Camaro Power Through the Years

[Rocky1974]

Originally Posted by Vivenvex

*Swoops in*

Let's also take into account GM's tendency to underrate Camaros HP rating from the factory as to not take away from Vette sales.

ex. Rated at 310 HP, the 98-02 F-bodies were putting down 289-300HP to the wheels BONE STOCK. My white car personally put down 293.7 with no mods back in 07 with around 69k on the clock after a fresh oil change in Abilene, TX during the fall. *It's nice having a friend with a dyno lol*

Yes. I remember a lot of the LS1 cars were putting out almost their rated crank horsepower at the wheels. Take a look at the LS3. GM has rated it from 415 Horsepower(G8 GXP and SS) to 426 Horsepower(Camaro SS, manual) to 430 Horsepower(Corvette) to 436 Horsepower(Corvette w/NPP). All the engines are exactly the same. The only differences are the intakes and exhaust. I thought it was very telling that that the NPP option added 6 horsepower to the Vette, but 0 horsepower to the Camaro.

[Rocky1974]

Originally Posted by Scalded Dog

Amazing to see that there are ten model years that offered something with 100 hp or less... and Camaros still maintained their image.

I had an '82 Berlinetta, with 104 mighty ponies galloping away under the hood. Got 12 MPG for that kind of power, and once, in a drag race against a school bus that was towing a Sherman tank, I only lost by 12 carlengths.

That's some funny stuff! Almost as funny as those guys on Street Outlaws outrunning a Turbo Porsche with an old Chevy farm truck while towing a fishing boat.

[Curts14]

Originally Posted by JR 1

Those are great pics!

I just noticed the 2014 Copo Camaro comes with a V6 front fascia. Kind of ironic

I bet Chevrolet used them because they are lighter than the SS fascia.

[tjea]

Back in the day. Old guy here. I had a 68 Z28, loved that 302. 295 hp on the air cleaner. Always felt like more and loved shifting at 7k.

[Spec]

Telling. This chart made me smile.

7th Gen Camaro will literally fly on its own antigrav power, I hope...

[Rocky1974]

Originally Posted by tjea

Back in the day. Old guy here. I had a 68 Z28, loved that 302. 295 hp on the air cleaner. Always felt like more and loved shifting at 7k.

Yes. I think that 302 was rated 290 horsepower at something like 5800RPM, which was accurate. But what they didn't tell you, was that it was making 350-375 horsepower at 7500-8000RPM.
If you had one of those, check out the article I posted about the "basement find", one owner, low miles, 69 Z/28 in this forum.

[Rocky1974]

Originally Posted by JR 1

Those are great pics!

I just noticed the 2014 Copo Camaro comes with a V6 front fascia. Kind of ironic

I hadn't noticed that, but you are correct!

[Scalded Dog]

Originally Posted by JR 1

Those are great pics!

I just noticed the 2014 Copo Camaro comes with a V6 front fascia. Kind of ironic

No, no, no... you are terribly mistaken. The V6 Camaros have a COPO front fascia. See?

[Curts14]

I don't know if this is a fair comparison - old versus/new. Let's face it, the big difference between yesterdays performance engines and today's performance engines is fuel injection. If you could install a 4 bbl. Quadrajet Carbureator on a new LS3 with a poorly flowing heavy cast iron intake manifold, I'm sure that you wouldn't be very impressed. I thought the 1st Gen 350 SBC engines with 295 HP weren't all that bad. At least I had a lot of fun with them, but you are all right, it was no match for my 2014 Camaro SS LS3. Curt

[The_Blur]

I'd like to see all of these cars on the same dyno. That would be a great dyno day.