Suggestions on an '84 Camaro

A friend of mine is offering $500 for a 1984 Camaro (4 cylindar), and I'd like some suggestions as to its reliability, performance, maintnence cost/availability, etc. Here are some base specs:

- 5-speed manual 4 cylindar engine,
- Air conditioning,
- AM/FM works,
- 200,000 miles on it,
- New paint job (but ugly, hehehe)
- One new door installed

The owner said he'd driven it for 5 years without it once breaking down on him, but I'd like others' opinions as well. Anyone?

~Snowlock

Just warning you, Camaro's are heavy cars, and performance just isn't gonna be there, the 4 cyl is weak, because of the weight. If u wanna engine swap or something, you should change your tranny to auto, I have heard nothing but bad things about the manual tranny's on high performance camaro's. My friend had an 88 Z28 with the 305 and 5 spd stick, he modded out his 305 and he ruined the tranny, and it wasn't because he was hard on it, he is really good on stick. I had auto, because my IROC originally had the 350 TPI in it, and it was auto. So I just quick shifted it.

I bent the 5th/6th shift fork in my M6 powershifting, scared the hell out of me. Had no use of 5th gear at all, the other five were fine though. Replaced under warranty.

I say you should get it, save your money, and put at 383 stroker in it. My bud has an 89 GTA with on in it, and it's badass. I've been very impressed with that car. You could always go a newer engine swap, but that would be much more costly. The only reason I say this is because the engine has 200K on it. That's quite alot, so I wouldn't expect much out of it.