Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

My Sprint's ID plate doesn't have my engine number filled-in on it, so I'm trying to find out where the number is stamped on the engine. As I look on page 150 of Miles Wilkins' book, there is a number shown on the back of the engine head... is this the engine number? (Mine is a Weber head.)

Gary
'71 Elan Sprint
Miami, Florida

The engine number should be stamped on a small protruding edge near the middle of the block, just below the head, on the carb side.

...on the horizontal face just above the engine mounting.

Matthew

Photos on this link, about 1/2 way down the page

http://www.lotuselan.net/forums/viewtop ... c&start=15

Thanks, much appreciated!

Gary
'71 Elan Sprint
Miami, Florida

I checked my engine tonight, and there are no numbers on that "shelf" above the motor mounts... Were there engines made without numbers? My ID plate has no engine number on it either.

Gary
'71 Elan Sprint
Miami, Florida

A lot of the Ford 1500 120E and 116E blocks I have have no number or a very lightly scratched number in the usual position above the RH engine mount. All the orginal Lotus blocks have a stamped Lotus number in this postion that I have seen.

Some of the Ford 1500 120E blocks have a number stamped just above the oil pressure tapping and some appear to have no visible number in either location.

My guess your block has been replaced at some time

cheers
Rohan

Hi Gary

With your Elan being a 71 it should have a 701 block, you will find the casting number on the left side of the block in back of the engine mount and above the pan rail. It should end in 6015. Towards the front on the same side(in behind the generator mounting), there should be some numbers/letteres that make up the casting date, that date should be before the Elan was built.

garyeanderson wrote:Hi Gary

With your Elan being a 71 it should have a 701 block, you will find the casting number on the left side of the block in back of the engine mount and above the pan rail. It should end in 6015. Towards the front on the same side(in behind the generator mounting), there should be some numbers/letteres that make up the casting date, that date should be before the Elan was built.

Gary, what you say here is correct in my case. the casting number is 701M6015A and the date number appears to be 1018 (October 18th?), although my unit number on my ID plate says that my car was produced September 22, 1971. (Again, no engine number was written on the factory ID plate...)

Gary
'71 Elan Sprint (RHD w/ Weber head)
Miami, Florida

The ford date casting is, first number cast is the year in the decade then month then day. As you already have the year of the first appearence of the varient in the part number, the 68 in 681, 69 in 691, and 70 in the case of the 701 block the 6015 is fords id for cylinder block the appendix is seen as a block height in the 711 blocks, don't know what it signifies with the twincam blocks.
If you have a 701 block I wouldn't worry too much about the original engine or not.

Gary

p.s. - the month can be a letter too

archigator wrote:
Gary, what you say here is correct in my case. the casting number is 701M6015A and the date number appears to be 1018 (October 18th?), although my unit number on my ID plate says that my car was produced September 22, 1971. (Again, no engine number was written on the factory ID plate...)

Gary
'71 Elan Sprint (RHD w/ Weber head)
Miami, Florida

I would say the 1018 breaks down as

1971 is the 1
0 is January, 1 February, 2 March 9 October ... I think L and M were used for November and December.
18 18th

so 1971 January 18th is my guess

garyeanderson wrote:
I would say the 1018 breaks down as 1971 is the 1
0 is January, 1 February, 2 March 9 October ... I think L and M were used for November and December.

18 18th
so 1971 January 18th is my guess

Thanks Gary. That's very interesting...

(The other) Gary
'71 Elan Sprint
Miami, Florida

Gary

If from the above you are saying your VIN is 7109220???E then, firstly, the 22 is a batch number, not the day.

Secondly, I assume your RHD FHC is an E varient (UK spec). If so then your car would most likely have an engine number between N24650 to N25150. It is difficult to pin down as the Big Valve was getting fitted into the +2 and Europa as well. No sequential numbering was used for the engines fitted to specific cars.

Tim

garyeanderson wrote:

archigator wrote:
Gary, what you say here is correct in my case. the casting number is 701M6015A and the date number appears to be 1018 (October 18th?), although my unit number on my ID plate says that my car was produced September 22, 1971. (Again, no engine number was written on the factory ID plate...)

Gary
'71 Elan Sprint (RHD w/ Weber head)
Miami, Florida

I would say the 1018 breaks down as

1971 is the 1
0 is January, 1 February, 2 March 9 October ... I think L and M were used for November and December.
18 18th

so 1971 January 18th is my guess

A couple of sites about date codes of U.S. Fords, both state letters A - ? for month codes. I don't know... need to look into it some more.

http://www.reincarnation-automotive.com ... ained.html

http://www.ford-y-block.com/fordpartnumbers.htm

garyeanderson wrote:

archigator wrote:
Gary, what you say here is correct in my case. the casting number is 701M6015A and the date number appears to be 1018 (October 18th?), although my unit number on my ID plate says that my car was produced September 22, 1971. (Again, no engine number was written on the factory ID plate...)

Gary
'71 Elan Sprint (RHD w/ Weber head)
Miami, Florida

I would say the 1018 breaks down as

1971 is the 1
0 is January, 1 February, 2 March 9 October ... I think L and M were used for November and December.
18 18th

so 1971 January 18th is my guess

Well I got the month code all wrong but I think I know what the 0 is in your date casting.