[meissen]

In my opinion I'd go with the '96 Z28. I've always preferred the 93-97 Camaro compared to the 98-02 Camaro. Sleeker and better lines on the front end IMHO.

The LT1 is burdened by the optispark, but it's not all that bad. The design of the optispark in general is brilliant... what wasn't brilliant was mounting it directly under the water pump and its weep hole. It will fail eventually, and it's a pain to replace compared to replacing a distributor or coil pack because you have to remove the water pump and harmonic balancer pulley before you can get to the optispark to replace it.

That said - the optispark that's running in my '94 Camaro was drop kicked across the previous owner's yard when he thought that was the source of his problems... turned out to be the MAF. The optispark gets a bad wrap - anytime someone has the slightest drivability issue people jump on the "Must be the optispark" bandwagon.

The most important question, though - how many miles are on both, how does the body look, how well maintained were they? I'm guessing the 96 Z28 has at least 100k on the clock. There's a good chance it has a new water pump and optispark.

Oh yeah - and the last question about whether there's aftermarket ones that are better -- that IS hit and miss. MSD sells an aftermarket optispark that's complete junk, I would never trust any MSD products. There was another manufacturer that had an optispark that was supposed to be amazing but it's like $800. Surprisingly, everyone has had good success with an e-bay seller's OEM optisparks - Chandler Motorsports and it's only $80. Lastly, there are conversion kits you can buy where you actually get rid of the Optispark entirely and convert to the LSx style coilpacks but that will set you back around $1,000.