just bought a 302 and aod cheap trying to find approx year of engine. i looked for the numbers at the starter location but there are none. all i've found on the block is 5.0L cast into the top in the lifter valley what year did they do this ?
look all over the engine and trans for "engineering numbers" they will start with a 4 character section then a 5 digit number and a letter or two. The first digit is the decade E = 1980 second digit is the last digit of the year E4 = 1984 The newest number is probably what year the thing was made.
Squirrel is absolutely correct, but keep in mind that at the end of the production run for these motors, most of the development work had been done some years before, so the casting numbers might reflect years earlier than the actual production. For example, they used E7 heads for quite a number of years. If it has an AOD instead of an AODE, that should make it a pre-94 (I think).
Whatever the last year design parts were used, is how new the engine design is....so if all the numbers are from 1987 and it was made in 1989 you can treat it as an 87, right? If you want to find out for sure when it was made, you can look at the date codes. Ford casting date codes have a number, letter, and one or two digit number. first number is last digit of the year, letter is the month (a=jan, b=feb, c=march etc), last digits are day of month. example 6 F 22 would mean 1986 (or 1976) June 22nd.
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