What do these numbers mean on my 205 block?

[Arya2.0S]

Getting ready to put a reconditioned 205 block in my Capri, nothing fancy, no 2.1 conversion as much as id like to (cant afford it), just a reconditioned 2.0 litre with standard head and cam, gonna put my old twin choke weber on it and 4 into one exhaust manifold on it as well, all of which is already on the car and in daily use.

Only slightly worried as its come out of a Transit, so theres the faint possibility its a low compression model based on my research (is this ture?), though i'm told since it was reconditioned recently its highly unlikely it has low compression pistons as you apparently cant buy them anymore, plus the cam it has in it doesn't have the 3 holes in it that it needs for low compression pistons or something like that (i dont remember exactly what was said, im no mechanic, hence why im trying to educate myself on the matter).

The data on wikipedia which identifies which engine you have doesn't correspond with the engine numbers i have however, so i cant tell what i might possibly have as nothing matches up, or im missing entire sequences of numbers entirely according to their codex.

Can anyone here identify what i might have?

The only numbers i could find are as follows:

2222 8b26 stamped on the metal around the distributor.

Theres a "N4" stamped on the lug that bolts on to the gearbox bell housing.

And on the right hand side of the engine under the exhaust ports are:

35020 and 85HM6015BB

If im missing something thats required to identify this then i apologise, engines and mechanics really arent my forte, hence why im trying to learn

Any help in trying to identify what i might have will be greatly appreciated!

[Mc Tool]

You can still get low comp pistons ............. as I discovered when buying a engine kit from the states ( excellent value for money ) . when I put the thing together I noticed that the pistons didn't come to the top of the bore ........ planed 70 thou off the block for 9.75:1 . I have a standard cam and weber dgav , nothing special done porting wise and I set my cam up so the intake lobe centre angle is 108 deg atdc ( Burton power pulley ). The motor starts to run out of puff at about 5500rpm but it gets 40mpg without trying , and will pull 5th ( t9 ) from 1200rpm and can pass at open road speeds without changing down . Probly the easiest way to tell the comp ratio is to see how far up the bore the piston comes , hi comp should see the piston come right up to the top and lo comp will be a couple of mm down the bore at tdc . Unless your making a hi performance motor the numbers on the block don't mean much . 205 blocks are the ducks nuts ( apparently ) but there have been some good fast motors built on "ordinary" blocks

[fordperv]

The n4 on the block denotes that it was for a fuel injection and going from that and the casting number id say its originally from a sierra/granada and the 4 numbers by the distributor denote the bore size on each cylinder they are graded from 1-4 but if its been re bored this is irrelevant now, might be worth checking if it has an injection head

[Arya2.0S]

The n4 on the block denotes that it was for a fuel injection and going from that and the casting number id say its originally from a sierra/granada and the 4 numbers by the distributor denote the bore size on each cylinder they are graded from 1-4 but if its been re bored this is irrelevant now, might be worth checking if it has an injection head

It's not an injection head because it had a carburettor on it with an old Ford inlet manifold. It does take the later wider rocker cover as I've taken that off to paint it so had to by a new gasket and had to make sure I got the right one as there's two different types isn't there? Not planning on taking the head off.

[SmokeEm]

Injection heads have egg shaped inlet ports.

[Arya2.0S]

Injection heads have egg shaped inlet ports.

Yep thats right, found that out recently too when i had to buy a new inlet manifold gasket.

Found out today it has a Camtec ZC369C cam in it, which is apparently a standard 2.0 cam (which has hardly any wear on it too by the looks of it), so i guess its not a low compression model since they had 1.6 cams in them by all accounts? Would they have put a 2.0 cam if it still had low compression pistons? Not sure why they'd go through all the trouble of doing a full recondition of the engine and put low compression pistons back in but upgrade the cam to the 2.0ltr one?

Guess ultimately we wont know for sure until i get the engine in my car and drive it, anythings gotta be better than what i have now which is pretty much on its last legs.

Even if it is a low comp engine, wont take much in the future to convert it, all id need is a set of pistons and rings, right?

[Not_Anumber]

It would probably be cheaper to have the top of the block planed to restore the compression rather than replace the pistons. The low compression pistons would then be sitting at the top of the block in the way high compression pistons are designed to do. The only downside would be you would need to stick with low compression pistons on that block for any subsequent rebuild, but how often is that likely to be needed.

From your location I would suggest giving someone such as Smiths Engines in Basildon a call for a price for planing the top of the block. They are pretty good at basic engineering jobs like this + line boring etc. Haggle on price and offer cash.

[Mc Tool]

If its anything like mine you would need to take around 70 thou off the block ( nearly 2mm ) and this will significantly retard your cam timing .... costing you some bottom end power . You would need to factor in the cost of an adjustable cam pulley to bring it right and the hassle involved in setting up the cam timing ...... not hard to do

[Arya2.0S]

Good news, got the engine fitted today and it's definitely not low compression. It's fast AF, much faster and higher revving than my old 20 block that we just took out that's for sure so that's good.
No smoke, no lumpy running, lots of power, loves to rev Infact I had to catch myself earlier as before I knew it I was up to 60mph when I shouldn't have been lol.
Only issue is it seems tappety, but only during tickover, while driving you can't hear the tapping as it seems to go away and compared to my old engine where you could here them while driving it's nice and smooth, it's only during tickover when it sounds a bit rough however the actual running seems fine, just noisy until you get out on the road.
Could it be the oil? I was told by the motor factors to put 15/40 in it so that's what we did.
Might it be a dodgy follower or valves need adjusting?
This is a reconditioned engine so all the components should be relatively new, could something need adjusting?

[fordperv]

Id check the follower gaps before messing about with anything else

[Arya2.0S]

Id check the follower gaps before messing about with anything else

How do I do that? Figured it's worth making sure the spray bar isn't blocked aswell.

[fordperv]

Its worth checking but with you saying its a recent rebuild im presuming its been changed or inspected then, to save me boring the life out of you with just words which may confuse, heres a link to someone elses thread with step by step pictures which i thought would be useful to you

http://www.godspeed.me/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=735

I hope this helps

[Arya2.0S]

Its worth checking but with you saying its a recent rebuild im presuming its been changed or inspected then, to save me boring the life out of you with just words which may confuse, heres a link to someone elses thread with step by step pictures which i thought would be useful to you

http://www.godspeed.me/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=735

I hope this helps

Perfect!!

That'll help immensely, thanks a million!

Now let's just hope it fixes the problem. I'll report back when I've done it.