I have a 83 Z28 that I am restoring. The car had gone through a very nice repaint at some point in its life but am not sure how exact they were with keeping it original. Three questions: #1) On a Briar brown car what color should the ground fx be? Silver or gray? #2) should the wheels be silver or gray? #3) The color of the Z28 badge on the rear bumper was the three shade brown, is this correct or should it be charcoal/ silver? The rockers where charcoal. Is this also correct. I would guess drew would be good to answer this seeing you had this year and color but anyone with any factual knowledge please let me know so I can do this right! Thanks, Matt

 

Your best bet would be to check the body trim tag. Its a stamped metal plate on top of the radiator support. That tag should tell you the upper and lower colors, and trim colors. If you don't have a Chiltons or a Helms to look them up just post em here, i've got the chiltons next to my monitor.

 

D 05c 1FP87 N 164304
67C 67L 67U E
AR9
Z28 D80
113880 467866

What ever this means I don't know but the body shop where I work was baffled as to what the proper lower coloer should be.

 

Here goes, I haven't crunched one of these since 1995 and then I didn't care.

D 05c 1FP87 N 164304
67C 67L 67U E
AR9
Z28 D80
113880 467866

D - model year (1983)
05c - Time build code
1FP87 - 1 is the division (chevy), F is the body type (fbody), P restraint system (passive), 87 is body style (2 dr hatchback)

N is assembly plant (Norwood)
164304 is the Unit Number
67C is the body color (trim?)
67L is the body color (lower)
67U is the body color (upper)
E is the paint type (not sure)

AR9 is your trim combination
Z28 is of course Z28
D80 is SPOILER, RR END PNL

113880 and 467866 are mysteries, they aren't covered in my resources.

The 67's are you paint colors, the 113880 and 467866 might be trim options, or serial numbers, I dont' know. A 1983 Camaro shop manual may have this, also the owners manual might...
I think I might still have the manual from my 83 down in the garage, I'll go check after I post this.

 

found my 83 owners manual. Luckily it was in my desk which I moved over here to store the other day. All my other reference material (minus camaro chiltons) is in a box at my apt.
However, there wasn't anything in the owners manual on the body tag. There might be someplace online that you could decode the rest, otherwise I'd try to find a 83 camaro shop manual.

 

What I am trying to figure out is what is the lower and trim color on this car I know it says 67 but for this year it is Briar Brown upper. What is 67 lower or trim? There has to be some way of telling the standard trim and lower color on this car. I doubt gm had multiple lower colors for one paint color what it was is what it is. I may be wrong but that seems to make sense to me. Does it list anywhere what the 67 lower and trim colors are? Thanks, Matt

 

67 is your color code... according to that all the paint was the same color. I'm not sure about the trim and GFX color, nothing in my resources indicates that information from the trim tag... Its hard to say what color the trim should be.

 

What is your interior color? Your gfx color should be determined by that. If it is grey or black then I would say your gfx were definately silver. If it is tan then gold gfx. Any other color of interior and it'll start getting a bit more difficult. Silver gfx would have had the brown emblems, not sure about gold gfx. I don't have a sales brochure or other info in front of me, so I am trying to remember from memory. I do know that both colors of gfx were available.

 

I unpacked the rest of my library last night, I'm still missing a few pieces, but the 67C is for Dark Brown Custom Cloth interior.

If the GFX color is on that plate its either 113880 or 467866 but all my info suggests those are just random numbers used by the factory during assembly.

 

Here goes, the car as it stands now is: 83 Z28 Briar brown, Dark brown interior and as far as I can tell silver gfx. They where spray painted black but some chips came off the air dam and rear bumper. The wheels I can not tell because graffiti remover strips to much off. It had on the car charcoal/gray rocker emblems and a brown Z28 logo on the back bumper odd. The best the guy at the body shop could come up with in the computer was smoke gray??? But when he pulled the color up it was silver??? I have been told that this car should be silver but I want to be 100% sure because of the money I am putting into this car to make it brand new. I would assume the logos are correct seeing gm has no listing on a brown rocker logo and what other car besides a 82-83 Briar brown Z28 would get a brown Z28 bumper logo. I am baffled at this point.

 

well right now you post on a board with some of the most critical people in the world when it comes to original equipment. If we can't tell you what color the trim should be Id say imagine it gold and imagine it silver and go with whichever you like. Keep in mind the brown badges won't be easy to find if you need to replace them, and gold in general looks tacky on these cars. Either way, its not that difficult to repaint GFX... they do come off the car. Wish there was something that would say one way or the other. Maybe a dealer order sheet from 83.

 

I do know that that side emblems were available in brown when original. A friend of mine in college had a briar brown Z with silver gfx and brown emblems, kind of like what you are saying you have. He had a brown interior also. I am pretty sure the emblems were also keyed to the interior. If you'd had a grey interior, you'd probably have grey emblems. Like Drew said, if we can't tell you for sure, then who is going to know (and if they do, then the more power to you in the end). Either way, emblems can be easily be changed later if you find out you put the wrong color on your car. Any chance you could locate previous owners?

Brown side emblems might be hard or impossible to find, but if that is the color you want, you could make your own. You'd have to cut out a piece of plastic or aluminum to shape, paint on the logo, seperate the clear plastic from the logo on a spare set you have, polish the clear plastic while apart, glue the plastic to the logo you painted, and attach to the backing plate. You have a rear emblem you can use for matching the paint, but be careful, you'll probably need to reuse your existing bumper emblem.

Good luck, and lets see pics when your Z is done

 

The thing is I have to imagine this car was and is still how it came from the factory. I did some work with a knife on all gfx panel today adn then used a D/A sander to get more exact. Every single gfx panels first coat was silver!!! I also played with the brown paint and find both layers so it was done good and original. They even painted the headlight pockets black. The original owner I am guessing is the one who did this because they had it serviced at the dealer. I have found countless ac delco parts and dealer tags on replacement parts, even down to the radiator/ hood latch support cover! Now my other two issues: Rims gray or silver??? second of all, if they went through the trouble of painting the headlight pockets why would they put the wrong logos on? Plus I work for a dealer and the parts manager and I couldn't find brown rocker logos in the computer ? Not even discontinued??? Does the side charcoal and brown bumper logo work? Or do I need to fine a wrecked 83 for a logo that doesn't exist??? B/C a 82 didn't have a dark brown interior and 84 didn't have Briar brown? Any thoughts??? I have charcoal sides coming and fighting to get a new brown rear logo.

 

The rear logo is charcoal/ silver I went out side peeled the rear logo off the car and went to town wet sanding and compounding and after I realized someonesrayed some brown paint over the logo and b/c of the shades it went over it gave that fade look. They the cleared it and it looked like the three shade brown but it's NOT. I then got rid of that very thin coat and exposed a perfect Charcoal/silver Z28 logo! That answers why the sides where silver! so now to get Charcoal/silver on the back too!!!! i am happier than anyone can imagine right now! Any thoughts on the rims though gray or silver???

 

Rims are the same color as the GFX.

 

I dug out my old photo albums, and found a picture that had my friends '83 in it. My memory was faded I guess, because his gfx were gold, and the emblems were a darker color (hard to make out in the pic if they are brown or a dark gold). The pic is from '84, and if I can make it to my parents tomorrow, I'll scan it and post it here for you. Only part of the car is in the pic, as that wasn't the subject of it. Glad you were able to figure it out!

 

Hi. I am the original owner of a 1983 Camaro Z28. Drove it off the car carrier when I worked at the dealer. Briar Brown . I am currently restoring it. ALL original, never been repainted. I might be able to give you some info

 

Welcome to the site!

This thread is from 2001 and the guy you responded to hasn’t been on the site since 2005.

 

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Post some pictures please. of the car, vin tag, engine bay ect.

 

It's not the L03. That engine wasn't introduced until 88. The engine character in the VIN, H, says it is (or was, anyway) the LG4; the low-output carbed 305. The L03 replaced the LG4 as the base option V8 engine. There were IROCs in 86 that came with the LG4, so it's not impossible that it is one of those.

There's not all that much different about the IROC package that's visible, besides the various body trim. About the only obvious thing would be the "wonderbar" on the front. This is a tubular brace that bolts under the sway bar bushings. If your car has that, it's most likely an IROC.

FYI, IROC stands for the International Race Of Champions. That was an exhibition race series that featured drivers from various actual racing disciplines such as NASCAR, F1, SCCA, Indy, etc., driving identically prepared race cars mostly on the largest American oval tracks, about 5 or 6 races a year if memory serves. The series licensed its name to various manufacturers over the years, and the mfrs could adorn their product with it. Originally part of the license fee involved the mfr providing support (body panels and such) to make the cars, which were not the stock chassis at all, look like their products. Porsche licensed it in the late 70s - early 80s; then Chevrolet had the contract from 84 to 90, and produced the cars like ours with those badges starting in the 85 model year and continuing up to the termination of the contract at the end of calendar 1989, such that there are IROC Camaros up through early production 90 model year; then Dodge bought it and connected it to their Mitsubishi thing I can't recall the name of; then its popularity sort of fell off and nobody was willing to pay for it, and the series bought Firebird parts for the last few years in the late 90s until it shut down.

Not sure what you're asking about.

 

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That's not an engine from 86. It's a transplant from a later model. 88 or newer.

Still not sure what you're asking about. What do you want to know?

 

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Sorry, I made a mistake with the forum