How can you tell you have a real jdm engine
 

I cant find any info on this.

you could try geting your cars vin and the numbers on your block take thoes to a dealer or some one who has acces to toyota records and they could maby look it up for you

There is no VIN tag on the engine. The engine has a serial number but I've never met anyone who could use it for any sort of reference. What's it matter anyway? A healthy engine is a healthy engine and a beat to shit engine is a beat to shit engine no matter where it came from.

i always thought you could use the motors serial since dealers need to keep record if there has been work done( for warrenty) guss not

theres nothing that could make this statement any more true or better

That's done solely by VIN.... unless the dealer felt like adding more to the service notes. Honestly, a lot of dealers don't even add to the vehicles service history records after such a large number of years.... that's all assuming that a dealer/Toyota service center did all the work in the car's past to begin with.

It's not unlike the part numbers you'll find all over the car if you start taking things apart. There's a part number on every piece inside the climate control but no one outside of big T can find them in their system them and I'm sure only certain departments can do anything with them. The only people big T corporate thinks needs to be able to lookup and order or identify the little day/night flip switch/lever in the rearview mirror is the factory.

They may have records somewhere with info regarding which engine (by serial number) went into which chassis (by VIN) but if they didn't even bother to scan the '88 TSRM in to the Toyota tech library I'm sure those other records (which are probably asked for a LOT less frequently, if ever) are in mothballs in some massive warehouse with the Arc of the Covenant.

Toyota DOES record this information on newer Toyotas, but I don't believe they started that much before 2000.

ohh ok gotcha

lot of good info i was just wondering because it gets me mad when i see ppl selling them on websites like ebay and they might not even be true jdm engines

JDM is worthless when it comes to the 7M. There's no significant difference in the engine and just because it's low mileage doesn't mean it's worth a lick since it's over 20 years old and could have spent half of that time sitting as the rings rust to the cylinder bores. Buy it wherever you can get it cheapest and plan on a complete rebuild.