Replacing the Camaro

Camaro ss zl1?

A ZL1 1LE Camaro?

I hope it's a Cobra replica or something like that 

Edit: Audi RS5?

Cayenne diesel?

Toyota Camry?

OHSCrifle said:

Opti said:

OHSCrifle said:

Better than a Camaro? Are you getting a Vette?

Sold a vette to buy the camaro. Much prefer camaros over vettes

A Pulse Litestar GCRV?

Had to google that one. Elio before elio was cool. Not it though

In reply to dannyp84 :

the stock LS1 is pretty garbage in a vette or fbody. The stock tune and torque management really neuter it. A couple bolt ons and good tune, really wakes them up.

Sorry for the delayed update. The drive home was a train wreck. About 2 hours got added on because Dallas was bumper to bumper due to a bunch of crashes.

Made it home unloaded it, and its dark outside, so no pictures of it here, but I have one from when we departed.

Its AnthonyGS's 1996 Camaro Z28 SS. I cant believe yall couldnt get it. I gave excellent hints, and my username. You can disagree with me on many things, but Im pretty sure we all agree on a couple things:

4th gen camaro> 6th gen camaro

LT1 > LSx

Live Axle>IRS

Early 4th gen interior is the pinnacle of GM quality and luxury

4th gen seats>Recaros

Optispark>Coil near plug

Street tires>Goodyear SC3s

The better than a 6th gen was meant to be  a joke, but I liked my old 4th gen better than my 6th gen. The 6th gen was nicer and outperformed it in everyway, but I always had more fun in my overcammed 4th gen. Plan is to essentially replicate that build, and keep it nice and be a nice weather toy. I havent had a chance to really look it over, but it looks good so far. Its obvious AnthonyGS was a good owner and made a lot of progress in sorting the car, it needs a few things, but its about the nicest one Ive looked at in the last 3 or 4 months. It was nice to finally put a face to a GRM member and we spent a little time BSing while we loaded the car.

Me and pops had a lot of fun, and that 500K mile dodge managed 14.5 mpg over the trip. Outside of a loose hose clamp that was dripping about 3 miles into the drive, the truck was mechanically perfect. It was a little scary because the trucks only had about 50 miles put on it since the front cover was off, a/c system was redone, and the entire front end was rebuilt, and we hooked it to a trailer and drove 5 hours each way to grab a car. Its kinda sad that the highest mileage vehicle in the fleet continues to be the most reliable.

Between this and the GMT400 my driveway looks like someones who was doing pretty dang good in the mid to late 90s.

Ive got a bunch of work to do tomorrow, and Im exhausted, but hopefully in the next day or two I can do inventory of the car and all the parts and make a build thread.

Thanks again Anthony it was nice to finally meet you.

In reply to Opti :

I'm happy it is going to the right home.  If I had more space and money, I'd have kept it.  I look forward to following along as you make it better.  It was really hard not to spoil this thread last night.

congrats on the new purchase...  I remember helping a friend change spark plugs on his LT1 camaro and vowed to never own one...  

Yeah, the 'better than a 6th Gen' really threw me off.  As much as I love Camaros (see avatar pic), I would NEVER consider a 4th Gen better.  But I think I understand.  I grew up in the 80's, and I want a 3rd Gen so bad...

I'm jelly, nice score.! I really miss my 4th Gen, never should have sold it.  Sometimes it's not about the numbers, it's about how it makes you feel.  

racerfink said:

Yeah, the 'better than a 6th Gen' really threw me off.  As much as I love Camaros (see avatar pic), I would NEVER consider a 4th Gen better.  But I think I understand.  I grew up in the 80's, and I want a 3rd Gen so bad...

Not just better, but "better in every way" :-)

I guess interior quality, reliability, power, fuel economy, handling, looks, warrenty coverage, lap times, drag times, and tech are not ways.

Happy for you though on a new car! 

Solid axle beats IRS, and as much as people hated the 4th gens' interior room and sight lines, Chevy was all "you ain't seen nothin yet".

Not that it matters but definitely Pete-approved.

Olemiss540 said:

racerfink said:

Yeah, the 'better than a 6th Gen' really threw me off.  As much as I love Camaros (see avatar pic), I would NEVER consider a 4th Gen better.  But I think I understand.  I grew up in the 80's, and I want a 3rd Gen so bad...

Not just better, but "better in every way" :-)

I guess interior quality, reliability, power, fuel economy, handling, looks, warrenty coverage, lap times, drag times, and tech are not ways.

Happy for you though on a new car! 

I thought about this some last night.  I used to be really big into Mustangs in my youth.  I remember buying a DOHC 4.6 Cobra in late '96 (early '97 model).  Sure it was better on paper in almost every measurable way than any previous Mustang.  And honestly, I loved my '85 SVO a lot more.  Sure it was slower, sure it didn't handle as well, sure the interior wasn't as nice, but it had character.  I still miss the SVO, all my other Mustangs not so much (over 12 of them). 

I was honestly completely surprised by the '96 Camaro SS.  It has a great sound, great character, tons of torque all the time, and the looks are aging better than Mustangs of the time.  I will probably miss this car some too.  I was honestly considering selling it, but not really wanting to.  Then I saw Opti was looking for another one, and so here we are. 

This forum has lots of posts on how newer cars are better but most of the forum users have personal preferences that trump that.  I'm not surprised by this.  When I was younger, I was always judging cars based on numbers, but now after owning a lot of really cool cars I look for other things.  I just bought another Miata with it's amazing 130ish hp or so.

In reply to Olemiss540 :

Yah the better than 6th gen was a joke. I do prefer it over my 6th gen though. The 6th gen is an amazingly capable car, but i had more fun in my old 4th gen. 

I would say a 4th gen is actually more reliable than a 6th gen though (lifters, valves, trans, axles, all have pretty com failures on 6th gens), it has better outward visibility, I fit better in a 4th gen, and I actually prefer a live axle. The biggest thing is I actually like working on cars and improving them. Its pretty hard to improve a 6th gen and very expensive. Everything was atleast 1K, want to throw a good exhaust on a 6th gen 3K, want to do a CAI and E85 tune 1.2k, Tires 2K. I can spend a couple hundred bucks on something for a 4th gen and have a weekend project that actually improves the car, and its not just stick on aesthetic stuff.

There has always been a lot of hate about the 4th gen interiors, I never got it. I joke they are the pinnacle of GM luxury, I know they aren't but they were never offensive to me. The quality isnt great, but its wasnt as bad as people think. Most are absolutely beat by now and judge based off that, but ive been in super clean ones and the interior never bothered me. In fact I quite like the dash design of the early lt1 camaros. A nice carpet, and fixing all the broken clips and plastics that rattle go a long way to making it a decent place to be. By this point pretty much all the seats are torn and the dash pads are cracked, but they are 20-30 year old cars, so is it that unexpected.

93-96 dash for example

PS my 4th gen got better fuel economy than my 6th gen, both 6 speeds, and if you want to go drag racing, the 4th and 5th gens are superior to the 6th gen.

Sometimes better on paper isn't necessarily "better" ;)

Cool car, looks like a ton of fun to play with.

I'm on board with this decision. I always thought the 6th gen would make a better stylish personal luxury car to daily drive than a dedicated fun car. Also, I just like the LT1, partially because imo it sounds better than LS-based engines. A good friend of mine has an LT1-era Trans Am in dark green that I always thought looked sharp, especially with some lowering springs and mesh wheels.

If I remember correctly, the sort of crooked passenger floor board for exhaust clearance purposes is a little awkward, but the factory seats are fairly comfortable, and the steeply raked windshield has a cool feel to it. Do these cars have the same level of aftermarket suspension and chassis support as the Mustang from the same era ?

In reply to dannyp84 :

Im sure the mustang has more because its the mustang, but there is plenty available for them. Very easy to get good parts for a street, track, autox, or drag setup. Sam Strano has done quite a bit competitively with them and actually makes his own springs and is considered the go to for track/autox setups. So not just parts out there, but also good parts.

Excellent!!!  No T-tops with  a 6spd man???  Optispark is not an issue (just curious  )???? Aren't these with little this and little that easy 450/450 kinda ball busters???

In reply to 759NRNG :

First one was TTop. This is a slick top. I think I prefer the slick top and its rarer, but really I dont care, they each have their benefits. The slick top is really just a skin, the structure is the same IIRC. So adding ttops has been done and isnt a huge deal.

Its a 6 speed.

Optispark isnt as big a deal as people make it out to be. Ive pressure washed all of my LT1 engine bays, with vented and non vented optis, never a problem. I never lost one that wasnt directly related to my work. I cracked a rotor, and I left a vent hose lying in the frame rail leading to the opti filling up with water. My last two LT1 cars had their oem opti at 108 and 102K miles. They are often misdiagnosed and not the actual problem. I used to be able to knock one out in under 2 hours. The worst part of the opti is the terrible plug wire routing. If you get a decent one, spend a few minutes sealing it, and loctiting the rotor screws, you're likely to get a nice long life out of it.

You are probably thinking about the LS. Its not to hard to get a stock bottom end LS1 to 450whp through a manual with ported stock castings and an off the shelf cam. LT1s dyno a little lower, commonly full bolt on cam only cars do 330-360whp and good ported stock castings with a cam do 390-420 through an M6. People do more and people do less, but that seems to be the common setup thats sorted.

Ill probably initially shoot for 350-400whp. Eventually more cubes and better heads, but these things are pretty fun with just a rowdy cam. The goal is to just have a fun street car, so I cant see getting away from NA or doing anything crazy like solid roller or super wild cam, it'll be close to that edge though.

Do these benefit from long tube headers?  What are the intake /exh valve sizes? Is there a CAI  on this soon to be named by you sled?

In reply to Opti :

Just giving you E36 M3 Opti. Agree that "better" doesnt always mean you wanna drive it :-). Looking forward to the build thread!

I had the Pontiac version of that with a 6M.  3.42 gear.  They get a lot of hate but I thought it was a damn solid car besides the 2 optisparks it ate.  155k and it ran as well the day I sold it as the day I bought it.  High 20's to low 30's mpg on the interstate too.

worst car ever to change plugs in though - and I even owned a V8 Monza where you had to unbolt the engine mount and Jack it up.