Hello all. I am new to the site and will have some questions in the next few months. One is about what changes were made from 1997-2004 on the engines, mainly hp, ect. Any certain problems from certain years? Looking to buy a manual car in the near future.
Any help with a website that breaks these questions down would be greatly apprectiated.

Michael

 

All your questions can be answered here if you are willing to take the time to read. Try the search function, its not the greatest but it will help.

 

Michael, when buying any C5, use this general rule of thumb: buy as late as you can afford. GM approaches the Corvette much like Porsche with its "911" (purely a maaaahketing ploy, because internally they are actually known by other 9-numbers in the series, but why mess up a good thing, right?), that is to say: continuous improvements.

When I was considering the move up to a C5 from my C4, I researched like you and decided that I wanted a car produced from '02 through mid-model-year '03 because the EPA forced changes in mid-year '03 that caused GM to put the fuel filter INSIDE the fuel tank. Having had occasion to change fuel filters on a few cars through the years, the thought of having to drop the tank to do that, made no sense to me. The '02 and early '03 cars have all the goodies and updates in place without that in-tank fuel filter.

Read and search the archives here and you will find out each year's weaknesses. Good luck!

 

Welcome to the Forum!

You should find answers to many of your questions at the following links:

C5 Model Year Differences

Corvette Model Center

Also, a number of changes came about in model year 2001:

Model year 2001 Press Release - More Performance...

Model year 2001 Press Release - More Agility...

Model year 2001 Press Release - More Refinement...

Hope this helps and good luck finding the right C5.

 

Also, the following sticky thread at the top of C5 General has a lot of information on the C5s and speaks more to some of the problems through the various C5 model years:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...7&forum_id=103

 

Thanks, that is what I was looking for.

 

GRAY C5, great post!

 

Thanks!