Mr. Carb

Sounds to me like the issue sounds like a bad voltage regulator for the instrument panel. It's not uncommon for them to die out like that.

Thanks for your help

It would do that if it has no oil pressure? Ok, I was thinking the pressure sender was flakey, but oil pressure only rises after the engine is up to around 3k rpms... otherwise the needle always reads 0psi. Maybe it's time for me to re-seal another oil pump.

Yep, done a full tune-up... the carb was real well on the old engine and the time between the engine swap was literly 4 hours. So I'm pretty sure the carb isn't bad. The moter makes alot of bad clunking noises when it trys to idle after a freeway drive. It's as if some of the pistons are trying to sieze or some of the valves arn't opening. It behaves like it has a huge amount of resistance on it. Even though the car can be in neutral and it smooths out and runs normally after it gets past the 2k rpm mark.... really odd.

So, I decided I'm hooked on this ej22 idea... I want to EJ the brat. I've been lookin around the board at how to do it. I'm kind of trying to gauge at what kind of project I'd be getting my self into and what all am I going to need to do this. heres what I know so far... Need to get the ecu, and associated wireing for the ecu and the engine... ea82 d/r 5spd tranny is the tranny of my choice, I know it needs an adaptor plate. What I'm wondering is... Would I be able to wire up the stock instrument cluster to everything on the ej22? like, coolant temp, tach, oil pressure, etc.... also, trying to figure out what I have to do for a clutch/flywheel? If all this is do-able, I'm pretty excited about it... I'm trying to plan this out now, this will probably be a mid-late summer project.

So, after doing much driving, and pining of problems... I have descovered that the engine, will idle when cold... when warmed up after being cold, but if I drive the car down the freeway, then get off the freeway, it won't idle. it starts to misfire real bad when it gets to about 1500rpms or lower... and will die if I don't keep it up above 1,000 rpms. At this point I'm not sure whats going on, I'm thinking theres a few lifters that start to stick real well once the car has been running for a bit. Has anyone herd of this weirdness symptom before?

ah, they told me "v-power" was the standered spark plug, they gave me so many options I had no idea about any of them, I was like, just sell me a normal spark plug set. they had crap like thoes quad sparkers or something? I had no idea if they actually are worth the money or not...

So, I got some free time the other day, and decided to do some more work on my black car, the one I keep trying to get rid of because I keep running into problems... Well, I was unstopable the other day. I got the intake manofold on, the fuel rails and injectors in place. And started hooking up the wireing harness. It's starting to look good. I got pictures uploaded at http://usmb.net/gallery/album249 Check em out! I'm using V-power NGK spark plugs... gapped at .041 Thats according to chiltons book. Anyone disagree with this?

Besides... keep in mind this is NOT the orginal moter, this is my car's third engine, I have no idea what year/model ea81 this current engine came out of. I think it came from an 82...

Positive. I already pulled the head covers off once, and it doesn't have the do not adjust stickers. They're solid lifters. That, and I know the guy who rebuilt the heads... Austin... I'm pretty sure hes accurate and I'm accurate by the way it looks that these are solid pushrods and lifters.

alright, I'll mess around with it on tuesday. Or maybe monday if I have time. Thanks for the pointers!

Valve lash should be good, it was adjusted when the heads got rebuilt. Yes I do mean #1 and #4, I intentionally tested one piston on each side to illiminate the possibility of a headgasket. And the way it's running, doesn't say headgasket. Oil's clean, coolant's clean. so if it's blown, it's blown between pistons. And both sides are blown in that case. Hopefully I'll have time this weekend to pull the head covers off again and check the valve lash again.

So, after doing a compression test to see why it wouldn't idle worth crap. Piston #1 has about 40psi of compression, piston #4 has about 65psi, at that point I felt it wasn't worth my time to check the other 2 pistons. Time to find another new moter for this car. I know the heads were just rebuilt on this engine, so I'm asumming the piston rings are just shot. I don't think anything else would cause the lack of compression, right? this is a solid ea81 lifter engine, in the 84 brat.

What normally causes this problem on an ea81 engine... Piston #1 isn't fireing unless it's reved up to 2500+ rpms. I've checked for vacume leaks, all 3 other pistons are fireing just fine. Theres spark on piston 1's spark wire when I unplug it. SO I'm not sure at this point what causes this kind of behavor. Any ideas?

I just did an engine swap on my 84 brat, went from an ea81 hydrolic lifter to a none hydrolic lifter moter... the hydrolic lifter moter has 360k miles, no compression left. New moter runs real smooth. Unfortunataly it's only got 2 out of 4 exahust studs... other 2 are stripped. I was kind of disapointed. I need to figure out how to fix that problem. Anyway, I'll post pics of it later. The new engine, came from Austin, so, needless to say, it's a little colorful. OH, and my transmission still whines in 4th gear... DOH!

the tranny sensor is $104.00 not including tax... and the thing is the size of my cell phone if not smaller... We decided we better check the ecu codes at a shop first before deciding to actually buy the part. Thanks for the help! Carter Subaru is telling me that the check engine light will still come on if the speedometer dies on the instrument panel side... *shrugs*

The cruise control isn't working, and the check engine light came on in result, so this is the sensor on the tranny then right?

One of my friends recently got a 1998 Subaru Legacy L wagon, and the speedometer in it decided to start tweaking out, and within 20 minutes it stoped working all together. I noticed it's electronic. Has a little black thing in place on the tranny where the cable would normally go with 2 wires comming out of it. Do these typically fail, or is this probably another problem dealing with the computer?

I'm glad you got the car back in one piece! It however is not suprising it ended up in Everett! lol. I work at a theatre there, and the crime is so horrible. People's cars in our parking lot get broken into or stolen all the time.

when I bought my brat, the engine had a really nasty loud rod nock. After splitting the block, came to found that all the cam shaft bearings were gone, and the crank bearings were on their way out. One of the piston rods was so worn out on the bearings on the crank, that it literly had a quarter inch of play.

lol, yeah, I descovered that they're no where near as hard as that sucker was, cracking them loose on any other engine block was fairly easy. I took the same hex key I made to another engine and poped one loose.

Sorry, I haven't gotten anymore pictures yet. I got stuck on that 14mm hex sockit coolant plug on the passenger side front of the engine. I Can't get the old one off. I made a hex key tool by grinding down an old impact extention. Took my 2 foot crasftsman breaker bar to it, put a pipe on the end of that, Ended up bending the breakerbar, and Pipe, and the bolt never budged. Took an air power impact wrench to it, still didn't budge. Took a tourch to the engine block, got everything but the plug glowing hot, still wouldn't budge. Gave up. Will try to remove one from a pull apart engine on Sunday morning. Are these things normally that hard to remove? or do they normally crack lose under normal pressure?

I think I'm gonna bring the T-coup, sense it's been my major project this year...

a little off topic, but are you willing to part with it? I'll give you money for it, if you want.

Jerry says I WILL be there this year, So, I'm going this year! Now, to figure out wich car to bring....