Tycho

I have seen it mentioned now and again on here that someone knows someone who still has a couple TWE headers kicking around for too much $$$. I may or may not have too much $$$ and would like to acquire one. If anyone can post the link/email/phone number of where the "leftovers" ended up I would appreciate it.

Got some fun bits for my EA82T Sedan recently. Along with a full standalone ECU, this stuff is on the agenda.

I am building up a D/R trans and associated rear differential and was able to find Timken parts for most of the main bearings/seals. It was not that expensive, tho I did not get all of them. I have four new diff bearings (for two new diffs) and three others which I believe are the input shaft bearing, tailshaft bearing, and outer input shaft bearing for the rear pinion gear. I'll make a list of part numbers as I go through the trans (and note the bearings I neglected to get). This project is just getting underway after months of accumulating parts. I'm not doing any of the shaft bearings or synchros. The trans has only 115,000 miles on it and shifts very smoothly still.

Just ripping the lifters apart and solvent soaking the pieces would be fine. Just as good as a rebuilt lifter. If it's sticking, you just need to get the grit out of the oil inside the lifter (which can only escape through a very small gap ... so if the grit is too big it never gets out). Once the lifters are out, it takes about 15 minutes to pop all the lifters apart, soak the parts, and put them back together. You don't need to re-crimp the retainer cap that holds the lifter "guts" in. Just use light assembly grease (like Mag 1) and it will stay together while you assemble (after which point the cams and rockers hold it all together). Thinner oil often works better than thicker on the top end as you have less hydraulic friction loss on the oil being pushed through all those passages ... so you have more pressure at the heads. If your pump is worn out tho, you will see significantly lower gauge pressure (at the pump) with thin oil.

Whew, which one is MLS? Sign me up!

Depends on how rough or smooth the ice is. Generally it will be pretty smooth, but you might get some overflow spots or wind whipped spots where you'd need the extra compliance at speed to prevent bottoming. Compliant suspension makes breakaway a lot more gradual (especially on rough ice), but stiffer suspension means the car will be faster when driven at the limit. Stiffer suspension will have less brake dive which helps tremendously. Seems that braking precisely (i.e. late late late) is worth a huge amount of time ice racing relative to any other single aspect. Cornering speeds in my Saturn SL2 w/ 17.5 mm rear 4-way adjustable bar on next to stiffest setting (vs 15.0 mm bar stock) were substantially higher than in my Loyale wagon with no rear bar (both running Blizzak WS50s). My '85 Turbo Traction with the 19 mm front bar and 16 mm rear bar is a lot closer to the Saturn's speed in the corners with a tremendous traction advantage under acceleration obviously. I would go "low" and rig up some sort of adjustment on the rear swaybar to dial in your oversteer/understeer characteristics to your liking. Can be a little tricky with the 4wd setup, but doable. My Saturn was cake to dial in as the rear wheels are just "along for the ride." Was able to get it to be neutral when coasting through a corner, understeer when accelerating, and oversteer when engine braking through a corner, thus allowing use of the throttle to "steer" the car. Under braking it would do whatever I wanted based on how hard I punched the brakes initially. Ease on them and it was neutral or would understeer a tad. Punch them initially and it would oversteer.

Actually the timing belts will know, and it will retard the valve timing slightly. Belt tension is only taken up on the "slack" side, so the "taut" side distance will be reduced, thus resulting in a tiny amount of retard at the cam relative to the crank (but as you pointed out lift and duration won't be reduced and there's no risk of running out of lash clearance like in the OHV EA81). All non-MLS gaskets benefit from a re-torque. Years ago on the ENDYN forums (or it could have been SpeedTalk) there was a FelPro engineer talking about the PermaTorque gaskets. He noted that while they do not require a re-torque, doing an overnight cold re-torque (much easier than a hot one) will increase gasket compression from 90% to over 95%. Definitely worth the small amount of extra effort, and still way easier than a hot re-torque.

Deck it. Great chance to bring the quench clearance down a bit too, which is good for power and reduces knock (with a slight increase in compression ratio). I've run .030" piston to head on two EA rebuilds and it's worked great. Zero problems with headgaskets when using a decked block and surfaced heads ... and a working thermostat and good radiator. You could use High Tack on a regular gasket on a fresh install. It probably wouldn't hurt, but if the warpage is bad enough for water passages to blow out, it's not going to be a long term fix ... will just work a little longer than otherwise. You can re-use MLS gaskets over and over and over with High Tack (as the viton coating usually peels off to some extent after the heads have been torqued). Too bad there are no EA MLS gaskets. Blue or black spray paint works fine too when re-using MLS gaskets. You just have to install/torque before the paint dries.

Old rubber seals not holding oil pressure anymore along with extraordinarily convoluted oil passages that go through pump seals, head gaskets, o rings, etc etc then arrive at the valvetrain. The engine being clean inside means the lifters should work great once taken apart and flushed.

That is a clean looking wagon! Jealous! None of my subarus tick when I am done with them. Had a ticking '90 Loyale with about 135,000 on the clock that I made silent and stayed that way till 185,000 when the frame rusted out. And my '85 RX with 104,000 when I bought it has been quiet to 116,000 so far (full rebuild when I got it). So 62,000 tick-free miles so far. I have this urge to get my box of o rings and tools out of my car when I hear a ticking EA82 at a traffic light. 1. Oil Pump re-seal 2. new cam carrier reinforced o rings 3. take apart the old lifters and soak them/clean out the spring loaded detent ball part all in a bath of carb cleaner 4. chase the oil passages in the cam carrier with pipe cleaner or similar when you have it out. I've had non-reinforced o rings get sucked into the passages in this part which will make your car tick forever. You don't have to reinstall the little crimp top on the lifters after you've taken them apart. It just aids in reassembly, which isn't a problem if you use some assembly grease to "glue" everything together. Once you have oil pressure back up (re-seal and new o rings), clean lifters, and clean oil, it will not tick. Just keep the oil clean-ish from then on out and you'll be golden.

Agreed, especially given that you are physically passing the axle through the bearings (not through a splined hub already pressed into the bearings). Ball bearings and lateral impacts aren't really compatible, so a tight fit that requires you to hammer the axle into place is bad news.

I've used emery cloth to make axles fit in the past. 10 minutes of work on an oversize axle end can save a lot of hassle.

Brilliant. Thanks for the pics. I have done 2 sets of EA82 heads (one MPFI one SPFI) and extensively worked the exhaust bowl/guide area. Interesting to see just how much it chokes things off! Shame you didn't get a cut showing the short turn radius of the exhaust port, but that's good stuff. With the 4 mm aluminum plate idea, I had that also. With the right torch, you could weld the whole thing in. With no cooling jacket I'm not sure how it would hold up over time tho. But with a D and reverse D at the flange (a bisected O) you could take two exhaust pipes of the right diameter, hammer the adjacent sides flat, and weld them into an EA82 flange. This'd give you a nice smooth transition in shape from the D to the O in the primaries without too much complication. Alternately, you could bisect a section of pipe with a bandsaw and weld a thin piece of plate in there to get the bisection ... then neck it down to say a 1.5" secondary where your bisection ends. Would be equivalent of a really short primary, but still worlds better. Thanks again for the pics!

Yeah it might be interesting. I have an EG33 that I yanked from an SVX parts car a friend and I bought years ago. It's been honed, decked, and has a pair of heads with freshly cut valve seats and a fresh surface along with 24 freshly cut valves ... but all the parts are still sitting in the big box I picked up at the machine shop years ago. Was thinking of dropping that in the sedan, but the EA82T is way lighter, and the one I've put together is really running quite well. I think there are some little areas to unlock that will yield reasonable power gains and make the car run more reliably with better mileage at the same time, so why not give it a shot? Plus I'm trying to talk a buddy of mine into building a Locost with the EG33 paired to a 5MT with an OBX diff stuffed in it for good measure. Surely that'd be a better use than a rusty '85 sedan.

This is a bit off the wall, but my '85 EA82T that had intermittent chugging/stalling. Sometimes it was great, other times it wasn't and would chug and stall once warm. Rolling into the throttle resulted in very non-linear acceleration too ... until the revs came up. Measured AFM voltage while opening the flapper door and it would jump around quite a bit on its journey from 0 to 5v. It was mostly noisy in the lower end of the range where the flapper spends most of its time. I took the AFM apart (dug into the electronic part by prying the plastic lid off) and used a cotton swab, a piece of paper, and some isopropyl alcohol to clean the wiper arm, carbon strip, and upper wiper arm contact (the fulcrum it pivots on is an electrical connection) and I got a lot of dust and carbon buildup (the strip wears) out of there. Car runs very very smooth now. AFM voltage is perfectly smooth as the flapper door opens. If that turns out to be your problem, this page will be helpful: http://www.clarks-garage.com/shop-manual/elect-22.htm

My plan is to un-siamese the exhaust side of the head. I will either do this via a lot of welding, or by making an exhaust flange with a biscuit that sticks into the exhaust port. Either way, maintaining the proper cross sections on the port is going to require adding some aluminum to the casting. I was just thinking about it on the way into work today and no matter which route I go, I can make a exhaust stub that changes the new port to an EJ flange pattern so I can just use EJ headers (sectioned to fit obviously). This flange will allow me to equalize the runner lengths also, which makes the rest of the header design (be it turbo or NA) much much simpler. If that doesn't work I thought of another trick that will. My theory is that un-siamese the exhaust side and running the appropriate diameter primaries to keep velocities up will massively increase scavenging which will have a very positive knock on effect for overall volumetric efficiency. We're talking a set of headers that would make an NA MPFI very close in power to a stock EA82T (without all the problems of the T or the weight of an EJ) I also think it would be cool to have an EA engine that doesn't have that broken unequal length Subaru sound. If it worked out, it'd be applicable to EA81 exhaust too. I have some SPFI heads I can/will use for welding practice, but in the final application, the benefits are really only going to be realized on an MPFI engine that can breathe into the higher end of the rev range.

I'd be interested in a pair (or two). Cracked ones are fine, and you don't need to weld them up first. I'll be doing a heavy amount of that on my end anyway.

Here's some pics of what I like to call "The SVX Headlight Swap" (because it implies that it's not a total hack). 1. No more glass housings that fill up with water 2. Projector beam low puts light where you want it 3. Hi beam reflector is large and relatively well focused -> good high beam pattern ... lots of light in front of you, less "off in the woods". 4. Can use 9011 and 9012 HIR bulbs for nearly double the light output of their 9005 9006 counterparts (and the projector beam Lo keeps glare from increasing, so you get more light without pissing other drivers off). http://store.candlepower.com/hirlighting.html 5. Looks like crap during the day (it could be installed to fit below the hood without having to bend the front, but I tend not to care). Looks sweet at night (like an SVX). The L series cars are very square, the SVX is not ... so it's going to look massively out of place no matter what you do. 6. I did not use the fog lights at all. They are "nice" for fogs with 55w H3 bulbs instead of those weeny 20 watt things most cars come with these days, but I've never found OE fogs to have worthwhile beam pattern anyway. 7. Bracketing takes about 1 hour to make if you have tin snips and some galv sheet handy. Minor enlargement of the OE headlight holes in the unibody is required (toward the bottom). 8. I put in a 12 ga relay harness when I first did this mod to my 90 Loyale, and just swapped that over to the '85. What a massive difference! I gained over a volt at the bulbs. 9. Also re-wired the turn signals and marker lights (the amber insert) so that when the headlights are on, the turn signal blinks the two of them alternately. With the lights off, both blink at the same time. http://web.me.com/dgiessel/Pictures/car/headlights/index.html High beams on the inside, Low beams on the outside. High Low

I think the most important thing for me with EA engines (and something they MAKE you learn if you want them to stop leaking) is proper application of RTV. Apply a small amount to both surfaces, finger tighten the part, let it semi-cure for 30 minutes to an hour, then tighten to spec. All the tubes say this, but I used the stuff for years without reading them ... just applying it and torquing it. By letting it start to harden before the final torque you end up with an actual layer of the stuff between the two parts rather than just squeezing it all out. This allows the parts to "walk" on each other without losing their seal. Important in an engine like the EA82 with a million dynamic surfaces, all of which are exposed to some sort of fluid as well as large temperature swings. Doing it right, you can get away with a lot of re-sealing with RTV alone. I've successfully done water pumps and t-stats with no gasket and had them stay sealed up for a couple years so far. Also, my cam carriers don't leak anymore (which is half due to using RTV right, and half down to using the OEM reinforced o-rings for the oil passage). Once I started doing it RIGHT ... leaks stopped appearing on parts I'd re-sealed (but have continued appearing on every part I haven't re-sealed yet). I'm finally winning the battle tho. Never could get ahead when I had my '90 Loyale because I was doing it wrong the whole time. Also, as General Disorder has noted, it's also useful to coat the paper and cork gaskets with a thin layer of RTV, then let it semi-cure or fully cure depending before installing. This keeps the gaskets from saturating and rotting over time.

During my rebuilt EA82T install in the '85 GL10. Prior to SVX headlight swap. AC and power steering did not go back in. That helped a bit. Also deleted EGR, purge solenoid, and associated vac lines. Next up is to install 3 small catch cans and delete the PCV system, which will be a huge move forward as far as bay cleanliness goes. When I get around to the spider manifold install, most of the OE wiring will go away and I'm going to re-do the fuel lines in a less convoluted way. Carbon canister will go away then too. Lots of room for improvement.

Like dating a Cougar.

It would be interesting, no doubt about it! Were you ever on the old ENDYN forums? I posted some pics EA heads back in the day on there and we all got some laughs out of it. In all fairness, the chamber/quench isn't that bad (pistons perfectly match the quench area of the head providing lots of mechanical octane). Larry has done some work with siamesed MG heads. I'd bet he'd have a few tricks for EA heads (particularly MPFI on the exhaust side). Working the short turn radius of the intake and exhaust is worth doing. I've done it on a SPFI Loyale and MPFI GL-10 and it netted mileage and power. The seat intersects the short turn in the form of a sharp edge. The idea of a short turn radius was foreign to these engines. You can make it better, but you'll still get flow separation there. My loyale went from pathetic, to not so bad on the highway. Mileage skyrocketed. Here are some comments/pictures of some of the work I did on the MPFI heads. I don't have the photos of the intake or how I finished out the chambers/seats ... but basically radiused the top seat cut into the chamber and de-shrouded a bit where the valve seat meets the chamber wall. http://www.themacaddress.com/?p=99708161 SPFI: LOL! -> http://web.me.com/dgiessel/Pictures/mac_address/automotive/ea82_rebuild/1_6_05/P1060016.JPG Little better -> http://web.me.com/dgiessel/Pictures/mac_address/automotive/ea82_rebuild/1_6_05/P1060015.JPG http://web.me.com/dgiessel/Pictures/mac_address/automotive/ea82_rebuild/1_6_05/index.html

If you have a programmable ignition system, you can dial out knock by noting at what RPM/load ranges it happens in and backing off timing at those points. Once you have a knock free map, you can chuck the sensor (or stop listening if you're doing it audibly, which can work just fine if you know what you're listening for and your exhaust isn't too loud). Just have to make sure you continue to use fuel of at least the same quality from then on. The technique goes something like: Start with a base timing map that follows the distributor curve (for the dizzy you're replacing). Dial in your fuel maps. Do WOT (full load) pulls and increase timing until you start to get audible knock. As you get knock at an RPM point, reduce timing at that point a couple degrees and lock those values in. Eventually you'll have a WOT (full load) timing map just below the knock threshold for the entire RPM range. Now, at lower loads, you'll have the low advance that GD spoke of. Any decent aftermarket ign system has a load based timing map (digital vac advance). Just keep tweaking advance at lower loads (higher vac) until you notice knock or a decrease in power ... then back it off a couple degrees. Now you have a knock free ignition map with no holes for all RPM and load points (X and Y dimensions of the map). You no longer need dynamic knock control unless you change something on the engine (cam, exhaust, whatever) or use lower octane fuel and/or hotter plugs.

I haven't installed my OBX yet. Got it ripped apart and am going to wire wheel the ends of the helix gears and splines to de-burr them a bit (tho honestly the quality of mine is much much higher than many pics I've seen online). I bought one of those Belleville washer + new bolt kits ... but the OE Bellevilles were installed correctly, the bolts were all torqued properly, and none of the threads were damaged. Appears they are stepping things up. I had (dad drives it now) a Quaife brand helical in my Saturn SL2 for 70,000 miles (in addition to running an open diff for 25k miles and a Phantom Grip for 25k miles). The helical was downright magical. You absolutely never noticed it was there. With the one wheel on ice one wheel on pavement scenario, it would spin the wheel on ice, but you would still accelerate. The transition of torque from one wheel to the other was very smooth resulting in no jerkiness or torque steer whatsoever. After a while I just got used to having really really good traction in a FWD car and actually started believing that was a decent drivetrain again. Then I'd drive a rental car or a friend's car and wonder how on earth anyone could get anywhere in such a rig (with an open diff). I had to replace the input shaft seal 65,000 miles into the life of the Quaife, so I got a chance to see how it was holding up. Zero wear, no metal in the trans fluid (or on the magnet). Lot of those miles were with a high comp 11.5:1 CR quad throttle body engine that was making 155 HP to the wheels and spinning to 7500 RPM putting power through a 4 puck ceramic solid hub clutch. It would be a perfect match to a high HP engine in a light car (even with 4wd/awd). In a PT4wd trans, it'd be even better as you could pop the thing into 2wd for mileage and have enough traction to leave it there in light snow/dirt roads. I'd also wager that increased front axle traction would significantly reduce stress on the rear driveline ... to say nothing of embarrassing cars like WRXs with their visco rear, visco center, and open front.

That car looks just like mine (cept for the hood ... and I have the checkered seats/seat belts ... and I have SVX headlights swapped into mine). Don't forget an OBX Helical diff in that EJ bellhousing'd transaxle. You could go D/R with the locking tailshaft with an '85 or '86 Turbo DR trans. Only 1.2 reduction, but it'd be sweet to have 5 gears for use < 100 mph. As for engine management, these guys have some Subaru specific systems that would probably take less time to wire and program than splicing harnesses and what not. Scroll down to "Subaru Systems." http://www.sdsefi.com/aircraft.html