im looking into buying a 87 formula the owner of the car says that the car has a special corvette motor in it from the factory is this true? did gm put corvette motors into formulas and if so is it rare?

 

If its a Formula 350, then yea, it had basically the same 5.7 TPI motor the Corvette had.

But there is nothing special or rare about it, its pretty common. Don't get sucked in by the "Corvette motor" thing... just nod and smile, because that doesn't mean a whole lot.

 

I think there are more "Corvette Motors" out there than were ever even put in Corvettes.

 

and since tpi looks the same on a 305 also, some try to give you a 305 so do your homework and know the codes and what to look for when buying this special 350 tpi "corvette motor"

sounds like a formula 350.

https://www.thirdgen.org/newdesign/vin/

yeah its most likely a 350 tpi engine based off the vette engine but has iron head rather than aluminum heads and alittle bit different egr setup.



https://www.thirdgen.org/newdesign/tech/techdb.shtml

 

Another its got a Corvette engine in it, this story never ends. I can't wait until someone says my Corvette has this Hot Camaro 5.7 in there. Unknowing buyers will always bite for these lines.

 

if it's a 350, It is the same engine that was put into the corvettes, but it has cast iron heads and cast iron exhaust so the engine would have less HP the the vette engine.

The worst, it has a corvette this or that, on a third gen, that I've ever heard was the guy with an 87 Iroc-z vert that told me his car had a corvette sub-frame. I didn't even bother argueing with him

 

As soon as a seller say's Corvette Parts in the same sentence with a 3rd Gen Car....RUN and don't look back.

 

I love it when your looking at a tuned port car and people call it a LT1.

 

ive heard many stories on the lt1 in 3rd gens......ive heard 2 in the past month about how their friend had an 87 iroc with the factory lt1 vette motor and a 5-speed and a 87 iroc-z convertible with the 350 lt1 vette motor and 5-speed.

and get this.......when i first got my 91 z28 vert i actually had someone come up to me and ask me if it was one of those new SATURNS around mississippi you always hear crazy stuff......like this one guy was telling my wife his dream car was a 1960 camaro and another guy told my cousin he was gonna go buy him a 2003 Camaro......where do people come up with this **** and its crazy because their being serious

 

Yes they are correct, the Formula was availble with the 350 in 1987, the differences are the heads (as mentioned above) the exhaust manifolds were a bit more restrictive on the F-body, and the lack of the trim piece that hid much of the wires on top of the engine.

According to a Pontiac advertisement, there was only suposed to be 1500 Formula 350's made in 1987, but I think there were more than that, I did the math once and came up with 3562 Formula 350s...

John

 

I can't count how many times I have been told the car has a "corvette" engine in it. One guy argued with me that his IROC had a corvette engine. I than pointed out the accessory's on a corvette and the Fbody. He shut up pretty quick. Now one thing I will say. I was at a dealer in Irvine, CA. The guy said he had the build sheet showing the Corvette LT1. Now I looked at him and was like Yeah right, Than I looked at the accesorys. It was a corvette setup, and looked to be stock, but it so wasnt a stock Fbody setup... I guess some dealers would switch out things like that, but it still never came with a corvette engine from GM. Some people get conned when they buy their car that they believe it. I had a guy at autozone once tell me that he put a hypertech chip in, new spark plug wires, and "high performance" plugs, with a flowmaster catback exhaust and he honestly thought he had 50 more hp... lol funny stuff

PS the camaro I saw with the corvette LT1 wasz a 4th gen not a thirdgen.