brent coddington

Hello everyone, forgive me if this isn't the most adequate forum subject for this question, however I wanted to find out if there was a way to crunch some numbers to see if my 2002 Z28 Camaro has the original engine. The reason I ask, is because I recently purchased this car for $7500, with 121K miles on the clock. The reason I purchased is due to the fact that the engine bay was extremely clean and fresh, and no, i'm not talking about a little armor-all on the plastic parts, I mean no greese or grime down under the intake or on the heads. The bay is immaculate. Also, upon changing my spark plugs, I saw written in grease pen on the oil pan "Oct 06". Obviously, this could mean any number of things, most probably that the oil pan was simply replaced with another from a junk yard. I've driven this car 1300 miles sense I've owned it, which included a long road trip. I kept a close eye on oil levels, and with 5w30 synthetic, it didn't burn a drop which I would expect from a higher mileage engine. Also, gas mileage was an impressive 29mpg highway. My apologies for the length of this post, but does anyone know if there is a way to cross reference the cars VIN, with the casting number on the block to verify if this engine is original? I ran a CarFax on this car, and sometimes those will say if the engine has been replaced, however obviously this one did not. Thanks again everyone.

Z-Convert

My 98 Z28 has 183,xxx on it and it burns no oil either. What little it loses is through a seeping pan gasket that I don't want to spend the $$$ to fix. It also gets 17mpg around town and 27mpg at 80mph on the hiway (it's an M6).

My 02 Z28 is superclean top to bottom and fore to aft because I keep it that way.

AFAIK, late model engines do not have the VIN stamped on them anywhere like older high performance Muscle cars did.

brent coddington

I am glad to hear that these motors are so robust, as this is my first F body car. However, this isn't my first car. I suppose it would require actually seeing my car to truly express what I am talking about when i say clean. I'm not talking about 183k clean. I'm talking 20k clean, there is a difference. I'm aware that these motors don't have the VIN on them. They stopped that in what, early 80's? I'm asking where the casting numbers are on these motors, as I have found a source to decode the year, build location, and factory sequence. I suppose I'll spend some time with a mirror and Google images to find it.

Conrad

iTrader: (20)

I'd have to say the block # is on the driver side on the backside. Good luck with your search.

brent coddington

Is that right? I had hoped it wasn't on the rear... It'll be hard to see! Thanks for your input.

Z-Convert

Also, about 25% of 2002 F-bodies got an LS6 block with LS1 internals (cam) and heads (241's) as they had a shortage of blocks during the build.

Mind you this is the block ONLY! It's not an LS6 engine. The difference between the LS1 and LS6 block is the LS6 block is a "window" block which allows for the easier equalization of presure between the main webs. This really only makes a difference at high RPM's.

The casting number of the block is in the same location as all Chevy V8's have been since 1955: Lefthand side of the top of the block in front of the tranny bellhousing.

FWIW, my 02 has only 50,xxx miles on it and I've put 21,xxx of those miles on it...