I ran into a guy who is selling a 92 1LE that he claims was a special order 300hp corvette motor by a big shot at GM. The car is really a 1LE but don't all 350 1LE's have the same 245HP motor as the rest of the L98 cars? The car is black with the heritage package, AC delete, radio delete, red cloth, automatic trans, and 1LE emblems on the rockers where it usually says Z28. The guy claims he has all the paperwork proving this is true, however I will not believe him until I am proven wrong with documentation. I know there were two made in 92 with 300hp L98's but they had 6 speeds and were white. Anyone ever hear of this special order?

 

You need Greg to answer that as he is on the mark with those cars, he will post we he gets the time I believe. Andrew

 

Sounds like a fish tale! From what I know the two 6 speed camaro's you are speaking of were crushed. Those along w/ the FireFox are long gone. It's most likely a 245hp 350. I'd still love to see the RPO and some pics.

I just picked up an 86 TransAm (called the FireAM) with a prototype ZR1 6 speed, 350 TPI engine, Brembo F40 brakes, Dana 44 rear and an aluminum hood...all installed in 1986 via Herb Adams and Pontiac Engineering. Pontiac removed the dash vin in lieu of crushing the car. It still has the vin on the door and the RPO tags as well as an interesting story.

All this to say if it has a legit factory vette engine he should have an impressive collection of paperwork to go with the car.

 

Sounds like just another BS story. BTW, those two 92 Collector Edition cars had 275HP and only one exists today in GM and is still showed sometimes by them.

 

Could be legit, I spent time at McFarland, Inc. in Torrance, CA in 1991 and 1992, they did some development work. They also had one of the Heritage Camaro's as discussed above with the 6-speed as they were going to build 602 to match the production of the 1967 Z-28's. So it is possible that GM managers and engineers ended up with some of the cars.

Jim McFarland
1989-1992 - President - McFarland, Inc. - An R&D company serving automotive OEM and aftermarket companies in development of engine and powertrain components and environmentally-sensitive integrated engine systems.

 

WELL, IIRC the Corvette only had something like 275 HP with the LT1. If you look at the VIN and it is a P (Which I doubt) for the 8th digit then it was put in after it left the assembly line. IIRC "P" indicated the LT1. Does anyone remember the output of the ZR1 Engine? it would be a neat installation but paperwork can be created easily enough... 20 years ago it was a lot more work to fake papers, but now with the advent of really neat programs like CorelDraw! and Adobe Illustrator heck anything can be faked. I even have some OLD dot matrix printers I could use to FAKE some things if I really wanted, 9 pin and 24 pin...

With that said I have run into people that had 5.7 Liter on the rocker panels of 85 Trans Am's and he swore up and down that it was a Special order car by an GM executive...

The problem with ONE offs is there is nothing to back up their claims unless there is somethiing like an article written about them WHEN they were made, or they have some legitimate paperwork to back them up, or youy could call GM and ask about such & sucn a VIN and see if it really existed or exists... The 20 pages of the Dealer Order log from ASC is invaluable to me but it could have been faked, so far I have not found a single thing to contridict that it is what it sais it is tho...

John

 

With the motor issue aside for a second. Wasn't there just only a handfull of HERITAGE 1LE's made to begin with?? I also haven't seen 1LE emblems on the rockers before either. If he has paperwork to back his claim, you be the judge.

 

Vette LT1s were rated 300hp, I don't know of any L98 engine rated 300hp from the factory in a vette or anything else. Unless this Camaro has a factory installed LT1 it's got to be total BS.

 

Granted there were only a handful of Heritage 1LE's BUT there is the 1LE emblem? that sounds bogus to me, I might be really wrong but for the most part the 1LE was almost a secret option for racers only and would not have been advertised as such. Things like the WS6 were more avaiable and would be advertised (NA on camaro) it sounds like someone has tried to fix up a heritage car...

I would look at the SPID sheet, or get a pic of it and then decipher the codes. OBVIOUSLY it should have 1LE and ZO3? I think was the Heritage RPO.

John

 

Did you ever get any documentation on this car. I would sure like to see what the story is with it.

Leonard

 

There isn't gonna be any.