im goin to look at an 84 TA saturday and the guy says its an HO. how can i tell, would there be a letter in the VIN or something?

 

Yes, the VIN will have a G in the 8th position instead of an H.

 

In addition to that, you want to look for an electric fan and an 8k RPM tach.

 

The '84 HO cars got a lot bigger exhaust manifolds, the electric fan, bigger exhaust system (that was also stainless steel), flat top pistons (to raise comp. to 9.5:1), slightly larger valves in the same heads, the cam from the 1982 cross fire corvette, and that's pretty much it. That accounted for the difference between the regular LG4 305 and the L69 305 HO.

If it has a factory belt-driven fan, then it is a regular 305. The exhaust manifolds on the HO engines look much larger than most others, and they have larger down pipes and a larger pipe going back.

The vin will tell what was there from the factory, though. YOu can also look at the codes sheet under the console lid and look for L69.

 

The Trans Am's with the L69 H.O. engine also had a special air cleaner that used the hood for air intake. The air cleaner looks like a regular carb'd unit with the exception of a hole on the cover where it mates with the hood.

 

The LG4 T/As got that too. The service manual misstates it as a L69 only piece.

 

ok thank you for all the information!