Find age of engine

[JJHStang]

I know my 71 Mach 1 came with a 302.
Someone replaced with a 351 Windsor. I would like to know how old the engine is.
Someone told me to remove the starter and there should be numbers that I can use to search for engine information.
Two us us have tried to remove the starter which doesn’t look to hard to do. We removed the bolts and tried pulling on the starter
to get it loose no luck. I’m going to try and pry it off but don’t want to damage it or anything else.

Is there any other place on the engine to find the numbers or info about the engine?

 

[giantpune]

The 351 windsor should have the stamps in the same location as here. The First one will give you a hint at the year. https://7173mustangs.com/threads/identifying-motor-type.46355/

Your starter should just wiggle right on out of there if you got the mounting bolts out. You can try to rotate it and wiggle.

I was able to snake a camera down and take pictures of my casting numbers on 302 and 351w blocks with it still fully installed in the car. The camera fits between the starter/headers and the block. You really are just looking for the first couple digits. The letter and number at the beginning tell you the year. D1 would be a 1971 casting.

There are casting numbers on the intake (visible from above) and on the heads (visible with the valve covers removed). The deck height changed around 1974. Then a decade or 2 later, they changed to roller lifters. If you have a roller block, its most likely a later one unless somebody converted an early one.

 

[mjlan]

The area of the block behind the starter will tell you the casting number of the block (this is the engineering number, so when Ford released that design iteration of the part) and the casting date (so, obviously when it was cast).

Once you know when the design was released and when the block was cast you can look for the engine assembly stamp which will tell you when the Windsor engine plant built the engine. I am not that well versed on small blocks, and would have to assume that the location is consistent among them because they were all built at the same plant. A quick google turned up this forum post with pictures so it should be helpful.

https://www.concoursmustang.com/forum/index.php?topic=24130.0

Keep in mind that finding the block information is great, but you will need to do more detetive work to convince yourself that nobody has gotten into the engine since it was built and changed anything!

If you post up some clear and detailed pictures here I'm sure the collective can come up with a pretty good idea of what you have.