Gidday everyone,
I have an 89 350 IROC I'm about to have a look at.
A few questions If I may!

Should the IROC door decals colour match the ground effects stripes, car in question has Gold IROC decals with Black on top of White stripes, just wondering if one of these has been replaced indicating body damage/repaint/etc. Being an uneducated Camaro lover I would have assumed they match, it looks off to me and maybe the stripes should have Gold accent too.

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As well as that the rear bumper has a molded 'IROC-Z' emblem on the right, and NO... '5.7 Tune Port Injection' emblem on the left. I thought they had the 5.7 badge/emblem, and is the IROC-Z emblem supposed to be molded or a badge type,......Am just trying to work out if the car has had body panels replaced.

 

the original paint on these cars was of poor quality and peeled by the 90's.almost every iroc out there has been repainted.if it was repainted they could have mismatched stripes and decals and badges, the early irocs had z28 badges and tuned port injection badge on bumper unless it was a 5.7. later models had iroc badges. it is also possible that its a clone iroc.make sure to check the vin and rpo labels.

 

It has probably been resprayed. I believe all the removable body panels have a vin sticker on them. You should be able to see if they are original.

In response to amlv20, the California cars seem to have very poor paint quality with peeling waer based clear coat. The Norwood cars have much better paint quality that can easily still be intact.

 

The car has 24500 miles, it looks immaculate, imported here (Oz) in 1990 and has had two elderly/mature owners, there is no history of paint... but ... there seems to be a mismatch with Gold IROC on the door and Silver or White stripe with grey wheels, the Gold IROC sticker seems out of place, still not sure if these stickers should be matching. Will try some research.

Thanks for the Info.

 

But to answer your question, yes the stripe should match the lettering.

 

Ah OK, Thanks. That's what I was after.

Do you know if the 5.7 badge supposed to be there on the back bumper?

 

We have an 89 same color but we have the gold wheels and stripes. I think the only items that looks suspect on this car is the IROCZ on the door. I would think that should match the stripe in the body (Other than black). The stripes in 89 also had a gap between them and were not touching. Being this car has silver/grey wheels and grey interior the gold seems out of place. The badging on the rear bumper should say 5.7 Tuned Port Injection (it has nothing there) and so should it say 5.7 Tuned Port Injection under the rocker emblem by the doors. According to the VIN this should be a 5.7 car. I would suspect a repaint for sure.
I would not even worry about the paint and stripes though - I would be seriously concerned about someone moving the steering wheel to the wrong side --- ha ha. Might not be many right hand drive 5.7 T-top IROC's out there but I would say it has been repainted.

Oh yeah, Cheers.

 

Yes too bad we can't drive the left hooker here, the car has to be over 30years old to do so.
OK so now I'm thinking it's had an engine swap maybe, with a dodgy VIN plate, since it doesn't have the 5.7 badging.
I'll ask for a pic of the VIN from the windshield, and see if he can see the engine number for me.

Thanks for the support guys, Information is power!

 

Yes, it should have the 5.7 Tuned Port Injection lettering on the back, and on the rocker panels. It looks like it may have the correct logo on the rocker panel but its hard to tell.

Rather than an engine swap, I think it is more likely that it was just repainted and the correct logo were not put back on. Now the question is why was it repainted if it only has 25,000 miles. The odometers are only good for 5 digits, so it could easily be 125,000 miles. If it was a California built car, then I could see it needed a repaint even with 25,000 miles. If it was an Ohio car, it should not have needed a repaint with only 25k.

 

i never knew it was california car issue, but yeah they could have repainted and didnt put the 5.7 badge back on, my iroc had been repainted by the previous owner and also was missing the "tuned port" badge on the rear bumper, not a big worry and easily fixable.

 

I sent off an email..............

Hi Tony,
I have been researching the car because the Gold IROC-Z door sticker and Black/Grey stripe was bugging me.

I have since found that the stickers should colour match each other,..... so either the IROC-Z door sticker should be Grey (to match the stripe) OR the stripe should be Black/Gold (to match the IROC-Z), the stripes should also have a gap between the colours, the Black should be on top of the accent colour (which is correct on the car). I'm not sure yet if the mags are supposed to match too.
On your car the Gold IROC-Z stickers are out of place! Someone has changed them maybe.
On 5.7lt IROC's that badge I mentioned before should be on the LHSide rear bumper too. Not sure what is going on here. I have spent 5 hours researching stuff.

So I have some more questions now.

*Can you take a pic of the VIN on the windshield please, I'd like to see if it matches the Raric VIN plate.

*Are you able to scan your rego papers and email them? I'd like to see the engine number.

*The service parts ID list in the centre console glovebox should list an engine code, can you confirm if it's (B2L) (LB9) or (L98)

*The under hood sticker should list as 5.7lt aswell.

*Can you take a close up pic of the auto lever from the top please, a square shift **** indicates the 5.7, all others came with round *****.

All 5.7's came with a tacho that had yellow at 5000rpm & red at 5500rpm (as yours does)

When I was chatting to forum members they suggested it may have had an engine swap, that's why there's no 5.7 badge on the back, BUT I mentioned it does have the correct tacho, they said some crooks swap out parts to copy 5.7 IROC's for a better resale.

No accusations mind you, just conflicting information. (I had plans on changing the decals/stripes and mags to Gold anyhow.)

Does the car have it's 'Pass Key Anti Theft System' Key? 1989 was the 1st year for them.

I found that there was a delete option from the factory for the stripe/decals too, maybe someone decided to add them at a later date and got the colours wrong.

Something I haven't asked you about is the rego, I see it expires on Sept' 2012 but what's happening with your personalized plates?
I am yet to ring our Main Roads Dept' to find out what needs to be done with swapping to QLD plates and if I keep the rego to the expiry date (I have never bought privately before)


On my end, I'm sure I mentioned it, the bank said they'll get back to me on Tuesday.

I have checked out flights and they all get into Newcastle at 5.30pm. (I may stay overnight and catch you the following morning OR if it's not to late for you at 5.30pm get picked up and hopefully start the drive home)

I have asked for annual leave yesterday, the boss says he will let me know when I go in for nightshift tonight (Fri' 30th)

OK well I have been up all night, it's 5.10am now, I'm off to bed.


Cheers, Jason Lambert.

Here's the reply..............

Jason,

Shall take some pics for you, the car was repainted by the previous owner maybe 12-15 years ago (GM Flame Red). I have his then contact details, he was retiring at the time in 2003.
The gear **** is square and as far as I know the 89 model was the first to have the IROC stickers located to the rear of the door as previous models had them at the front.

I do have the car build sheet (Z28) and the original certificate of title from California, all match, and I did put my plates TON56Z on hold with the RTA yesterday, new rego number is CDY20Q.
The digit 8 in the VIN denotes L98 motor and yes it does have the VATS key to start up. The reason I purchased this car in 2003 was because it was the old 350 donk not the 305.
Will have to check about the service parts ID list in the consul?? I had a look at the spare yeaterday and the vin sticker is still located in the tyre hatch on the inner guard.

Send some pics soon.

Thanks Tony.

 

sticker he sent

 

I'll try again, ...........

 

So all sounds good, it is the 350, has been painted with incorrect stickers and badges. Suits me cause I'd like all new Black/Gold stripes anyway, and yes! Badge should be easy to find. (I'll ask to see if he knows why it was repainted, as original owner only had 17500 miles on her.)

Thanks again.

 

For the record, and not sure anyone has told you this bit here are RPO codes that decipher what color trim this car came with. Mine came with gold wheels and accents. The RPOs are located inside the glove box/console cover. If you get that you will know everything to get the outside correct. I don't think with grey interior it would have had gold accents. I saw the VIN on the first set of pictures and feel paint was the only thing not original. It is a great looking car and seems to just need some details changed.
Good luck with it,

Cheers

 

Thanks for the heads-up rarebmx, I'm flying down to see the car in a few days, I can't wait actually, good examples are rare to find herein Oz, the drive home is around 2000km, 1242 miles, so it will be a great run. Cheers to all for the help, I have learnt a little more.

 

That car, more than likely, had the gold decal and rear bumper emblem placed there because someone liked it. The rims, rear emblem, side emblems, IROC-Z decal and stripes should all match. Stickers and emblems are cheap, rims aren't. Chances are the car should have silver everything