same here....7.5 years or more, I have to much in the car itself....wish I had a better motor

 

You must not have ever driven one, or read any of the track reports in any of the mags. stock for stock a third will pull more G's and is lighter.

 

Actually I specifically looked for 95's when I was in the market a good while back. Because they have both Vented opti and OBDI from the factory which is more forgiving when you start modding.

 

are you kidding me, most people consider 95s the best year of the LT1s. If you wanna tune it all you gotta do is get a cable thats meant for it

 

Only true cons about the LT1's are...

The ignition system
Limited aftermarket
Intake Leak
If it's a manual... The Hydrualic clutch setup blows
The Altinator Location blows (you'll find out after you work on it for the fist time).

That's about I can think of for now...

But if you plan on modding the car, I wouldn't complain about performance... the car's only as good as it's mechanic. The LT1 is a very powerful engine with the right combination put on it. I don't know why some guys wished they had an LS1 on here so bad.

 

Coming from someone who with alot of time and money into his car would be "happy" to run low 11's, I wish I would have purchased an LSx.

Same amount of money would have me in a consistent 10 second setup right now.

 

well i just dont like the lt1 or 4l60e. aftermarket sucks and every time i work on it its like opening a can of worms. GM really outdid itself trying to overengineer everything on lt1s. as soon as the aluminum lsx bowtie comes out im going to build a carbed one and put a th350 or th400 behind it. Easy, affordable power that is very simple and durable

 

The bang for the buck aspect of the lt1 simply can,t be beat(IMO).I ran 13.92 way back in AUG/01(stk was 14.4) and had well under 1,000 invested!And before you think this is no big deal remember every thing in Canada is about 50% more than U.S. Also my car ran 14.01 on the o.e tires(gsc,s),this was unheard of back in old times.And w/ anything if it is maintained properly,few owners,etc it will keep it,s performance for a long time.Btw the lt1 is also very sensitive to knock so a lt1 scanmaster is a must have for these.Good luck.

 

i sold my 98 gtp sc to get my TA..only thing i miss is the sleeper appeal and 4 comfortably, and gas mileage...but after a tune itll b fine...id say get the lt1

 

I have owned my LT1 for 9 years and never been happier with it. For this caliber of a car, maintenance is very minimal I think. I also beat the holy hell out of it. Opti went at 140,000 miles, tranny at 155,000, and engine at 165,000. Now.... would I like to have an LS1.....of course but in the C5 platform.

 

I think if you're gonna stick with just bolt ons, get an LS1. Once you get into the major engine mods though, things start to even out quite a bit between the LS1 and LT1. The main advantage the LS1 has is heads and ignition from the factory, after the heads and ignition are aftermarket they are a lot closer and the LT1 becomes a lot cheaper because of the aftermarket support of what is basically an old school shortblock. I think I'm just gonna have to have both, I'm looking for a descent LS1 as a DD and my blown LT1 can continue to be the bad boy.

 

Dont get me wrong I love my car. But I would say just keep the car you got man. These LT1 cars seem to have things breaking on them quite a bit. Atleast on mine and my friends. I mean they are just little things most of the time, but them being older cars things are just gonna break. And beings how you already got a reliable car and are going into college I'd just keep it. But if you absolutily had to have an f-body car. I would get an ls1 probly just because they seem to be more reliable I think beings they are a little bit newer cars.

 

I owned several....I dissagree, takes alot of money to make one of those cars works good

 

The LT1 is not "cheaper to mod" than an LS1.... you can dump that fallacy off your list.

Aside from some valve train components, not much from an SBC ends up working on an LT1.

 

A question for the original poster, is their a reason why you have your focus set on the LT1? There is alot of mention of using an LS1 based f-body as your platform. Are you just looking for something that has the cheapest initial cost?