Like many gearheads of a certain age, Carlos Alemar of Perris, California, was inspired by the tuner scene of the early 2000s. As a teenager, he spent many late nights wrenching on his naturally aspirated 1997 Mitsubishi Eclipse, and he eventually came to a harsh realization that’s all too common for young enthusiasts working on their first project car.
“I poured my heart and soul into that thing, and at the end of the day, it still wasn’t very fast,” he says with a laugh. “But I learned a lot from it in terms of what to do and what not to do.”
By 2005, Alemar had moved on to an all-wheel-drive 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX, which he eventually tuned to put down roughly 600 horsepower. “That was my daily driver – when it ran, anyway! That one was fun. Whenever the Street Legals would come up in Palmdale, we’d make the trek out there on Fridays and go racing.” But while the boosted GSX was a solid performer, there was another car that lived rent-free in Alemar’s head for years.
“My friend Mitch bought this brand-new red Corvette around that same time,” he recalls. “And over the years, I would just shoot him a text every now and then that said, ‘Sell me your Corvette!’”
Eventually, the Corvette started spending more time in hibernation than it did out on the street, and in 2019, Alemar’s efforts finally paid off. “One day, I sent him a text that said, ‘19K for your Corvette,’ and I get a response that says, ‘21.’ We settled on 20, and the deal was done!”
He says that the low-mileage, Z51-equipped C6 made for a great daily driver, but he eventually got the craving for more performance. “I loved driving that red Corvette every day, but over time, I realized that I really wanted a widebody and big power.”
The search led him to a black 2007 Corvette in Las Vegas. While the paint was rough from the time it had spent in the desert sun, the car had the wider Z06 bodywork that Alemar sought, along with long tube headers, an A&A supercharger, and a big brake kit.
After getting the black C6 back to Southern California, Alemar began making it his own. Along the way, he equipped the car with Weld wheels and Toyo Proxes RR competition tires, but the latter ended up teaching his teenage son a hard lesson about the finicky nature of track-focused compounds.
“My 19-year-old would drive it every now and then,” he notes. “One morning in 2022, he went out with it, lost the back end, and nailed a tree.”
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Alemar says that while his son was alright, the damage to the car was fairly extensive, and his insurance company deemed it a total loss. But Alemar knew he could get the C6 back into fighting shape, so he bought the car back with the intent of making it roadworthy again. Although he was unsure of what direction to go with the build at that point, an opportune call from the folks at Hastings Piston Rings helped them determine the path forward.
“The previous year, my son and I had built a 1000hp all-wheel-drive Civic for Hastings’ booth at the SEMA and PRI shows, and the plan for 2023 was to use my son’s right-hand-drive Civic for the 2023 shows. But Hastings had decided that they weren’t going to do another import – they wanted to do a domestic for 2023 instead. At that point, we had done a fair amount of work on the black Corvette; by then it had carbon fiber ZR1 fenders all the way around, and it was starting to look pretty presentable. I sent them some pictures of the car, and they loved it.”
Getting the nod from Hastings to use the car for the 2023 SEMA and PRI shows ushered in a whole new chapter for the build. The father-and-son team started by tearing down the 6.0-liter LS2, which was then outfitted with a Scat crank and rods, CP-Carrillo pistons, a Texas Speed camshaft, and a Nick Williams throttle body. Engine gaskets were supplied by Mahle, while the fasteners came from ARP.
To provide the big power they were after, a Garrett GT Series ball-bearing turbo was bolted to the revamped LS as well, a combination that Alemar says is good for about 1100 horsepower at 27 pounds of boost. A Holley Terminator X Max ECU is also onboard to manage the proceedings.
“The Terminator X Max was a no-brainer for us,” he says. “I love the simplicity and the self-learning features of these systems – we put everything back together, and it immediately fired up the first time out. At the same time, it’s sophisticated enough to do just about everything. We can adjust traction control, we can do boost by gear, and adapt it to the AEM boost controller. We really haven’t run into a situation that it can’t handle.”
Power is sent to the rear wheels through a Z06 six-speed manual gearbox and rear end. To ensure that the chassis could keep up with the newfound power, they also ditched the Corvette’s factory leaf springs and installed Pedders coilovers at all four corners, along with their sway bar end links.
The interior boasts a harness bar with Momo five-point racing harnesses and a Momo steering wheel, while a Holley digital dash, housed in a carbon fiber bezel, provides information about the Corvette’s real-time vitals. There are also controls for a police siren and lights, but Alemar notes that those weren’t part of the original plan.
“One day, I’m sitting in the living room, and my son walks up to me and says, ‘Hey, Dad, come check this out.’”
His son had previously created renditions of the Corvette in Forza Horizon, a racing game for the Xbox console, but his latest iteration had taken things to the next level. Alemar, who works as a deputy sheriff for the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, couldn’t help but grin when he saw their virtual Corvette sporting a police livery.
“He turns to me and says, ‘Do you think Sheriff Bianco would go for it?’ And I said, ‘Well, it doesn’t hurt to ask!’”
After some back-and-forth with the department, Alemar received some good news. “They said, ‘Go ahead and put together a proposal for what you want to do with the car.’ And at the end of the day, the answer was yes.”
Completed just in time for SEMA 2023, the Corvette has kept the Alemars busy in the months since.
“It was featured at the Turbosmart booth at LS Fest West 2024, and we’ve been invited out to a number of other shows. We also brought it to the LA County Sheriff's Department’s annual charity car show, as well as the annual Sheriff’s meeting. Alemar says that while the car was on display at LS Fest West for 2024, he expects to run it at this year's event with perhaps as much as 1500 horsepower on tap.
“Part of the goal is to help bridge the gap between youth and law enforcement. Just because I’m a deputy sheriff doesn’t mean I dislike cars. I love cars. A lot of us do.”