I was just told from the person I bought the car from that they put a motor from a 96 state patrol car in it. Is there any differences in it and a regular Z28?

 

Yes,the cop motor has iron heads,he may have swapped the tin heads from the original motor though if he just needed a short block.

 

OK, would the iron heads be a good thing? What's the easiest way to find out what they are?

 

The Iron heads are about 50 lbs heavier than the aluminum heads. The cam that came in the caprice motors that had the iron heads was a milder cam but produced more torque. The aluminum heads are usually silver in color, well mine are, they don't rust like the cast iron heads.

 

Well crap! I'm gonna have to go check some stuff. That'll suck if its got the iron heads on it.

 

I just checked the number on the heads and they're the iron heads so I guess they just swapped everything except the intake? So im sure it has the milder cam too. So much for porting the stock heads, I don't think I want to spend all that on the iron heads. That's not what I wanted to find out! I guess they didn't know about it

 

more torque=good thing. get your tin heads, but keep the milder cam. it'll give you better takeoffs.

 

didnt the camaro patrol cars have the speed limiter taken out too?

 

I dont know the exact numbers off hand, but I believe you gain 5-10 ft lbs of torque but lose around 30 hp with the iron head setup. Personally I don't think its worth that little bit of torque. I just went through that with a motor I picked up.

 

I read one thing where they had 260 hp but didn't see any torque numbers. Anyone know what the difference is in the cam? Are the specs on the heads the same, just a different material?