On my J-Spec? It doesn't have a metal plate on the Front Cover.

Do JDM Motor's do this differently?

 

maybe it was grinded off for some reason to hide the true identity of the engine... I remember a thread a long while back about numbers/letters on the engine blocks.

 

The only engines that have a metal plate on the front cover are mazda remans, and they only started doing this recently, say within the last 3 years or so. I have seen a few remans so I know this. Usually the reman will also have a sticker on the oilpan with a mazda part number, though it comes off over time.

Some of the older remans, (dont know when the cutoff date was) did not have any tags, but did have the oilpan sticker. I just took one apart last night; it was from a junkyard car that sat a minimum of 2 years, probably more, with no hood. The engine was squeaky clean, but rusted. Upon disassembly, I found about 3lb of rust material from the intake being open and no hood on the car (intercooler was off). Anyway, it was obviously a reman because

a) it had the sticker on the oilpan
b) it had BRAND NEW rotorhousings with no scratches anywhere
c) the rotors were shiny and had no carbon, only rust
d) the apex seal small corner piece was still almost a perfect point at the tip, which is how they come new.
e) the tension bolts and some other parts had red coloration on them.

ON all original rotary engines there are no numbers on the engine other than a (random) stamping on the front iron and mazda 13B/12A/whatever on the rotorhousings. Theyre not like a lot of other engines where you can check numbers to find out year/model/etc. information about the car they came from.

 

"ON all original rotary engines there are no numbers on the engine other than a (random) stamping on the front iron and mazda 13B/12A/whatever on the rotorhousings. Theyre not like a lot of other engines where you can check numbers to find out year/model/etc. information about the car they came from."

Beg to differ, all 20B's are serialized with an Alpha-Numeric Code ie: D659

You did say ALL Rotary Engines

 

I dont get a lot of 20B's and have never noticed. WHere is this code?

Oh, yeah, this from the man who supposedly gets 20B's and/or cosmo motors for less than $1200...

 

Yep just got a Cosmo 13BRE and a 20B last week.

 

Okay. What about the little sticker under the CAS? Although I don't have the J-Spec present, I do remember seeing some numbers, of some sort, on the Rotor Housings.

With this to my avail, can I track down what year, model, etc? Is It limited as to what I can findout about this Motor? What Is It?

 

Just like everyone else, with a rotary you're stuck comparing differences between models adn years to find out what the engine is. All 13B engines have rotorhousings that say 13B MAZDA, and that's about the only identifying factor on the whole engine as far as lettering. The rest is comparing things like ports, manifolds, wiring, and other minor casting differences that only an experienced eye can spot.

This is why you have so many people getting used engines or jspecs and not knowing what year/model they came from until it is too late. Then, that causes all the "can I swap an s4 into an s5" threads to arise.

 

by the 20B:

 

Nice!

Well, I knew I had a s5 one but would like to have known further Info. Oh well.