Over the last two years, we’ve been following along with Keith Berry’s Corvette build photos on Yellowbullet.com, and it’s safe to say that he’s assembling what is one of the sickest cars on the planet. His C5 Corvette is being final-assembled by Joey Bell and the wizards at Bell Chassisworks in Georgia and will be completed within the next two weeks. It is scheduled for a debut at the No Mercy III race at South Georgia Motorsports Park in the Radial vs. The World category.
We had the chance to speak with Keith on the phone this morning, and he was bursting at the seams with excitement to get the car out and start making passes.
“It’s a long time coming. The last race I was at was the LSX Shootout two years ago, when it was running nitrous. I popped a couple of pistons and figured that was as good a time as any to start on a new build. The independent rear suspension was the weakest link in the chain. We had the power to compete at that time, but I couldn’t keep it together. Once we stripped it down and decided to get rid of that, I decided I would just build the nicest, baddest, LS car ever. We used the best of the best and haven’t cut any corners anywhere – the pictures don’t do it justice,” Berry explained.
The LSX powerplant was built by the team at Pro Line Race Engines and consists of a 468 cubic inch RHS tall deck block topped off by a set of Mozez heads that flow somewhere around 460 CFM. It’s pumped up by twin 88mm turbochargers, and Pro Line thinks it will be somewhere around 3,200 horsepower. But that’s not all – he was able to build a number of custom parts on the car thanks to the family business, Berry Motorsports, which specializes in custom billet intake manifolds and intercoolers.
The powerplant isn’t even the trickest part of the car, however. Berry wanted to be able to campaign the car in a number of different sanctioning bodies, so the time and effort was invested to ensure that he would have the most versatile car he could for his money. He raved about the gang at Bell Chassisworks and how much time and effort they have invested in the car. Keith explained, “The torque arm and 4-link brackets are both built into the car so we can change suspension depending on venue and class. The rear framerails are removable – they unbolt right behind the rocker. In the LS Shootout Drag Radial class they require a rear framerail, and we can actually bolt them right back in there. The number of custom touches on this car is staggering – it’s even got Ric Flair’s signature on the dash. Wooooooo!”