My VIN in the dash reads '86 5.0, and the date on the door reads 11/85, so I'm fairly sure that it's an '86 car; however, the entire engine bay layout looks like an '88/'89 2.8L (according to Chilton, those were the only years with the battery on the passenger side and that split intake). Just out of curiosity, how much effort would it have been to swap the '86 out and put in the '88/'89? And is there any reason why they would have gone to the effort of swapping everything around (because that particular engine layout is so different from all the other years)? In particular, would the airboxes on that split intake just fit right into a car that started with the single passenger-side intake? I haven't had a chance to look at the engine bay of another Camaro, so I have no clue. We're just trying to figure out what the heck is going on with this car because so many things are so odd about it.

 

You'd probably get a better response if you posted this on the V6 forum. But to answer your question, a lot of ppl have swapped over to the dual snorkle intake cause it really is a lot better than the single side intake in the engine bay. It's not that hard to do, you just need the parts from a 2.8, which are pretty plentiful in the junkyards. That's assuming tho that a swap was actually done. As far as the battery, sometimes ppl will move them for one reason or another. But most importantly, DON'T BELIEVE CHILTONS. I tried to disable my fuel pump per their directions, and screwed up my fuel injection. Those books are only "half complete", cause they don't really research it in great detail. There were small changes made between model years that don't show up in there, so I wouldn't worry about it. But swapping that stuff over isn't too hard, so a previous owner may have done it.