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Engine tag I.D.

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Old Sep 16, 2001 | 06:56 AM
  #1  
bill ballinger's Avatar
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Engine tag I.D.

I have an engine I am trying to ID without tearing it down. The tag says:

390 66 6

5 K 380 S

It has C6TE-G heads, which from the word of a friend have the large early style ports and D-shaped chambers like the early heads. It has a 2V iron intake with the S on it. And when I got it, it has these tall Mercury valve covers that are shaped like 427 covers. They may not be right, the covers have been off because on the drivers side they got the first two bolts reversed, with the longer oil feed bolt in the front hole. They even put a flat washer under it but dang it still lacked 1/8 of pulling down, Whoops!

I am mainly wanting to nail down the CR and original application. I have a '67 Custom 500 2dr sedan (that has a 300 6 and C-4) we are building and I am thinking hmmm...


 
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Old Sep 16, 2001 | 08:54 AM
  #2  
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Engine tag I.D.

Bill, I think you are more versed on the FE than me, but there is one thing that I have learned, Ford did some weard things with their engines making it tuff to try to figger out.

John

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Old Sep 16, 2001 | 09:18 AM
  #3  
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390fe
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Engine tag I.D.

"I have an engine I am trying to ID without tearing it down."
A common mistake when dealing with FE's...
According to the book of Steve Christ, your heads are standard '66 352,390,410,428 heads with 71.2 to 74.2 cc chambers. About those intake ports... you will have to pull the manifold to verify the size. The book says that these heads could be the 2.26"x 1.34", but they may also be the 1.93"x 1.34". Chances are you have the big ports.
While block casting numbers are rather useless as one number can generally be found on more than one application, I'd like to know that you've verified the stroke with the old dowel through the plug hole trick. Good luck!
Jason Kendrick
1970 F100 Custom 390/C6
1978 F150 Ranger Lariat Supercab 460/C6
 
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Old Sep 16, 2001 | 09:50 AM
  #4  
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Engine tag I.D.

It is strange for sure, the tag is apparently missing the engine code letter.

I pulled the tag off of a '69 390 2V I have laying around and it says:

390 69 11

8 M Y 311 S

The code is "Y" 265hp 390 2V. It had dished pistons and 9.5 to 1 CR.

My tag from the engine I am trying to identify is missing the letter in that position.
 
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Old Sep 18, 2001 | 06:17 PM
  #5  
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Engine tag I.D.

It might not be missing a letter; it seems some tags have a letter in that position and some don't. The '66 TBird manual offers this example:
390 66 1
6 A 343 A
which states 390", model year '66, change level 1, year produced '66, month Jan., "engine code number".
However my '66 Merc 250 has this info:
352 66 6
6 A T 291 S
The engine designation for the 352 in my truck is "Y",so I'm inclined to think that the "T" and the "S" are not the engine identifiers we are used to seeing. Maybe someone knows what the four digit "engine code number" means.
Eric
 
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Old Sep 19, 2001 | 01:49 PM
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Engine tag I.D.

 
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