How to Identify a Ford Motor ~ Wiki

The Ford Motor Company has put identification number tags on some of its motors since the mid 1950s and on all of its motors since January of 1964. Included on these tags is such information as the month and year of production, the model year, the change level number and the CID (cubic inch displacement). Reading Ford motor tags should hopefully be easier for even a novice by following the guide below.

Steps

Finding the tag on a 6 cylinder engine

Locate the tag under coil attaching bolts.

Finding the tag on an 8 cylinder Engine

Locate the tag for most standard 8 cylinder Ford motors under coil attaching bolts.
Locate the tag for 8 cylinder 352 Ford motors under the dipstick-tube.
Locate the tag for 8 cylinder 330, 361 and 391 Ford motors under the heat indicator bulb.
Locate the tag for 8 cylinder 401, 477 and 534 Ford motors under the carburetor attaching stud.

Reading the tag

Read the 1st digit in the identification tag. This will be a letter. If the letter is a "B," it means that the engine was built in the 1950s. Each decade after that has its own succeeding letter; "C" designates the 1960s, "D" designates the 1970s and so on.
Read the 2nd digit in the Ford motor tag. It will be any numeral from "0" to "9," and it designates the year in the decade it was built.
Read the 3rd digit in the Ford engine number. This will be a letter, and it signifies the basic design of the vehicle as shown below.
- "A" - Generic full size engine
- "D" - Falcon
- "E" - Truck
- "F" - Foreign Trans-Am racing
- "G" - 1961 to 1967 Comet/1968 to 1976 Montenegro
- "H" - 1966 to 1982 Heavy truck
- "J" - Industrial Ford
- "L" - Lincoln
- "M" - Mercury
- "O" - 1967 to 1976 Ford Torino/all Ford Fairlane
- "S" - Thunderbird
- "T" - Truck
- "W" - Cougar
- "Y" - Meteor
- "Z" - Mustang
- "6" - Pantera
Read the 4th digit in the Ford engine number. It will always be an "E" to designate that it was designed by the Ford engine team.
Read the next 4 digits, which are the last digits in the motor number. These 4 numbers will always be between 6000 and 6898, which describes the part numbering of the generic engine assembly.