I was doing my usual craigslist browsing the other day and noticed the pricing has really fell through the floor on these guys. You can pick up a LS1 camaro SS for like 5-10 thousand in my area. Seems like a hell of a deal for a solid 13 second car. I always wanted one of these 10 years ago back when I was a punk teenager. Anyways just rambling I figured with everyone putting LS1's in anything with 4 wheels the price would be a little higher
http://inlandempire.craigslist.org/cto/2867725849.html
http://inlandempire.craigslist.org/ctd/2863877713.html
Guess I better start growing my mullet, cause Im tempted to sell my truck for one of these bad boys
The prices have dropped off as the newer 5th generation camaro starting selling well. When I was looking two years ago there were fewer manual cars and they held about $1000-$1500 premium over the 4-spd automatics.
The firebirds and trans am versions seem to be holding their value better too.
look enough, and you will see LS1/6 speed cars that run and drive for well under $5k.. they won't be in show winning state, but you get all the good pieces for that price.
i've seen them as low as $1500 for mid rang mileage cars (50,000 miles or so) that were wrecked somehow- that's way less than you can get an LS1 and T56 at a junkyard, and you get a lot of other stuff you can sell off once you pull the drivetrain.
Where are you located?
4th-gens are very easy to find with the rear suspension falling off the car because the lower links attach to a desert-like expanse of flat sheetmetal, which is the first place to rust. Maybe it's from constant flexing micro-cracking the paint. Whatever the mechanism, I've seen otherwise clean cars with the rear control arms held to the body with a thin strip of metal on the outside, and carpet hanging through everywhere else.
I've even seen this rust forming on low miles garage-queen showroom-looking cars, so it's not (just) a road salt issue.
I'm guessing you have a mullet?
patgizz
SuperDork
2/26/12 6:29 p.m.
there was an LT1 Z28 for $800 on local CL a month or so ago, running and driving with 150k.
Vigo
SuperDork
2/26/12 7:36 p.m.
I figured with everyone putting LS1's in anything with 4 wheels the price would be a little higher
I feel the opposite.. im surprised they're still worth anything. What can you get a full ls1/t56 setup for? Somewhere between $1-2k at this point, i would think. What is the rest of a 4th gen camaro worth? Well, if you look at the v6 models you can pretty much tell: $1-3k, with 3k being a bit high imo.
So with that math it seems like an ls1/t56 4th gen f-body is worth $2-4K, and i think the smart money is buying them at that price while the 'retail' sort of buyer has been buying them at 5-10.
Early LT1 cars with autos are going cheap, under 3 w'miles. I haven't seen many LS1 under 7, and yes the T56 is a big price increase and any car.
Will
Dork
2/26/12 7:45 p.m.
Vigo wrote:
So with that math it seems like an ls1/t56 4th gen f-body is worth $2-4K, and i think the smart money is buying them at that price while the 'retail' sort of buyer has been buying them at 5-10.
I think $2-4k sounds optimistic for an LS1 F-body, unless it's a total POS or wrecked.
I bought my '94 LT1 automatic Trans Am for $600. I've seen LS1 six speed cars for as little as $3k but they're not pretty.
hrdlydangerous wrote:
I bought my '94 LT1 automatic Trans Am for $600.
Because NO ONE in their right mind wants one of them... I'd rather start with a 98-02 V6 to mod...
Vigo
SuperDork
2/26/12 10:23 p.m.
I think $2-4k sounds optimistic for an LS1 F-body, unless it's a total POS or wrecked.
Well if 2k is the sum of the low end of both ranges you're going to get a E36 M3ty ls1 in a E36 M3ty body, so yeah.
But 4k would probably get you a pretty decent example if you had time to wait for such a deal to pop up. Most people dont WANT to sell to smart buyers and there are plenty of dumb ones, so of course most of the transactions are going to be higher than that. Does that mean that's what the car is worth? The 'market' is 95% full of people who are not very sharp and not very good at getting good car deals, so i would say.. no.
Vigo wrote: I feel the opposite.. im surprised they're still worth anything. What can you get a full ls1/t56 setup for? Somewhere between $1-2k at this point, i would think.
$1-2k is an LT1 swap with harness,, I would think. I have yet to see a T56 go for under $1500. (sadly) And aside from outliers (ahem free LS1) the aluminum new-gen engines are still pretty freakin' expensive.