hello

[ylee66]

Hi I'm Tim,
The wife and I are thinking about buying a 1997 gpz black 2 door.And I joined this site looking for info.Any helpfull info would be great.Are there any things we should be on the look out for?I have never had a car with a super charger on it.And sure don't want to fork out almost 3000 for a piece of crap.Hopefully it's a good car and all party's involved are happy.

Are there any known major flaws or breakdown issues?How easy are things to replace? Like starters,alt,fuel pumps radatiors,hoses ,heater cores,spark plugs ,wires ect.....?


One other question I have is .....is premium recomened or required?.
Well if you see pics up you'll know I bought it.Andif ya live in kck maybe I'll see ya @ one of the QT's

[matt5112]

premium is required unless you have it retuned for 87.

they're known for coolant elbows, lower intake manifold gaskets, clogged cats, leaking valve cover gaskets, vacuum leaks due to dry rotted vacuum fittings and transmission issues.

The list of repair items are all easy minus the heater core.

Rear plugs are difficult with stock engine pull brackets on the motor, but if you get that out of the way, they're a breeze with 3/8ths ratchet, 3" extension and a 5/8ths spark plug socket.

[Fivefingerdeathpunch]

These are good cars.

If taken care of they can last 200k easy.

Normal maintance is what is key for any car. Most things on these motor are very simple with basic hand tools and a little elbow grease.

and yeah 91+ for fuel

[ylee66]

cool... thanks..I bought a 98 f150 back in Jan of this yrr and had to replace the heatercore..it was a ....And don't even want to get started on spark plugs on the triton motors.
How do I go about making sure the s/c is ok?and at least the gas prices have come down a lil premium here is 3.74 a gallon.

[RegalGS98s]

cool... thanks..I bought a 98 f150 back in Jan of this yrr and had to replace the heatercore..it was a ....And don't even want to get started on spark plugs on the triton motors.
How do I go about making sure the s/c is ok?and at least the gas prices have come down a lil premium here is 3.74 a gallon.

I've worked on the Ford Triton V8's. These cars are way easier to work on. I remember working overnight the first time to get to the spark plugs on the Ford. Still takes about an hour now, but still these cars are 10-20 minute spark plug changes. And, these cars have the blend door like the Ford, but I haven't heard of anyone's going out. On the Ford, it's a common problem of the plastic blend door breaking off or the circuit board in the blend door actuator dieing. RockAuto.com sells a Dorman blend door actuator for about half the dealer cost when that goes on your Ford. It used to be a dealer only item. I think Ford just didn't calculate the right amount of thermal expansion so the door drags. Can you tell I hate working on Fords, lol.

[matt5112]

to be honest, you need to get it off the car.

the rotors flake after a while.

the fluid should be changed right away considering it probably never has been.

the coupler might have play in it, its kinda to be expected.

start the car, let it idle, and pop the hood and take the engine cover off, listen for bearing noise or a rocks tumbling noise.

rocks is the coupler. they're cheapish from ZZP or ebay. $20 or so plus fluid ($5 a bottle at your local dealer, you'll need two bottles.

To be frank, you'll want to replace the LIM gaskets, valve cover gaskets, coolant elbows, spark plugs, wires, air filter, fuel filter, tranny pan drop and filter change, supercharger fluid and coupler, t-stat, coolant change, oil change, brake fluid, power steering fluid, etc, as soon as you get the thing.

Unless you know the previous owner has done any of these recently.

[Fivefingerdeathpunch]

depending on what kind of driving you wife does, these cars do get pretty darn good mpgs for the size motor.

17-19 city and 28-31 freeway, with a light foot and driving the speed limit you could see even more.

[BOOST]

Probably would want to run a full synthetic oil as well. Just a small recommendation from me.

[ylee66]

More than likely they haven't....so lucky me get to get to know a car on a first name bases. I'll look it over real good.This guy lives 2 hours away and meeting half way. So we'll see.
And five finger.. we both have heavy left foots..me more so than her though.


Did all 97 gps come with a supercharger?

[matt5112]

no, only GTP's.

GTX was a visual package. Could have been applied to a GT or GTP.