I am thinking about possibly getting an 3rd gen for a dally driver. I was wondering how do you tell what kind of engine it has? I would like to get one with at least 200hp. Im leaning more towards a IROC but I may take what I can get.
I know with IROC you can look at the tach to see the cam and the shifter **** will be square if you have a 5.7 but when I see a car online they realy don't show that.

Check the 8th diget of the Vin number for the engine installed at the factory. Forget about the other stuff you mentioned.

is there a sight with some of this info that I can go to so I don't clog up this message board with stupid stuff?

www.thirdgen.org

yea the 8th digit will be an 8 if its 350 which will then give you your 200 but more likelly more, depending on the year.

i think 82-86 had circle auto. shift **** and 87-92 had the square ****,FYI.

and yes,the 8th digit will tell u what motor is in it...and 8 is for the 350 TPI,F is 305 TPI.

make sure you do your homework...a 305 and a 350 look pretty much identical on engine stands. I could be wrong, but I always thought the 87 IROC was the first thirdgen camaro to have the 5.7 stock. Check the vin out and make sure there was never an engine swap and you'll know what kind of engine is in there. You never know what the vin # could be hiding. In my case my vin says I have a 2.8L but you can clearly see it's not...though it would be quite difficult(probably damn near impossible) to tell the difference between a 305 and a 350, especially when it's already in the car . Just my .02