I've always had a soft spot for 96-97 camaros it was the new car I wanted in high school. I've wanted a 95-97 Lt1 6 speed car and at least around our area of texas they are either junk and affordable, junk and overpriced never see clean reasonable priced ones. Even keeping an eye on the usual outlets in the area I just havent seen any lately. For the most part they are the red headed step child of Fbody world. LS cars won.

 

I’ve always been a fan of the LT birds. Incredible value and with headers you aren’t far off the performance of a stock LS car. I think a lot of the stigma comes from how expensive it was to fix an opti in the early 2000’s. I remember people spending $1500 to replace an opti in 1999. I also really like the look of the LT cars.

Question about the 97’s…. As someone said earlier they had or knew someone who had a 97 car that seemed faster. My 97 WS6 Formula convertible is fast. Like abnormally fast. It’s an automatic and I actually had a shop see if it had an aftermarket converter installed and it did not. It is definitely faster than my 94 Anniversary car and my 95 Hawk. The car is bone stock and I am the second owner. I would put it up against my 99 WS6 for sure.

Is there any reason a 97 car would be faster than any other year? Was there different programming or something?

 

Not unless you had an LT4 Firehawk or SS. That was the only special thing that was exclusive to '97 in terms of significant performance enhancement.

I think the dual cat exhaust system was introduced in 1996, so that was a little bump in power from the '93-'95 cars. Nothing serious though.

Beyond that, assuming the one you have now is in fact 100% stock, the ones you are comparing it to could have been abnormally slow...and that could be due to several reasons: higher mileage/worn engine, slightly weak fuel system, worn transmission (if auto) or slightly slipping clutch (if manual), etc. Even right off the showroom floor, some are indeed faster than others (stock LS1 cars, for example, went anywhere from ~12.9 to ~13.5 when brand new, even when driven well and run in good weather...so there is a considerable range).

 

That was my thought as well. There are always variables but as an A4 car it would get a 2nd gear spin that would send you sideways unlike any of the others I’ve had. It must just be lucky….

 

Keep in mind that the '97 WS6 'verts got the standard 16" T/A rims and tires, not the wider 17" size. So they got the HP boost of Ram Air, but no traction upgrade to go with it. That would make it more tail-happy than a T/A (although can't explain the Hawk feeling slower).

 

Only difference was dual cat exhaust, and obdII pcm. You might have had one that someone broke in properly and babied or it was just a factory freak. Theres just some motors that go together just right and are built with magic sauce. I can't tell you how many times we ve had cars come through the shop same one same one same one different color then bam same car but this one feels like it's got a fire in it's ***.

 

^ OBDII was standard for '96 too, so that wouldn't be specific to a '97.

 

This car has 94 Firehawk wheels on it and it still feels tighter and quicker than most stock LT 4th gens. It did have the 16” wheels on it when I got it and yea it was all over the place with those.

im just going to assume the stars were aligned when it was put together!