Because it's all perception. A stock L98 G92 IROC-Z running low low 14's would be untouchable to almost 90% of 60's and early 70's stock muscle. There would be few exceptions. A 305 TPI car around at that time would have been looked at as a serious contender on the road as there were plenty of 15 sec cars around then. Sure cars were easy to make fast and responded nicely to mods, but they did stock what they did stock. Which was completely incredible back then, but today, not really.

I actually recall an article of a 350 TPI car against a 1st Gen Z28 and the IROC-Z destroyed it in every way/category of performance. That's just the way it is.

 

I believe I have that article somewhere.

 

The article is on TGO.

 

Where are the times for the 375hp 396?

 

The 375 horse version was solidly in the 14's off the showroom floor. But as Chuck Hughes...former Camaro chief engineer said, the big block made the Camaro handle like a "truck".

 

So, in the end, the quickest car was an SS (barring 69 Zl1's).

Glad we cleared that up.

 

Nope.

A Z/28 with the optional 2x4 crossram, factory bigger cam and headers would go high 13's.

 

What he said.

I only showed the information for 1967. The L78 375 HP version of the SS396 was a late model year addition so the numbers weren't shown in the book I was referencing. However the cross-ram version of the 68 & 69 Z-28 was easily in the high 13's.

 

Yup. A Z28 with the intake, headers, and even chambered exhaust (an all the other stuff they got) shouldn't have had much trouble with those 396's, just on the TQ side, but by the time the race was done, I think the SS owners's would be seeing stripes, real racing stripes.

And Proud, I had no idea those were the fastest M*stang's. Goes to show you bigger engines aren't always faster. Here's even another example: 426 HEMI vs. 440.

 

guionM

Damn, that 396 lost almost a 100 horsepower. I doubt they were actually that slow though. A cousin of mine had an orange 1972 El Camino with a 396 BB and TH350 and it was fast enough to beat quite a few vehicles four wheeled and two wheeled on the freeway during the mid to late '90s.

jg95z28

:I think I could do better than an 18 sec 1/4 mile though with my 210 hp 327 Camaro. And possibly improve to a 15 sec 1/4 with a tranny swap. The 327 is stock except for the HEI.

Oh and I think I'd take one of each of the 1st and 4th generations
a '67 SS RS 350 and a '02 345 hp SLP SS

 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again...just add 6" bias ply Red-line tires to any LS1 Camaro and you'll have a 16 second car that paints two 1320 foot long black marks as it goes through the traps..
I grew up in a '68 SS/396/325hp car...most DEFINITELY faster than my '90 Iroc!...no question about it!..
My Dad added a Crane Fireball cam (after 6mos wiped out the stock lobes) rejetted, added "Superwide" rear tires, a truck clutch set up, and was pulling the front up over 6" at take off and an inch or two at the 1-2 shift!..at just over 5800 rpm's..

BBC Camaro's were Torque Monsters!...and traction was very hard to come by...therfore ET's sucked then...

 

My father claims high 12s out of his then new 67 SS Camaro with the 375hp 396 with the only additions being wider "cheater slicks" (like a drag radial, some slight tread on them) and homemade traction bars to get rid of wheel hop. He has mentioned scoffing at the 14 second times posted by the mags back then. He worked it down to 12.1s with headers, carb tweaking and a cold air setup, still on the cheater slicks which he said were never ideal, couldn't launch as hard as he'd like... His buddy got a new 69 Z28 afterwords and the best it was managing with the same set of tires and same homemade bars was low/mid 13s according to him... Just FWIW...

If you put all your faith in mag times your average LS1 would only be a high 13 second car....

 

Many of the big blocks were underrated from the factory, not just the legendary L88s. Read a road test of a big-block Vette from the era and you'll see phrases like, "it's rated at 425 BHP, but nobody really knows . . . the manufacturers are being cagey . . . etc."

Lots of wink-wink, nudge-nudge going on back then.

 

Car mags test STOCK cars off the showroom and offer a consistent measurement of a car's performance. If under those conditions one car is faster than another, then in the same conditions elsewhere, the same results will happen. So their results are still valid.

Good point (BTW: the horsepower explaination is for those who didn't know ).

 

Yeah that wheel hop problem the 67's had can slow down those 1/4 mile times. But they all had that problem, even the SS's and Z-28's which came from the factory with a traction bar on the passenger side to help with that wheel hop.

I'm sure you could tweak and tune those SS's and get better times than dead stock... particularly if you could get it to hook up right with slicks or slapper bars. But then you could do the same thing to a Z-28. It's all relative, however this evidence should at least tone down the SS v.s. Z-28 arguments a little.