Where's my engine number?

Open the bonnet and set your eyes near the center of the slam panel where the bonnet catch locks into.

Look up towards the exhaust manifold pipe nearest the left of the car:

Just under the exhaust manifold is a flat vertical surface. On the picture the arrow points to a yellow rectangle to show its location.

The above picture shows the engine number and what it looks like stamped onto the engine block. Most engines will have a lot of road dirt and oil covering the number so will need cleaning up with tissue or degreasant. Some early K-series engines the number are smaller on this face which will be harder to view and need to be extremely clean to read.

What does an engine number mean?

OK so you know your number but now you need to know how to understand it.

• The first two number indicate the engine size. The example above shows 14.
  This means its a 1.4 Litre engine. Or 11 for 1.1 litres, 16 for 1.6 litres, 18 for 1.8 litres.
• The third digit shows what model the engine is.
  The example shows a K thus stating its a K-Series engine from Rover's wide range.
• The fourth digit shows the number of valves per cylinder.
  The example is 4 showing its got 4 valves per cylinder. Metro's & Rover 100s all use 4 cylinder engines so 4 valves times 4 cylinders equals 16 valves. An 8 valve will have a 2 as the fourth digit.