Im looking to buy a used vette and I was just wondering if the 1997 and 1998 vettes have the same More difficult PCM and other similar engine and electronic complexities that people usually stay away from when buying an LS1 Fbody

I should avoid the 1998 and 1997 vettes in favor of a better computer and other improvements that made it to the camaro in 1999?

 

I emailed Bryan at PCMforLess and he said
"The 98 Vette and F-body used the PCM. The 97 Vette had a different part number PCM, but was interchangeable with the 98's.
Yes, they are more difficult to deal with and many tuners will not do them. I don't mind them though, I have worked out the quirks with them. "

So it looks like the 1997-1998 corvette did have the more difficult to program PCM just like the Camaro/Firebird
But Bryan can still program them without any trouble

 

Don't believe everything you hear about 97-98 PCMs. For 99% of the setups out there, they are no harder to tune than the 99+ PCMs.

 

We also just added 1997-1998 programming support to our GT Tuner and we're running a special right now (save up to $50) because we felt bad we didn't have it ready when we started our LS1 spring special.

They are an "oddball" PCM (they only used them for two years), but they are no more or less difficult to program then any other LS1 PCM. Some of the tuning features that are available on the 99+ LS1 PCM are not available on the 97-98 PCM, which is probably where the notion that they are harder to program stems from.