Deciphering Your Ford Engine's ID Tag All Ford engines built from early Jan. '64-up include an engine identification tag. This tag describes CID (cubic inch displacement), model year, year and month of production (the letter 'I' was not used to prevent confusing it with the number '1'), and the change level number.

Learn to read the ID tag appropriately. Once you've found the identification tag, you need to know how to read it to get the right information. Luckily, the tags are simple to breakdown. From upper left to bottom right:

Ford 302 Engine Serial Number Decoder Code

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Ford 302 Engine Serial Number Decoder Download

• Cubic Inch Displacement (CID): The first three numbers, found in the upper left corner, tell you the size of the engine.
• Manufacturing Plant: The single letter to the right of the CID is where the engine was built. 'C' is for Cleveland, 'E' is for Ensite, Canada, and 'W' is for Windsor, Canada.
• Year: The next two numbers are for the year the engine was built. 70, for example, would mean it was made in 1970.
• Month Built: This hyphenated number and letter correspond to the month. The months are in alphabetical order, so A = January and M = December. There is no 'i' so people don't confuse it the number 1. 0-A would mean January 1970, 5-C March 1975, etc. (assuming the year code is for the 70's).
• Engine Code Number: This final 3-digit number is the ID of your particular engine. You can look up this code online to see the specs of your current engine.^[5]