So I've recently had my motor built by an engine builder and performance shop.

Tonight while adjusting my valve lash, i noticed this marking. No one in the shop had ever seen it before, and they've been doing this for more than 10 years.

So I quickly ran around the shop looking at B16 heads, B18 heads, B20 heads. Some are JDM, some are USDM. All of them had these 3 boxes, but every one of them were blank.

I've asked many this evening, and searched the web myself. I cant find anything about this. Chinese people say it's definitely not Chinese, and my brother who is fluent in Japanese cant figure it out.


Can you figure it out?

USDM B16A head, PR3-4. Claims to be off a 2000 SIR.

This marking is found on the exhaust side of the head, above and to the left of the cylinder # 4 exhaust port. See in the picture, is my rusty header & bolt over # 4, to the left of the the lot/date marking.

 

definitely a 1999 head from an SI, but it is interesting Kanji.. Looks like its written in old Syodo style that's used in caligraphy. But its not a common thing. It may have just been a custom script from someone just to ID their head in case its stolen. I've done something similar to all my cylinder heads..

So, does it mean anything? looks more like a name, but hard to tell.

 

it's not recessed though, it was etched into the casting mold to be a protruding marking. very interesting indeed. maybe the creator of the mold did it just to know his name would be permanently placed into the world

 

I've see that on plenty of heads. Cast that way, nothing to get excited about.

 

Im interested in the Syodo thing... My brother said the first character is very similar to the number 5, except it has a large extra stroke, bottom left particle. But hes lost on the other characters.

That's what Im saying, it was etched into the casting mold. However, it doesnt look uniform. Some areas have perfectly straight and hard edges, while other areas look like someone drew this with a mig welder haha.

I'm so confused. Not excited in any way, just curious what the heck my engine's head says on it. Maybe some dude at the factory has a sense a humor, writing jibberish on USDM blocks. "This **** is JDM y0!"

 

I'll check my motors this weekend and let you know if they have something similar.

 

All the heads that we have had come through here and I've never seen that. Probably belonged to a ninja

 

Showed this to my Japanese colleague (hasn't been in the US for a full year yet) he does not recognize it...

 

Ninja head

 

Strange for sure....

But this guy....

Really?

 

have never seen that either and is DEFF etched into head casting. could have been cast for a race series in Jp and had to be marked after mold was made to be "spec" design or something (just a guess)

 

Yes I've seen it and also strange looking stars on pr3 heads as well. Usually the marks don't extend outside the boxes quite like the pics in this thread.

 

Your head may be the Chosen One

 

Here is one I just looked at in my basement

 

aahh.. Omosirokatta ze.

 

Okay, so at least I'm not insane. Someone else has this.

Still the question remains... Why do the vast majority of these heads not have markings inside of the boxes, yet a small portion do?

Is yours USDM as well?

 

i think because a b16a head was marketed in almost every country that has a civic on the road... its gonna be possibe to have some odd stuff ending up in the usdm market etc

example ... they ran out of usdm batch.. so they had to slap on a head that was in the UK batch or australian batch...

ive seen this (i port heads) also the odd "star" scribble.. which is alot more common...

footnote :
in my country the d16a6 exists but in the 92-95 eg civic's
it runs a d15b7 usdm distributor and is obd1 , versus your u.s. d16a6 as pre 92 model

our 4door b16a engined ek civics (we never got the hatch ) runs a pr3 piston not p30 it also has cams sized for the automatic b16a (pretty small) and or the same cams as a 88-91 b16a (first gen) yet it is an obd2 LOL

 

No wonder there is no actual way of proving where and what most used heads came from, and what kind of car they came out of. Honda just works lol

And thanks to everyone who contributed on this. Ninja head, confirmed

 

FYI, for those of you who might still be curious - Those markings are Japanese style hash marks. The Japanese use the character for "correct" (pronounced "sei" or "tadashii") as hash marks in lieu of the four vertical lines with a slash that we use in the US. It takes 5 strokes to write the character and it's always written in a certain way so it's easy to tell what # it is just by looking at it:



Each complete character signifies 5. So that photo above says "12". Not sure what it was 12 of, but whoever was working with the molds definitely scratched a 12 into it.

FYI I use the same method to mark the # of heat cycles on my race tyres. I'm one of only two Japanese speakers on my race team so I know that it was one of us who marked the tyres after each session:

 

I have a B18B1 head and the 3 boxes are on mine with writing in them def the same as yours.

 

My 1989 b16a head has a star ⭐✨ on it... anybody know why...