The Tale Of Death Vette

Many of you have probably heard about Death Vette or have seen the recent videos floating around the interwebs and some of you are probably oblivious to this car’s existence – let us open your eyes to Trent Durham’s wild creation.

Photo Credit: Matthew Adams

Death Vette is a 1997 C5 Corvette equipped with an LQ9 and a huge, single, 88mm turbo that could potentially suck an airplane out of the jet-stream, but it didn’t always have the high-horsepower setup it does today. As soon as we saw this car, we had to get more information on it, so we hit up Durham via Facebook and got the inside scoop – this is one insane ride that you definitely don’t want to miss!

Before Death Vette

You have to start somewhere, right? Well, Durham isn’t a newbie to building cars – in fact, he’s worked on and built so many that it’s hard for him to keep track anymore. From doing V8 conversions on Jeeps, Ford Galaxies, Chevrolet Chevelles, Talons, and Eclipses of the DSM age, Durham has worked on it all over the years. One of Durham’s projects we thought was really cool and unique was his 1974 Dodge Dart, FrankenDart, which we wrote about on our sister site, Dragzine, a while back. A Mitsubishi 4G63 engine in a Dart? Awesome!

Before FrankenDart, Durham had an Eagle Talon that ran consistent 10 second quarter-mile times, but even with tweaks to the setup on FrankenDart and the Talon, he was stuck in the 10s for about five years – that’s when he decided to sell everything and start building the Death Vette. Durham’s other builds weren’t built in Albuquerque, though – they were built at sea level in Iowa, where he used to live.

Building the car in Iowa and then relocating to Albuquerque did propose a problem that is often overlooked by many who move to a higher elevation – the tuning dynamics. When a car is built and tuned at sea level, the air is much more dense than the air in cities that are a few thousand feet above sea level. In Durham’s case, Rio Rancho is 5,290 ft above sea level, which is 10 feet more than a mile.

The Build

When Durham started building Death Vette, he started out small. With a bone-stock LS1 under the hood, the car made about 273 hp at the wheels. Of course that wasn’t enough power for Durham, so he slapped on a nice 67 mm turbo which boosted the power output to 450 hp at the tires.

Durham didn’t want anything detrimental to happen to the LS1, so he pulled that in favor for an LQ9 truck engine. With a single 76 mm turbo, Durham was making 609 hp on the LQ9 and ran that for a year before the land on piston #7 broke and caused him to rebuild the engine.

Having a freshly-built LQ9 engine, it was time for more power. A BorgWarner S475 turbo aided the LQ9 in making 800 hp at the wheels, which was good for the time being, but would soon be replaced by an even larger BorgWarner S480 turbo. The LQ9 made 1000 hp with help from some DSS Racing forged pistons and rods, a Speed Inc. TU3 turbo cam, a Holley Hi-Ram intake manifold, Billet Atomizer 225 pound-per-hour injectors, and 317-casting ported and polished truck heads. A Holley HP EFI system with the 5.7-inch touchscreen unit brings the whole setup to fruition along with help from a Magnafuel 625 swiveling electric gear fuel pump good for 2,500+ hp. “Whatever you can do on a laptop, you can do on that touchscreen,” Durham explained.

Even though the car was making 1,000 hp, Durham knew there was more in it, so he ditched the S480 and dropped in a monstrous BorgWarner S500 turbo and made a stout 1,212 hp at the wheels. If you think that’s crazy, he added a 150 shot of nitrous on top of that to bring power output to 1,350 hp at the tires. You can say there’s no shortage of power for Death Vette. We asked Durham what his favorite modification done to the car was and he told us “the turbo coming out of the hood just makes this car look sinister.” We can’t argue with that – just imagine seeing this Corvette behind you around town!

If you’ve seen any videos of Death Vette at the drag strip, you’re probably wondering how the car puts the power down. For starters, Durham removed the transverse leaf spring suspension in the front and rear and installed a set of QA1 coilovers, as well as adjustable end links for the factory swaybar. The transmission Durham went with is a two-speed powerglide from East Coast Supercharging with a 4,000 rpm stall converter and trans brake, as well as a B&M Pro Bandit shifter to complete the package. 16 x 10 CCW Classics with Hoosier QTP 28.0 x 14.50 – 16 slicks put the power to the pavement, while 16 x 5 Classics with generic street tires up front guide the car down the track.

Death Vette does have a full 8.50 NHRA-certified roll cage that Durham built himself. In fact, all of the work on the car was done by Durham, which is why it makes it that much cooler – he didn’t drop it off at a shop to have all of the work done or anything like that. Working 60 hours a week, modifying the car in his spare time is how this beast was built, and we can respect that because builds like this take time and money, lots of it. However, the only thing not done by Durham was the Hot Rod Matte Black paint; The paintwork was done by Superior Customs when Durham relocated to New Mexico.

As we stated earlier in the article, Durham built this car in Iowa and then moved to Rio Rancho, NM, which is a little over a mile above sea level. Because of the elevation, the air is less dense in Albuquerque, so Durham had to retune the car from scratch to run right at that altitude because there are many other variables other than air density itself. If he left the car the way it was from when it was built in Iowa and closer to sea level, it would not run right at all in the Albuquerque elevation.

Conclusion

After building Death Vette for four years, Durham is finally happy with his creation (for now) and is getting the recognition that he deserves for the build. After other media outlets like 1320Video, LSNation, LSX Monsters, and Super Sport Nation shared Durham’s burnout video on Facebook, the car went completely viral – it seemed like everyone, including us, wanted to see more of this car because it is truly a badass street car.

Watching Monster Energy’s Motorcycle vs. Car Driftpocalypse 3 video (embedded below), we noticed that Death Vette made a small cameo – how cool is that? The car can be seen in the video at the one minute mark, right when the two motorcycle drifters are released from jail. It’s actually a really awesome little film that was filmed completely in Albuquerque, NM, where Durham lives. It only makes sense to use the baddest ‘Vette in town for an epic little film! There are plenty of videos of the car floating around the internet, including some videos of the car before it was Death Vette.

If all goes according to plan, Death Vette won’t be the same for much longer as Durham wants to get rid of the LQ9 engine setup and go to either an LSX block of some unknown displacement or go with a Vortec 496 block with twin turbos, which would be significantly tighter in the engine bay. The engine isn’t the only thing Durham wants to change up – he also wants to go with a solid axle rearend and move the transmission up front amongst other ideas. Basically, the exterior of the car won’t change much, but everything internal will be modified.

That also means that his 8.50 NHRA-certified roll cage will have to be updated if he runs faster times than he already is (his best pass so far in the quarter is an 8.58 at 165 mph, so he’s not far off!). We have no doubt in our minds that Death Vette will turn out awesome, and even more sinister than before. “This car is and always will be a work in progress – it will never be the fastest car, but in the name of the sport, I hope you all enjoy,” explained Durham. We know that this car isn’t the fastest car to ever grace pavement, but it’s just so damn cool.

Of course, this build wouldn’t have been possible without support from some sponsors, so Durham wanted to give a special thank-you to Htturbo.com, The Dyno Edge, Sherbring Racing, R.J.S. Racing Equipment, Car Crafters, Justin White at Northshore Speed and of course, his ever-so-supportive family. Durham is also very open to any sponsorship proposals as well, so if you’re looking to get some of your company’s parts on the baddest ‘Vette in Albuquerque, you know where to find him.

This car sure is a head turner and we’re happy to be the first to feature it. We can’t wait to see how it’s going to look and run with the new setup, but for now, check out some videos of Death Vette if you haven’t already seen them floating around the internet. Enjoy! We also wanted to give a special thanks to Durham’s friend Matt Adams for all of the awesome photos of the car – they came out awesome and we couldn’t be happier to use them for this feature! If you are located in Rio Rancho, NM and want photos taken, Adams is your guy.

This is the third installment of Monster Energy’s Motorcycle vs. Car Drift Battle where Death Vette makes a little cameo in the beginning.

Here is the car being tuned about a year and a half ago, making 1,211 hp.

We’re not going to lie, some of these passes made us pretty nervous!

About the author

Josh Kirsh

Born in Van Nuys, Raised in Murrieta, Joshua Kirsh is a SoCal Native. With a love for anything on wheels since the ripe young age of two, Joshua Managed to turn his love for automobiles into a career. As Power Automedia's newest writer, he plans to bring you some of the industry's hottest news topics while he's not out in the shop wrenching on some of our badass in-house project builds.
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