Guys, I always wondered if it was a rule of thumb that the engine # is
generally higher than the VIN #. I have been told so many times that it's not common for the engine number to be lower. Not impossible, but
not common was always the message.
Well I did some looking through the VIN directory of the web site and find that it's quiet common for engine #s to be lower than the VIN #s. More common than than we think and in some series the ratio is 50% or more, so read on.
This is a small sample (256 out of 7414) but probably enough combinations to be generally representative. The following figures have been taken from the SOOC Directory
I have not counted incomplete sets (ie: missing frame or missing engine) as these are not relevant nor can they be verified.
I know a number of frame and/or engine combinations have been changed so probably works both ways. Besides, these frame/engine swaps seem to be low in number so are really not statistically significant.
This what we have.
8 out of 54 in the under 1000 series, = 15%
13 out of 43 in the 1000 series, = 30%
8 out of 30 in the 2000 series, = 27%
15 out of 29 in the 3000 series, = 52%
29 out of 36 in the 4000 series, = 81%
20 out of 34 in the 5000 series, = 59%
8 out of 21 in the 6000 series, = 38%
4 out of 9 in the 7000 series, = 44%
From the total registrations collectively in the Directory the chances an engine # will be lower than the frame VIN # is around 41% overall
What can be gleaned from this is that VINs over 1000 have at least a 30% chance of having a lower engine to VIN # whereas
VINs above 3000 have around a 50% or better chance of having a lower engine to VIN #. This sort of indicates that there would be a slightly higher chance of having a lower engine to VIN # in this grouping.
The greatest number of VINs recorded in the Directory (as a ratio per 1000) are in the range 1 to 999 and 1000 to 1999
It does beg the question, where have all the Sandies above the 2000 VIN ended up and how many are there still out there. Would be great to have all the records from Honda to verify all this.
KP
