I found what looks to be a great 88 GTA. Its a red hardtop 5-speed, 90k miles with gold GTA wheels and digital dash. Its got gray cloth interior and the gold sailbirds and GTA emblem are intact. He said the odometer comes up garbled sometimes after a cold start but I heard that's a common problem with that dash. He said he replaced a lot of parts like the dist, cap, wires, water pump, fuel pump, and that it has a replacement motor. This is where it gets kinda dumb. The guy swears on his life it is a factory L98 350 5 speed. We all know this is not true. He claims its a hardtop so you could get a 350 5-speed and that it was only an issue with t-tops. I wasn't going to have an all out war with the guy so I didn't really push the issue. He claims to "know these cars well." He said that it originally had the 350 and that it blew so he replaced it with a 305 TPI and that the transmission was original. I don't know what to think, but I am willing to go see it. I'm hoping someone just told him a story about it used to have a 350 or it was a 350 and he found out it was a 305. He definitely is not the original owner and I don't think he even did the swap but I'm not completely sure. I was really excited about this car thinking I found a nice 305TPI 5-speed and now who knows. I'll keep you guys posted because I'm trying to go see it this weekend, but I wouldn't be suprised at this point by anything. I'm interested to see the RPO codes on the SPID and check the VIN. Anything else I should look at or any ways to convince this guy he's wrong? I guess I could bring a laptop with dozens of windows open to production numbers as proof. ~Matt

The guy is wrong, simple as that. Believe what you can verify. He either doesn't know, doesn't remember correctly, or just wants to tell you a big fish tale.

Yeah. What else can you say. He plainly is either a liar or he doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.

VIN is all you need to determine which TPI engine it has. If the 8th digit is an 8 then it's the L98 350 TPI (and he's right ) or it's an F for the LB9 305 TPI (and you would be right ).
If he can't accept a simple fact, then the car is obviously smarter than he is.

He says its not the original engine so the VIN won't help with what's in it now, but I can look to see what it was. He says it has a 305TPI now, so I would have to check on the block casting or block VIN. Then I would have to check the SPID (if that is original) for the T-5 RPOs. We will see what happens.

~Matt

Are you tring to prove him wrong or figure out what it has now? Those are two very different questions...

It's easy to prove him wrong. If the VIN has the F in it, easy, it's a 305 from the factory. If it has an 8, then you'd need the SPID sheet to prove it came with the 700R4.

I'm trying to figure out both. He says it has a 305TPI now which I believe way more than it being a 5.7 T-5 from the factory. My last post was just in response to what iroctopless said.

~Matt

There's really no point in trying to prove the guy wrong. If someone's got a Gold bar and they want to think it's Platinum or Lead, it doesn't matter as long as the price is appropriate. Arguing with a seller, or trying to educate a seller is just a waste of time.

If you want to know what the car came with originally, check the VIN number and the SPID. If you want to know what exactly it has now, check the flat pad in front of the passengers side cylinder head and see if the partial VIN number matches the car's VIN. If they don't match, get the casting number off the block from behind the drivers side head above the bellhousing. Also you may want to pull a valve cover and get the casting number off the cylinder heads. With that info you can go to www.mortec.com and look up the engine displacement, and figure out if the heads are correct. Id'ing the transmission is a little more difficult. Count the pan bolts for an automatic, or get the number off the ID tag for a manual.

When YOU know exactly what the car is, I still wouldn't even bother to straighten out the seller, because chances are he doesn't care anyway, but there's the chance you'll piss him off or give him a reason to keep the car. If he cared he'd probably do the research on his own, ya know?

Well, the thing you would know is if it's got a TPI engine in it, then no matter what he says, at the very least (and most likely) it's a 305TPI 5-speed. If the car's in nice shape despite the owner, I'd still be excited.

Yea that's true. Him swearing to everything you could think of that it was a 350 just really annoyed me. I'll take a 305TPI 5 speed so I hope it is in good condition.

~Matt

You get used to it after you deal with enough local thirdgen owners. Every moron thinks his car is a factory 350 car.