robm

I found 22-23 degrees advance seems to give better highway mileage, without any pinging up hills or arouond town under acceleration.

Nipper wrote: I wouldn't mind. Just about ALL small cars engines of the 70's, 80's had them. Datsun L16/18/20B had tons of power and potential for more. Timing chain service consisted of advancing the cam, using extra timing marks on the cam sprocket, at 100,000 miles or so. If you were good, only the upper chain cover had to come off. Otherwise, it meant pulling the rad and removing the whole front cover - maybe an extra hour's work, as I recall. Timing belts were in their infancy, and had short replacement intervals. The EA82 was designed in this era, hence the 90,000 km service interval. Fortunately, the EA82 is second generation, and they were smart enough to make it non-interference. Not like the late and unlamented Ford Pinto...

I can get 38 MPG with my Loyale 4WD. It is hard work, and slow, but it can be done. I can see a carefully-driven, well-maintained 2wd with Weber tuned to the nuts being able to beat that. I remember Loyale 2.7 has also recommended disconnecting the secondary throttle linkage, to get better fuel economy. With that kind of an attitude, almost anything is possible!

Turbo and SPFI? Was this normal in 1986, or is this some kind of Frankensube? I thought turbos were all multipoint injection.

The CPU allows for a richer mix at full power. And there is still some air getting through when coasting with a closed throttle, even though the fuel is shut off. Better to measure the actual fuel flow. It is probably easier than measuring the air flow signal, and trying to calibrate that back to fuel. At least we know what the fuel injector will flow when open, I don't believe we know how much air comes through the system. The VSS signal would be about what I would expect. There is a simple tach chip that would turn it into an analog signal, very cheap, and been around for years.

I have been thinking about this too. It would be nice to have a near-instant fuel consumption read-out, so we can settle once and for all the question as to whether it is cheaper to coast down hill in neutral, or not. (I suspect it depends how steep the hill is.) There are plenty of other "tactical" driving decisions which may or may not save fuel, but but it is really hard to tell when averaged over a whole tank of gas. I have thought of using the signal to the injector, as DaveT suggests. A simple RC circuit should convert this to an analog signal proportional to flow. There is also an input to the ECU from the VSS (vehicle speed sensor I presume), but I have no idea what this signal looks like, or how it could be converted to a usable signal for either a digital or analog computer. Anyone out there with an oscilloscope who wants to have a look for us? A digital computer would be the best, and perhaps easiest means of calculating the MPG, but I wouldn't mind playing around with an analog one, if I had some idea what the VSS signal output looked like.

Aldergrove Autowreckers usually has lots of EA-82's. They are near Abbotsford in the Fraser Valley.

Peak torque of the EA-82 is at 2750 RPM, so you would need to gear it either up or down to get synchronous speed. What kind of generator do you have to connect it to? Is it designed to run at 3600 or 1800 RPM? Ideally, you also need some kind of governor, to keep the engine running at the fixed speed. You will need the ECU to make the stock ignition work, and it won't be too happy without the rest of the sensors, etc. I don't know if there is a simpler distributor that will drop in and work or not. You will also need a radiator, and a cooling fan. Since it is a stationary engine, I suspect the fan bolted to the waterpump pulley is the best bet. I am not sure how long an electric cooling fan would last, as they don't normally run 24/7.

TPS could be flaky, and give bad readings as it heats up, then "get better" as it cools. Hence the intermittent codes, along with intermittent flat spot. Test the TPS when the CEL shows and the flat spot is evident. Keep the meter with you, and pull over and test it when it shows up. Practice first in the driveway, so you can do this fast at the side of the road, even if the CEL is not showing. Good luck.

Actually, it is: 5/16" = 8 mm 1/4" = 6.3 mm 1/8" = 3.2 mm Pardon me, but unit conversions are my thing. Don't get me going on US and imperial gallons.....

Actually, Justy = Suzuki, just not around here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_Justy

I recommend "The Sports Car: Its Design and Performance" (Hardcover) by Colin Campbell. It has a lot of good stuff on how engines and suspensions and tires work. Semi-technical. Old, but the principals are the same. Also, "the High Speed Internal Combustion Engine" by Sir Harry Ricardo. Also old, but we are just beginning to see new innovations that he didn't/couldn't try out back in the 1930's on the newest cars. Technical, but well written, and you can ignore the numbers and just read up on the principals. (Qualitative, not quantitative.) "The Designers" by LJK Setright is a great book, which tells a lot about the cars and the technology, as well as the people who designed them. Any of these will get you through a rainy day!

Pardon me if I am repeating advice presented previously, but 6 pages of flames were too much to wade through. DId you check the vacuum advance? If the diaphragm is perforated, bad mileage will result.

You live in Florida. Did it finally get "cold" down there? That sort of condensation on the oil filler cap is typical in non-tropical climates. Combustion blowby gases contain water, and it winds up condensing, along with oil fumes, on the cool filler cap, forming that milkshake sludge. The photo was kind of fuzzy, but it didn't look too unusual to me. Do your head gaskets, and don't worry about the bottom end. I hope you can scare up the cash for the parts. Good luck.

The chunk of filter on the MAF would probably account for the engine dieing the way it did. Have you tried it with the MAF clear, and a new filter?

Is this the electric fan? Pulling the fan makes it easier. More room to work., and see what is going on. The centre timing mark is the one. It makes a difference!

I keep thinking some day, his universe will come into closer congruence with ours. BGD seems like a nice guy, and always trys to be helpful, and is not at all prone to going over the top when slagged on line, but physics seems to work differently where he lives.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but carbs don't work that way. The pump only puts fuel into the float bowl. The bowl is vented, so there is NO PRESSURE IN THE BOWL, PUSHING THE GAS INTO THE CARB. The suction as the air goes through the venturi SUCKS the gas out of the float bowl. The SPFI pump is way high pressure. Even with a regulator, it is overkill.

Regarding WaWalker's feeling that head gaskets should be just another item to replace as part of good maintenance: I can understand tires, brakes, clutches wearing. Same with alternators and waterpumps. Radiators can get worn out, as road salt eats them from the outside in. Axles and wheel bearings, now and again. Hoses, seals, cam belts and other rubber parts too. But in the great scheme of things, these are cheap, easy to replace, and often easy to inspect, so you can TELL when you are living on borrowed time. (Cam belts are the exception, they will fail without notice, but they're cheap and easy to replace on a mileage basis.) If they do fail suddenly, due to poor maintenance and inspection, they generally don't destroy the car (again, cam belts excepted). But putting head gaskets on this list really sucks. They can't be inspected to see if they are ready to blow, and there is no mileage after which they are likely to blow (stories on this list range from <50,000 to >200,000 for the same kind of engine). They are not cheap and easy to replace (+/-$1000). IMHO, a "300,000 mile engine" does not contain expensive, impossible-to-inspect components that have a proven history of failing without warning, with the potential of destroying the engine.

Oil slinger? If its purpose is really to pick up the oil and make sure it drips onto the input shaft. Phizinza had it pretty close. Thinga and slinger rhyme in Australia.

The blue tack idea is a good one, but few people in North America know what it is. A suitable substitute might be chewing gum on a chopstick. Another possibility along the same lines might be to wrap some duct tape on the chopstick so the sticky side is out. Make it into a ball that will still go through the spark plug hole. The last thing you want is chunk of gum as well as a pencil sitting on top of the piston.

1. Just put in to 5th with the hand brake on as hard as it will go. A breaker bar and a 3 ft piece of pipe should do the trick. 2. I can't remember, it is pretty obvious, the one closest to the block goes on first! 3. The slack is put on that side when releasing the tensioners, by turning the cam sprockets towards them. There isn't really all that much that you have any choice. 4. The marks are easy. 5. No. See 1. above. This beast has lots of miles on it. Check the condition of the tensioners and idler. The hardest part is getting the covers off. No sprockets to remove, just the crank pulley. Double/triple check the timing marks by cranking it over a few times by hand. Good luck.

The EJ22 is also a bigger engine, with more surface area exposed to the coolant. Small coolant volume differences won't show up. Now, if there was twice as much coolant in an engine with about the same size, that would probably show up as 'slower to heat up".

I think WAWalker is correct about it moving. The erosion isn't due to the motion, but I bet the expansion of the unsupported cylinder is what breaks the seal. That whole side of the cylinder is unsupported, and gets hot, as it is closest to the exhaust port. If someone wants to live really dangerously, and has an engine that is otherwise scrap anyway, would it be possible to jam a slab of aluminum down between the cylinder and the block to support the cylinder wall? The block would probably have to be rehoned, at the least, and lord knows what the cylinder shape would be when it warmed up. Not round is a good guess. Probably not practical, but it might be interesting to try. A different way to cause a catastophic engine failure, if blowing head gaskets isn't enough fun. Having seen these photos, I think I will stick to closed deck blocks. That thing looks like a problem waiting to happen.

Checked the specs, and the EA82 actually holds a bit more coolant: 5.8 qts. vs 5.6 for the EA81. My guess was way off. Lord knows why it heats so quickly.