Vote to which you would think is faster.....

300zx

At that time the vette had 240hp and 300tq, while the 300zx had 280-300hp and 280tq. The forty or so horsepower more must have sealed the deal.

What does horsepower do compared to torque though?

Unless it's a 90 ZR1, then it's over.

you cant really think something is faster. its either faster or not. think implies that it is an opinion. now if you were saying which you think is better then i vote 300zx. regardless though the 300zx is faster.

The Z.

My apologies if this thread is a bit stale. But anyway..(ahem)

The corvette available in 1990 would have been around 250hp and as such would have not been grunty enough to compete against the 300ZX that was introduced mere 1 year prior.
As much as I hate to admit it, for the years 1989 to 1991 the 300ZX had a decisive edge over the base Vette and all the magazine comparos will reflect this.
The engine in the Vette of that time (the L98) was a bit of a stale design. In fact the L98 is often considered the last of the old-school small-block Chevy’s with some of its design elements traceable to the first Corvette V8 that Ed Cole made in 1955.
Why so long since a ground up redesign? Well I would chalk this one up the distractions of the 1970’s.

Since the implementation of the Clean Air Act in the early 70’s to somewhere in the early-mid 80’s all the US manufacturers could think about was emission control and fuel economy. There was seriously no room to think about performance as every engineering resource auto company’s had was focused on meeting stricter emission, economy & and safety guidelines that got tougher every year and made no allowance for wether or not the current technology even existed to meet theses rules.
For instance the guidelines might call for a 25% reduction in particulate emissions compared to last year while improving fuel economy. A company would have to invent (within the space of a year) the new technologies necessary to produce a notably more efficient engine. This is probably what made so many cars of the day have such prototype-like reliability.

Fortunately by early 1980’s engine technology had finally caught up with the avalanche of new rules and could keep pace with them.
Now that Chevrolet was no longer fully distracted by the concerns of the 70's, Corvette engineers could think about performance again. This manifested itself in the evolution of the fuel delivery systems (EFi) and computer engine management of the L98.
By around 1986 they realised that because the basic V8 hadn’t been updated in decades (Very little resources were spent on the development of the V8 in the 70’s as everyone was pre-occupied trying to squeeze more mpg out of the 4cyl & 6cyl engines) they couldn’t get the most out of the electronics they used.
They considered turbo-charging as a possible solution (See Twin Turbo Callaway Corvettes) but eventually decided that they needed an all-new V8. Problem was it had been so sooo long since Chevy engineers were given a clean sheet of paper to design a V8, so they needed some guidance.
Enter Lotus with the Lt5 engine they made for the Corvette ZR-1. It taught them a lot of things about what a modern V8 should be. (eventually Chevy would learn how to make something just as good but less complex and expensive. i.e. the LS1).
Using what they learned from the Lt5 Corvette engineers managed to expedite the development of the Gen II engine which had been on the shelve of the truck division’s R&D for some time (trucks were selling well so there was no need to rush out a new V8).
Eventually the LT1 came out in all Corvette’s for 1992 onward to 1995/96. At this point the Corvette could boast superior performance to the contemporary 300ZX.
The 300ZX still wasn’t too far behind and it did have the Vette by the balls for perceived quality, but eventually the 300ZX started to lose sales due to economic reasons causing the price of Japanese cars to inflate. This caused most Japanese manufactures to pullout their speciality cars.
I think the Honda NSX was the only Japanese sports car that stuck though it to still be on the US market in the late 1990’s.

Vettribution, every 350 cubic inch engine was an upgrade to it's ancestor, including the LT1s. Only the LSX series broke out of that chain.

Vettribution, every 350 cubic inch engine was an upgrade to it's ancestor, including the LT1s. Only the LSX series broke out of that chain.
Ah yes, you are probably right come to think of it.

I think I got confused because I've heard many say that the L98 was the last of the old school blocks (which to me implied that the core block of the engine was changed from the L98 to the LT1) and yet I've also heard same people say that the only real difference between the L98 & LT1 were the intake runner length & the way the cooling system was configured. These changes were cited as being the reason behind the notable power increase of the LT1.

The Z was not only faster in a streight line but more refined
Z wins hands down, and this coming from a chevy fan.