Confirming Engine Year

So I picked up a 85 TC kid said the engine was out of a 87-88. It does have the IHI turbo and top mount cooler. So is the def at 87-88 motor or is there another way to tell what I have? I found out it has a blown head gasket I believe so I'm going to take it apart and want to make sure I get the right gasket kit. There seems to be a cut off around mid 86-87. Thanks guys

More than likely is but start looking for casting numbers on parts. For example if the exhaust manifold number starts with E6 the theres another parts of a newer one.

You should also be able to see numbers on the alternator bracket, oil pan, and intake

Ill look into those parts. I think ill do it the easy way and check that oil pan since I see those are different. So now that I'm collecting parts to get here back and ready to go what else do I need?
-Head set, oil pan gasket, timing gaskets, thermostat, water pump, timing kit, upper and lower hoses, head bolts (looking into ARP), I have all the basic tune up stuff. Plugs, wires, cap, rotor, filters, pcv valve. I have a ported out e6 manifold, and plan on having the head surfaced and cleaned up. What am I'm forgetting? Ill start on here once I get my B2200 back together and out of the drive.

There is a pad on passenger side of block approx midway height and 3/4 or so toward the rear of engine that will have the year, plant and last consecutive six of the VIN of original vehicle...

What's important here is the first two digits which will be letters, HH for '87 & JH for '88... The six numbers are meaningless as long as they don't match your car(which would mean orig engine), in that case the letters should be FH or maybe FA...

The second digit would only be important if it were something different than H as that's Lorain assembly plant code... For the '85 earlier it could be A(Atlanta) but beginning '86 all T-Bird Cougar production was shifted to Lorain, as Atlanta was busy cranking out Taurus...

Another possibility the engine came from a SVO Stang, so letters could be GF for in this case 1986(G) & Dearborn Assembly(F), of course there were '84 & '85 SVO as well...

There, more than anyone ever wanted to know...

What block you have really doesn't matter. What matters is what year the main caps and oil pan came from. The gasket sets are going to be 98% the same. In a bottom end gasket set, the only gasket that would be different is the oil pan gasket, between an '85 and an '87-'88 motor. There's an easy way to tell which oil pan you have without having to take anything apart, though.

Just take a look at the bolts at the front of the oil pan. If there are three bolts at the front corners, get a gasket set for an '85 or '86. If there are two, get an '87-'88 gasket set. I took a couple photos for illustration. Note the red circled area:
[Image: LeH4kSn.jpg]

In the top photo is an '85 and an'86 oil pan that have been collecting dust/rust on my shelf for years. The bottom photo is the '87 oil pan that's on my car.

I have an '86. Way back in the early 2000's I bought a gasket set for it when I pulled the motor. When I put the car back together 3+ years ago I used a different motor which came out of an '87. Every single gasket from my '86 gasket set fit except the oil pan gasket. I won't get in to the differences in the main caps/pans here, but like I stated previously, that's the only difference in the gasket set.