My dad seems to not believe me that the lt1's are reliable when i told him i was going to the track to test it out. He thinks i will break something the first time i race it. Its a 94z 6spd with 70k. He tells me that he was always replacing stuff in his old car and i will be doing the same. Just post your opinion and how many runs you have at the track with how many miles on your car, and what you have replaced. Thanks.

 

He's correct.

Anything mechanical will break, especially if you race it.

The rear-end is a 7.5" piece of sh*t. It will blow up if you launch it at the track with a 6-speed at a high rpm... Hell, it'll even blow up on the street if you launch it at a high rpm and it hooks up.

Mike

 

i have a 145k on mine ive put a battery waterpump, and new 1le drive shaft, intake gasket. other than that it runs greats and always has. i put it on the scanner last night and everything was perfect. and i have no trouble jumping in it a driving to anywhere that has roads. drove from waco tx to miami fl. last year round trip non stop, got there picked up a buddys duaghter and then left we cut the car off for about 30 minutes and never had any trouble. and i would do it agian and not think on bit about taking my z.

but the cars do have trouble intake gasket, opti, water pump, and the a4 tranny is not that good in my opinion but when fixed right there hard to beat. and the rearends are crap when you get into or near the high 11s. and a six speed is more vunerlable to this.

being that your stock and if the car has been well maintaned you should have no worries

its only as good as you maintane it.

 

Driving hard at the track = You will break something eventually.
Driving nice/fun on the street = You'll still end up with stuff that needs fixing - just not as much.

If you want reliable - get a Camry.
If you want something to work on every now and then and have a whole lot of fun with - get a Camaro.





PS. Get a Camaro.

 

i dont do high rpm lanches.

 

Sticky tires plus a hard launch is usually what breaks our glass rear ends.

Sorry.

 

Sorry but.....

stock + easy driving = reliable

minute you mod it + racing = break stuff

it's a fact of racing. if you race hard you will break stuff!

thomas

 

I have 97 Formula with almost 100,000 miles on it and only have replaced the opti and intake man gasket until last week I blew a head gasket but other than that no probs at all its a M6 too by the way and with the right suspension you can run 11s for a while on your stocker rear, just eliminate wheel hop

 

Im not looking to beat the hell out of it, just race it every once in a while. I do drive it kinda hard, but not as bad as my friends.

 

Very reliable cars as far as Im concerned. I have a 94Z M6 with 70000 miles. Only thing Ive done is change the clutch on it. It doesn't matter what you drive, if you drive it hard it will break. Drive the camaro easy and it shouldn't break. But if your going to drive it easy then I don't know why you bought a camaro.

 

This was a subject for debate in my family also. My uncle who I am close with swears my Z should not be drag raced because the enginr can't take it. So I walked him into a question: "Do you think a Corvette engine is?" His response was yes. Had to explain some things to him. He went to my dad, and my dad told him, "Hey, he (me) knows is he breaks something he's f'ed." But anyway, if you're not racing every week, its not a problem. Stuff will go wrong, but that will happen no matter what.

Keith

 

Camaros have lousy reliabilty records.
Any machine will break if you are hard on it.

I wouldn't argue with your dad on this point, because you will lose.

I wouldn't put to much of a stake in the "rare" exceptions, because there are only 2 kinds of Camaros, those that have broke and those that will break.JMHO

 

180,000 very hard miles and four trips to the track averaging about six runs per trip. I had the trans rebuilt after losing 4th gear synchro, rear end replaced after snapping the pinion (315's in the rear), and I'm on my 4th clutch. I've replaced several other less significant parts such as the starter, water pump, distributor (twice), heater core, radiator, alternator, etc. However, my car sees much more abuse on the street than it does at the track so technically I haven't broken anything at the track. This damn motor has been so reliable though......it's unbelievable. I haven't even seen any degradation in performance. My only performance mods are 3.73's, cat-back, and a K&N and I'm still pulling 13.5's at the track.

 

I daily drove and raced mine for 7 years and the only thing that ever went out were the starter and the battery. In 8 years of hard driving I've never broken anything.

-Chris

 

I drove mine from 93-96 WITHOUT racing and nothing broke.

I started racing in 1996 and to date have replaced EVERYTHING in the powertrain in my car.