I'm going to look at a 92 RS with the 305. It has 90 k miles and is supposed to be a 25th aniversary heritage white w/ red.
The main question is about overheating -the guy bought the car from his brother and it had developed overheating problems.
They replaced the radiator and fan and still had some problems. They removed the AC condensor and also replaced the thermostat, but also drilled 4 small holes in the thermostat -it now runs cool enough.
Is this as he said, "a common problem" with the 3rd generation camaro's running hot?
Is this a deal breaker?
He said that the body and interior are great -I also know that I probably would want to hook up the AC.
Regarding the Heritage part -he said somthing about having an 8 at some position in the VIN indicates that it is something like # 7,000 + ?
Thanks, Glen

 

its almost 20 years old - yes they overheat.
look for moisture - discoloration around the heads, or the thermostat manifold. look for moisture at the connection where the hose goes into the water pump - they not only get loose, the way they are made when you tighten them down they tend to crack at the connection - where you cant see it.
put on a pressure gage - see if you are losing pressure.
and your price is too hight unless it is perfect.

 

He didnt mention a price Just a # for the car

These cars were made to run up to the 245* mark. The stock e-fan doesnt come on until 220*(?) then around 240-245*(?) for the second (if it has a dual fan setup). So in all aspects if the car runs around 200* or so thats fine, if its warm or has bad air circulation to the radiator (no air dam) then it will heat up to over 200*'s. The best (from what i have seen) to run these cars at stock is around 200* because that will best atomize the air/fuel for the best mixture or something like that. I plan to have mine running around the 180-190 mark, as its still fairly stock.

P.S. If the AC was removed and improperly then it will be hard having the AC reinstalled I think. But thats just me and I hate AC. My body naturally cools itself.

 

Thanks for the feedback -the asking price is $ 2,800.00 or BO. With 90k miles is this a reasonable price? The body looked pretty good, with some nicks/ dings, but it is white -definitely needed a wax job and the stripes were peeling.
Interior is red and in pretty good shape, had the 25th aniversary badging, decent under side, drove, handled and braked good. This is a no T top car, which may not be a bad thing. Pretty much stock, with original rims.
Thanks, Glen

 

Sounds good, just need to verify the 25th anniversary. This will help a little. But I don't know how to truly verify if it is a 25th.

https://www.thirdgen.org/1992-chevy-camaro

 

The price is reasonable, personally I would offer 2500, as I bought my 92 RS 305 LO3 in 1998 for $6k with 65000 miles on it.

The best upgrade done to my cooling system to date was to ditch the single electric fan for dual Hayden "s" blade shrouded fans, will be fabricating a full shroud with mounting provisions for the fans when time allows. I wired them in to the factory fan switch and used a standard 5 pin relay to run the 2 fans, did this to prevent overloading the stock fan circuit.

I'll try to flesh out my profile tomorrow and post some pictures when I get home this weekend.

 

To answer your original question, no, he's lying. I mean, c'mon, he's trying to offload a car for a lot of money onto an unsuspecting buyer!

Our cars can run cool all day, IF properly maintained.

When I bought mine, it would overheat within 10 minutes. The previous owner told me it was "a common problem" with 3rdgens. But the previous owner was also an idiot.
I took apart the cooling system, cleaned it, backflushed it, got all the "waterwetter" c*ap out of it, cleaned the radiator and A/C condender that were full of leaves and bugs and the car runs cool even on a 115-degree day here in hot Texas.

So to summarize: I wouldn't consider it a deal breaker, it's not hard to clean the cooling system and get it cooling again. And a new water pump might not be a bad idea if you're gonna work on the engine anyway.
And yes, he's lying. If he says that the dinky 305 have a "common problem" with cooling, how come the 350's in our cars don't overheat?

Lou

 

When I bought my car it ran around 220 on the highway, in town it would quickly go to 260, tried cleaning the outside front of the radiator, had it rodded out, made sure nothing was clogging the radiator or condenser core, nothing worked, replaced the fan motor, swapped the fan switch to the one for I believe is for an 87 Grand National (170 degree turn on), still no luck. Radiator core split and a side tank cracked, so itwas replaced with a factory type replacement from Advance Auto Parts. So I learned to deal with it and avoid congested traffic and prolonged driving under 45mph. Then I swapped out the single fan that came in the LO3's for a set of high flow fans, and the problem has miraculously been fixed. You guys with the dual fan TPI cars have a better setup than the RS's.

Gotta run.

 

Thanks to everyone for the feedback. I ended up passing on the car...which is what my gut told me. I have looked at about 4-5 more that I passed on, either too many miles, too beat up interior, too much rust, total crap body etc.
But, I will get a 3rd generation and will be looking at an 86 iroc (305)Friday!
Glen

 

Good luck, 3rd Gens are very undervalued and under-appreciated by the majority of the general public, hope you find a nice one for a good price.