustable soft touch rev limiter for engine saving overrev protection.
	Multiple spark series lasts for 20° of crankshaft rotation.



	3-Step Rev Control.
	RPM Activated Switch.
	4-Stage Retard System.
	Start Retard Circuit.