Firebird

[Spikes]

Don't get me wrong, if I could get one with the Camaro's V8 for a decent price and afford the insurance, I'd buy it without hesitation. But as it is, I could get a nice looking car that captures the feel and styling of the sport car, and retains decent performance without having enough to let me be overly stupid with it. And frankly, I'd probably get in trouble for peeling out in the school parking lot the first week.

If you are going to buy a sports car, you should be able to control yourself not to be stupid regardless. Otherwise you should not own a sports car. It kills me seeing cars with thousands of dollars put into the outside and it couldn't outrun an oldsmobile. Put money under the hood and who cares if it looks like crap on the outside. Honestly I agree with Jo, I hate base models of sports cars. It's like putting a straight four under the hood of what should be a big bad 3500HD diesel.

If you can't control yourself with a V8, you shouldn't be driving.

[G0ALY]

Just my 2cents, but here it goes… You’re going to collage, don’t use a car to make a statement about yourself. If you use a car or any other possession to define who you are, then without that possession, you are nothing.

At this point in your life, (and for me this still applies.) A car is a tool. It’s only purpose is to get your butt from point A to point B, and it needs to do this reliably and efficiently.

The people who will matter the most to you will always be more concerned with who YOU are, not what you drive.

[Tank-Ace]

If you are going to buy a sports car, you should be able to control yourself not to be stupid regardless. Otherwise you should not own a sports car. It kills me seeing cars with thousands of dollars put into the outside and it couldn't outrun an oldsmobile. Put money under the hood and who cares if it looks like crap on the outside. Honestly I agree with Jo, I hate base models of sports cars. It's like putting a straight four under the hood of what should be a big bad 3500HD diesel.

If you can't control yourself with a V8, you shouldn't be driving.

Nothing fundamentally wrong with the V6. Its got enough hp that it wont feel sluggish, unless I'm carrying around rather excessive ammount of weight. Its got just as much or more power than most of the newer cars in my price range. It has comparable miles. It looks bad-ass.

And theres a difference between reckless driving, and abusing the V8 once in a while. Got in a 'driving contest' with one of my friends. I drove out of the school parking lot in reverse while rocking out to the subs we had in our old car. He accelerated for 10ft and did a doughnut. Clearly thats a loss for me. The point isn't that I can't control myself and drive safely, but that, being the teenager that I am, odds are that I would eventually make the incorrect calculation that seeing what the car could do on a strait strech would be fine.

If I don't have the capability to do stupid stuff like that in the crowded school parking lot, I won't have even the temptation to deal with. It will be more fun for me, because I won't be having to constantly fight temptation, and on top of that, the gas milage will be better.



Theres no inherent virtue in poverty, Spikes.

[FBDragon]

Believe it or not, the gas milage difference is not that much, and in some cases it's worse in a V6 due to the fact that the 6 has to work harder than a 8 does to move the sam amount of weight. It's called power to weight ratio!!!
  My 93 T/A really good gas milage even in town. It got that crappy LT1 5.7 ( GM should have been shot over that BS in 81) 6-speed so it doesn't have to work as hard.

[Masherbrum]

Believe it or not, the gas milage difference is not that much, and in some cases it's worse in a V6 due to the fact that the 6 has to work harder than a 8 does to move the sam amount of weight. It's called power to weight ratio!!!
  My 93 T/A really good gas milage even in town. It got that crappy LT1 5.7 ( GM should have been shot over that BS in 81) 6-speed so it doesn't have to work as hard.

Yep.   But even worse, narcissism is more important to a few.   

[JOACH1M]

It looks bad-ass.

Looks are not everything...

[Gman]

FBDragon, does your car have that 1st to 4th lockout they put in those model years?  In my 97 Ws6 I had to go from 1st to 4th gear unless the computer decided the engine was revving high enough and the throttle was moving towards the floor at a certain rate, and the car was accelerating at a certain rate.  It measured a whole bunch of data and then decided if you could go from 1st to 2nd gear, otherwise it locked you out and put you right into 4th.  It actually DID save a fair bit of gas, and even that Lt1 in the 97 Ram Air had enough torque that 4th wasn't so bad.  I only needed to shift once instead of 4 times to drive around in the 30 mph zones in Canada.  I always thought it would be a PITA, but I came to not only get used to it, but kind of appreciate it.

You know, those old GM Firebird/Trans/Camaro types were such a good deal back then.  Remember that 14 years ago 320 ish horse power was nothing to sneeze at, where as nearly every decent 4 door family car seems to have near that today.  My 97 and 2002 performed very similarly in terms of the numbers on the track running 1/4 miles, I never did to a road circuit with either.  Both were capable of nearly 160 mph right out of the box, and 0-60 times of well under 6 seconds, some magazines claimed to get them down to 5.1, and 1/4 times in the 13's weren't impossible either at good altitudes/temperatures.  As I said, an extremely good deal in terms of bang for the buck.  They sounded fantastic as well.

[Masherbrum]

FBDragon, does your car have that 1st to 4th lockout they put in those model years?  In my 97 Ws6 I had to go from 1st to 4th gear unless the computer decided the engine was revving high enough and the throttle was moving towards the floor at a certain rate, and the car was accelerating at a certain rate.  It measured a whole bunch of data and then decided if you could go from 1st to 2nd gear, otherwise it locked you out and put you right into 4th.  It actually DID save a fair bit of gas, and even that Lt1 in the 97 Ram Air had enough torque that 4th wasn't so bad.  I only needed to shift once instead of 4 times to drive around in the 30 mph zones in Canada.  I always thought it would be a PITA, but I came to not only get used to it, but kind of appreciate it.

You know, those old GM Firebird/Trans/Camaro types were such a good deal back then.  Remember that 14 years ago 320 ish horse power was nothing to sneeze at, where as nearly every decent 4 door family car seems to have near that today.  My 97 and 2002 performed very similarly in terms of the numbers on the track running 1/4 miles, I never did to a road circuit with either.  Both were capable of nearly 160 mph right out of the box, and 0-60 times of well under 6 seconds, some magazines claimed to get them down to 5.1, and 1/4 times in the 13's weren't impossible either at good altitudes/temperatures.  As I said, an extremely good deal in terms of bang for the buck.  They sounded fantastic as well.

IIRC, Chevrolet came up with CAGS, to avoid the Gas Guzzler Tax.  CAGS forces you to shift your manual transmission Corvette from first to fourth under light acceleration.  It never engages when you floor it.  Many people sell the CAGS eliminator kits as a work around, or you reprogram the ECM.

[CAP1]

the new gt's have that skip shift crap. with mine, i either shift sooner, later, or i hesitate going into second. it seems to me that the solenoid only is activated for a second or so........

 also, there's supposedly an FRPP tune, which will not void any part of the warranty that eliminates it.

[JOACH1M]

IIRC, Chevrolet came up with CAGS, to avoid the Gas Guzzler Tax.  CAGS forces you to shift your manual transmission Corvette from first to fourth under light acceleration.  It never engages when you floor it.  Many people sell the CAGS eliminator kits as a work around, or you reprogram the ECM.

Even with a manual trans it won't let you shift how you want too?

[Masherbrum]

Even with a manual trans it won't let you shift how you want too?

For less than $20 it is no longer an issue.   

[Tank-Ace]

Looks are not everything...

No, but they do count.

[eagl]

The CAGS system was easy to defeat.  It was a simple two-wire plug into the side of the transmission, easily accessible with the car on a lift.  If you just pulled the plug it would set an engine code, but there were two ways to get around that.  First, you could buy a $20 (or $50 if you suck at shopping) plug to fit onto the end of the wiring harness.  Or second, you could buy a $0.25 resistor from radio shack and some heat-shrink tubing (or just good outdoor-quality non-conductive tape), stuff the resistor into the harness plug, and wrap up with the heatshrink or tape to keep water from getting in and to keep the resistor from falling out.

I went the resistor method and it worked just fine for 12 years.  Still working after 14 yrs as far as I know since the guy who bought my car never called me asking about it.

I think pretty much all manual transmission V8 performance cars from Chebby have had some version of the CAGS 2nd/3rd gear lockout scheme installed since the mid '90s.  I think it is just as easy to disable in the corvette as it was for the f-bodies.

[Bosco123]

It'll be considered a sports car, but since it's so old the rates shouldn't be too bad.  

For example, I have an 06 Monte Carlo 2LT that I pay $68 per month for full coverage with State Farm.  I was looking at an 02 Corvette Z06 recently, and my rate on that was $73 a month because of the age.  I also looked at a new 2013 Camaro SS, and the rate on that went up to $95 per month.  The Corvette would absolutely smoke the new Camaro when it comes to performance, yet it was much cheaper.  I'm 33, with a clean driving record, but it shows that the age of a car makes a huge difference on insurance rates, even if it is considered a sports car.  The insurance companies take many things into account when determining a rate.  

The best thing to do is get with your agent and have them prepare a quote for every car that you're thinking about.

I have an 05 Supercharged Monte SS, and even with military rates, I'm paying 150 a month.

The age, and a ticket doesn't help any...



<S>

[CAP1]

The CAGS system was easy to defeat.  It was a simple two-wire plug into the side of the transmission, easily accessible with the car on a lift.  If you just pulled the plug it would set an engine code, but there were two ways to get around that.  First, you could buy a $20 (or $50 if you suck at shopping) plug to fit onto the end of the wiring harness.  Or second, you could buy a $0.25 resistor from radio shack and some heat-shrink tubing (or just good outdoor-quality non-conductive tape), stuff the resistor into the harness plug, and wrap up with the heatshrink or tape to keep water from getting in and to keep the resistor from falling out.

I went the resistor method and it worked just fine for 12 years.  Still working after 14 yrs as far as I know since the guy who bought my car never called me asking about it.

I think pretty much all manual transmission V8 performance cars from Chebby have had some version of the CAGS 2nd/3rd gear lockout scheme installed since the mid '90s.  I think it is just as easy to disable in the corvette as it was for the f-bodies.

 i think they had to. between that, and using double overdrive(when they went to the 6 speed) i think was the only way they could get them to miss getting a guzzler tax.