ferox

Ok so since it responds to changes in the idle mixture screw that means you're not bypassing the idle circuit. The idle at 1000 is a little high. It should turn smoothly at 700-800, but that's a finer point to deal with later. Here's the deal. These symptoms are most likely fuel starvation of some kind. The usual suspect is the fuel filter, but if you have replaced the fuel filter and the vapor separator then that leaves the fuel uptake sock in the tank, the fuel lines, or the carb. The carb is obviously more complex than the other components so it's got more possibilities for clogging or mis-adjustment. If you are going to run a carbed car these days you pretty much have to learn how to deal with it one way or another because most mechanics don't know spoob about carbs. I guarantee that most of these old Subes went to the junkyard because of the carb. Everyone has given good suggestions, but we're just kind of shooting in the dark with the remote diagnosis unless we can rule out the carb. The Haynes manual pulled the carb rebuild section straight from the Subaru Factory Service Manual (FSM), so you can easily do a full rebuild with the manual if you follow the instructions carefully. I get my Beck & Arnley rebuild kits from Autozone for around $30. I use aerosol solvent, compressed air, fine wire, and a wire brush for cleaning. The rebuild kit comes with a little scale for adjusting the float. Just be meticulous. Jonas mentioned a Weber upgrade...always a good option if you can afford it. It will need to be tuned...again it's just a matter of following the instructions. It's possible that you have a vacuum leak that is leaning out the fuel mixture too much after the choke disengages, but that is difficult to fully diagnose without being able to eliminate the carb as the source of the issue. Ultimately, your car is completely dependent on the state of the carb, so I highly recommend you dig in. It's not as hard as it seems. Once you do it you'll realize it's not that difficult. I rebuild my Hitachi about every two years and it runs great. It's just a fact of life with a carbed car.

How many turns out from seated is the idle mixture screw? Does the idle speed respond to changes in the idle mixture screw?

That's a good point Ivan. I should have explained a little better...the fuel filter is located at the rear-underside of the vehicle. On other ea81s it's just in front of the rear drivers side wheel on top of a little metal plate, I don't know for sure if Brats are the same way. An '86 would also have a vapor separator in the engine compartment that has a filter element in it as well. It's not uncommon for people to think that the vapor separator is the fuel filter and replace it only while the actual fuel filter continues to clog, resulting in behavior like you've been experiencing. If you knew that already, sorry for the over-explanation, but I thought it was worth making sure.

+1 The thermo vacuum valve could be opening up at temperature and causing a vacuum leak or some other vacuum related issue if it's not hooked up correctly. It could also be leaning out when the choke disengages I guess. In your op you said it bogged at 30. Is it still doing it at that speed or just when you put some throttle on it? I would go for a full carb rebuild personally, making sure to replace the venturi o-rings, dial in the float, and getting plenty of cleaner and compressed air through the passages. I would also recommend simplifying the vacuum system. I pulled everything off mine except the choke pull-off, vac advance, brake booster, and charcoal canister lines. It made diagnosis much easier and removed a lot of possible vacuum leaks and malfunctions. What is your idle mixture screw set at and idle rpm?

The smoke at start up is usually old intake valve seals. Once they get old they allow oil to seep into the cylinder when the engine sits for a while and it burns off at start up. The jerking once the engine is warm could be a lot of things. I am not quite sure what you mean by hover, but whenever I have experienced jerky behavior from the engine it was usually because the fuel filter was clogged. That's definitely something that needs to be changed on a fairly regular basis on a carbed ea81. The fuel pump only puts out 3-5 psi on average, so it doesn't take much to restrict fuel delivery. My wife's old '84 wagon had a rusty gas tank and that used to happen all the time. That's probably the first place to check, and if the car is new to you, then it's something that should be replaced anyway. The ea81 can be sensitive to exhaust leaks, but probably not from lack of a muffler. If you had a leaky exhaust gasket or some other leak closer to the head then you will definitely experience poor performance, but lack of a muffler probably wouldn't have such a pronounced effect. I believe the back pressure/exhaust velocity mostly comes from the diameter of the exhaust system itself.

Did you replace the fuel filter?

Congratulations, you bought an excellent vehicle. It's got a 1980 front end BTW. The clicking you hear is probably a CV joint. To fix it you replace the whole cv halfshaft or axle. It's an easy DIY job. I recommend getting an EMPI halfshaft from Rockauto. Make sure you do some research on the conical spacer and belville washer and torque required on the castle nut that secures the halfshaft to the hub. If you replace it, check if your clicking halfshaft is OEM, if so, keep it and refurbish it. The check engine light is almost certainly defunct emissions gadgetry that is no longer functioning properly. I don't know how mechanically inclined you are but the EA81 is a great, simple engine. I recommend you get rid of the emissions garbage and put a Weber DGV 32/36 carburetor on it ($250-$290 new, can be found used). These engines can easily pass modern emissions tests without the 80's emissions equipment and you can't really even get replacement parts for many of the emission components anyway. I drive an '81 hatch with 299,600 miles on it and it recently flew through emissions testing no problem with no emissions gear other than the catalytic converter. If you learn how to work on this car, you can get it running really well. It's a great engine to learn on because it's so simple and well designed and there is a huge amount of information and expertise on this forum to draw from. I recommend tracking down a Factory Service Manual (FSM). If you rely on a mechanic to keep it maintained you will probably be disappointed and it will cost more to maintain than a reasonable person would be willing to pay.

Yeah, I have often joked about reheating meals with it. I had to swap my core out because I used the Bar's radiator stop leak additive before I was a member here and found out that was bad juju. Once I did that the heater sucked because the passages in the core got plugged. Once I replaced the core it was back to simmer and boil. The other thing that can happen is detritus can build up on top of the core so air can't flow through the core and get heated. As you know in Oregon, you can easy get a couple inches of fir needles in there and then a mossy mat grows and the next thing you know you've got ferns growing out of your car.

The heater core is located in the middle of the dash. It's a bit involved to swap it out but it's actually not too bad once you've committed. I ordered my new core online. The heater on these really cooks when functioning properly. As skishop mentioned, make sure the linkage that opens the valve to the heater core is connected. It's just the one coming off the temp select dial. The valve is down to the right of the accelerator pedal behind a kick panel.

You may have popped a freeze plug.

On the rear calipers I think you just need to use a C-clamp to compress the caliper piston back into the caliper. On the fronts you need a brake tool to screw the piston back in.

You would have to really work over the knuckle to prevent it from properly snugging down on the ball-joint. A screwdriver should not deform it to the point where it won't hold the ball joint. It's possible but not likely. Of course if you didn't do the work yourself, who knows what happened. Still not really sure what you mean by loose, but if you call rockauto there's a good chance they won't bother having you send back the ball joint and will give you another or credit toward a non-close-out. I always use Raybestos Professional Grade, but it's a personal call. I also replace both joints at the same time.

When I helped my buddy change plugs on his '98 OB I removed all the plastic stuff to either side of the engine. I think the two main items were the air filter box and wiper washer fluid reservoir..it's been a while. They were really easy to remove and made access much easier.

RA has decent custom service. The solid rotors were discontinued in '81 or '82, so there is no reason why you should have received them for an order for an '85 Brat. The vented are superior to the solid rotors, so you don't want to downgrade. I doubt the caliper piston for the vented rotors can compensate for the thinner solid rotor very well, so, as others have mentioned, you would really need to swap out calipers and brackets.

I have heard several testimonials that a 5MT fwd 1800 wagon will get 35 mpgs. So possibly that or better depending on your driving and the engine condition.

Have you checked the timing? If you post some pics we might be able to determine what kind of Weber you have if it isn't a standard DGV. You might need to order an anti-dieseling solenoid. They are optional on Webers for the most part, to my knowledge.

Are you saying that the two vacuum ports on the front of the carb are not being used and are not capped? Both ports should have a nipple btw. If the idle mix screw has no effect on the idle quality or speed, and everything else is intact, then it means you have by-passed the idle-circuit in the carb. The idle mix screw should be roughly two full turns out from being lightly seated plus or minus a half turn. Most likely you have some vacuum leaks. If you messed with the fast idle screw on the carb, that can complicate matters as well. Since you rebuilt the carb and idle/driveability issues still persist, you probably need to check all vacuum lines coming off the manifold (brake booster, charcoal canister valve, canister purge line, etc,..) as well as the intake manifold gaskets. Does the behavior change as the engine warms up?

As others have mentioned, you've got a classic vacuum leak. I have been running a feedback Hitachi for eight years with great results. 299K and it flew through emissions 200 miles ago. 190k, is not high mileage for an ea81 btw. Once you get to 300k you can start throwing that term around. Messing with the idle mix and idle speed screw will just make it harder to dial in when you get the vacuum leak(s) fixed, so it's probably best to start identifying leaks. The charcoal canister valve degrades over time and will cause a vacuum leak that is hard to identify, so make sure you check that too. A carb rebuild is also probably in your future. Adjust you valve lash as well, it won't necessarily cause the problem you are experiencing, but if they are out of adjustment it will partially confound your other efforts to diagnose problems.

I think there is a distinction between off-roading and wheeling. I have off-roaded my Jeep to get to extreme camping spots, but not my Subaru because it doesn't have the clearance yet. I have never wheeled anything. Nothing against it, looks like fun. I don't consider anything that does not require greater-than-stock clearance and off-road tires to be offroad. Unless you need to make strategic obstacle avoidance maneuvers or at least have some pucker-factor it's hardly off-road. I would say wheeling involves a spotter and offroading doesn't necessarily. I think Uberoo is talking more extreme wheeling. Digression over, back to the money question.

That would be me, but I am going to build up my Hatch with a 4" lift, EJ22, bumpers, winch, rack, gate, etc,... If I had a bunch of money I would do the same thing only better. I have always thought it would be cool to put all the running gear from a 4WD hatch under a 70s VW Scirocco, so if money was no object I might screw around with that idea also. I just like the compactness of the hatch and the driveability and mpgs of a smaller rig. It may not be able to get to every place that a bigger rig can, but it will get where I want to go, and it's just the vehicle I want to drive.

On an ea71 with the barrels lined up the way it's installed on O.C.D.'s engine and every other ea71 & ea81 the primary and secondary are oriented symmetrically on the manifold. If they were lined up the way you insist, then the primary would be closer to the #2 and #4 cylinder and the secondary would be closer to #1 and #3. With it oriented for fuel delivery symmetry, the throttle linkage and fuel intake are lined up perfectly for stock configuration. On an inline or v-type engine with manifold(s) sticking off the top or the side of the engine the orientation you're talking about would provide fuel delivery symmetry, but not on a Subaru flat-4. Even the Weber kit designed for the Subaru has the carb oriented with the primary in front and the secondary in the back as well as the stock Hitachi carb. If you're exasperated with this situation, well....it's not us.

O.C.D. you need to look into the procedure for static timing your vehicle, then fine tune it with a timing light. Without the timing set correctly, you can't tune your carb correctly. There are three basic things you need for carb tuning at a minimum 1) Correct timing 2) Correct idle mixture 3) Correct idle speed. Tuning is an iterative process meaning when you adjust one of those three things you have to check the other two and make adjustments if needed. Keep running through the iterations until you get everything dialed in. The distributor is used to set static time and adjust timing, but those are achieved by looking at the rotor in relation to the electrodes in the cap and to adjust the degree of the flywheel while using a timing light, respectively. The hold-down bolt on the disty is just that and nothing more. It can be used as a reference once you have you engine timed, but you can't use it to time the engine. I would also recommend installing a throttle return spring even temporarily while you tune. If your engine isn't timed correctly, adjusting the carb is pointless.

The orientation looks fine to me. It's an ea71 so jetting for a 1600 cc should be what's needed. O.C.D., when you say you are using the stock airbox are you talking about the Subaru one or the Weber one? Do you have a throttle return spring that hooks to the airbox? How are you setting your timing?

Yeah it will probably work fine. You always have to evaluate the operator of the computer at the parts store, but since it's a Brat you're probably ok.

Adjust your valve lash to spec and see if that helps. It probably needs to be done regardless of whether it's the problem.