Swapping hardware from the old rear shocks to the new ones.
Ebay and Corvette Forum to the rescuse!
Bilstien makes decent, cheap shocks that are revalveable. Some searching, and I found a set of Z51 spec Bilsteins on Ebay for under $300 shipped. Like I said, cheap. They aren't Konis or coil-overs, but leaps and bounds better than what is one the car. Installation was pretty straight forward, and is WAY easier than a 4th gen f-body. Leaf springs aren't so bad after all.
Swapping hardware from the old rear shocks to the new ones.
Front shocks installed
Springs and bars. My car isn't a Z51. Base 1996 cars got the softest springs of any C4. By a lot. Also, being a non-Z51, I have wimpy sway bars. I found an FHB front spring and 30mm front sway bar on corvetteforums for a decent price. For those non-C4 nuts, the FHB is the front spring from an 89-91 Z51 car. The stiffest factory front spring. So far, I still haven't found a rear spring or bar, but still on the lookout.
The front spring and bar are still sitting in the garage, partially because I don't have the shims needed to mount the front spring. The car sits entirely too high, espically in the rear (probably do to the low spring rate and lack of weight in the rear of the car). To help that, a lowering shim and longer rear spring bolts are on the way, so when the new parts go in, I can get the ride height down where it needs to be (getting me more camber in the process).
In addition to the springs and bars, poly front control arm bushings, sway bar bushings, and heim joined sway bar end links are on the to do list. For the rear, I'm skipping the poly and going straight with aluminum, hiem joined trailing arms, toe arms, and camber arms (when budget allows).