TomRhere

Swapped in another ECU. It seems to have helped some, and I can actually feel it want to accelerate now in 5th. I can induce spark knock if I put my foot into it. That,,, did not happen with the other ECU. So suspicions were correct there. Still have more playing around to do.

Been 2 years or so since I drove that BRAT in Winter weather, details are a bit sketchy... I do recall a few really cold mornings where I had to pump the gas a couple times, then play with the pedal to keep her running for the 1st few minutes. The Weber set up is still setting here when ever you want it. We can't run or even buy studded tires here in Michigan. So some good biting tires is the best we can do. The '84 BRAT had a block heater in it, I never used it though. I do know people that have one in their vehicles and they simply love the fact that it's there. When driving any of the BRATs on snow covered roads, I used 4WD. I would drop it in FWD for turning corners then back into 4WD. Not so much for curves in the road, but when turning on to another road. Just something I did. Trips into work in the mornings were usually done before the plow trucks were out.

I can buy into what you're saying about the lower compression numbers not helping matters here. But, I did swap another ECU in Sunday, and she is running a bit better now. I didn't re-check ignition timing though and thinking I need to do so. Idle seems smoother now, and she does seem to pull a bit better going thru the gears. Getting up to 55mph hasn't happened to much, as we have had a few bouts of snow covered roads since Saturday. Best speed heading into work has been 35, and traffic may get up to 45 on the way home. I did manage to do 55 for a short bit though. I can feel some response to throttle input now while in 5th gear at 55. If I put my foot into it, I'll get some spark knock now. That wasn't happening before with the other ECU. She is running better, but not great. More investigating to be done come the weekend. And I would greatly consider doing an EJ swap if I could find needed items without having to float a loan to get them. Haven't found a complete donor, nor individual components to do so, that they don't want top dollar for. Still looking though..

The Subaru gaskets I listed work for me.

Guess I procrastinated to long on getting the driveshaft finished. Drive home from work yesterday was, interesting, to say the least. Not sure what the road crews were putting down at intersections, but it was greasy feeling under the tires. Just about everyone was having difficulty stopping/ getting moving. Wagon was not happy at all with it. Crews were just doing intersections, no plowing of the roads. Did fairly well other wise on the packed stuff. Once I get the driveway cleaned out, I'll be checking some things out as to the "no oomph" issue.

Flip the hoses around going to the heater core. It may flush some of the crud out giving more heat. Doesn't always work, but I've had more success than not. I've also ran a couple bottles of Super Flush in a few systems for a couple days, just to get a better cleaning. Mac's Radiator Cleanser from NAPA is some good stuff too. I've left it in longer than the 20 minutes the directions say, again for a day or two. Kind of hard to do with freezing temps though, as you need plain water in the system.

Yeah, ran into that a lot. 4-EA81's, 3-EA82's, 2-ER27's. Not a one with the correct plugs in them when I got them.

Yeah, spent a long day building that system. Fit a piece, mark next piece, cut, refit, mark more. Run to the shop cut and tack weld. Refit and see what needed to be done next. Yadda, yadda, yadda. It sounded so good!!!! But it sure destroyed what little HP/Torque that engine had. Really didn't have much for oomph down low, but it ran good on the highway. 1-7/8" ID lead pipes for sure, and like I said, 26 or so inches long. Then,,, you can jump to 2" ID to finish things. Tying the 2 banks together is a good thing also, just have to decide that one yourself as to where it should be done. Old school exhaust build trick was to use some cheap White paint to cover the pipes. Give it a run around town, see where paint was the darkest as far as being burnt. That is where you need to put a crossover pipe in.

Yeah, T-stat and/or heater core. Been in the low/mid teens for low, mid/low 20's for high around here. Nice warm air out of the heater on my '88 Wagon. Unless there is a frost, I don't warm it up, just get in and go on my 32 mile jaunt to work. I smoke, so I crack the window open about 1/4", still nice and warm inside although I can feel a cool draft around my legs.

Hmm. Well, once it get close to the power band, regardless of gear other than 5th, she seems to pull fairly well, could be better though. It still seems to be lacking some oomph. Not much "flat road" around here so to speak. But I have tried to accelerate, (in 5th), on what "flat" there is. Ain't happening. I've even put the pedal to the floor and all I get is intake noise, no noticeable increase in speed. Got to get me a few new gauges so I can check vac and pressure readings. The ones I have are better suited for paper weight duty.. Going by Naru's post, it seems this engine would be better with the Weber set up I have here. That,, is doable. I do have extra MAF's, Injector body's, fuel pumps here, can try those. Do know, what ever the issue is, it's killing my gas mileage. I've lost over 100 miles on this tank. Actually had to get gas today on the way home, reading 245 or so on the odo. Was doing 225-230 miles at 1/2 tank before this engine swap, and usually made it to Saturday before filling it with gauge still showing around 1/8th + or so, 320 - 350 miles driven. Best was 445 before filling but it wasn't on the "E" mark yet, just had the chance to buy gas $0.20 cheaper than around here, so did so. Be the weekend before I can do much. Leave here before 5:00 AM, and don't get back home much before 7:00 PM. Long days....

'87 was last year of BRAT here in the USofA, Hatches ran until '89. Best to use the '84 model year when buying parts, you will get less "wrong parts" that way, especially ordering on line. The EA82 vehicles came out in '85. As far as the exhaust, intake, thermostat/gasket goes, EA82 ones fit. So one could use a '90 Loyale as vehicle to order parts for. Starters and alternator's will also fit, just so you know. And yeah, the gaskets are fairly low cost from the dealer. I usually order a couple engine worth of them when I do an order, just cause.

The gasket number I posted is for the Y-pipe to head. The doughnut gasket you 1st posted on, sounds like Y-pipe to mid-pipe gasket. Unless, it's about a 1/4" in width, maybe 2-1/4" in diameter. That would be for the ASV adapter to head. There is another gasket, mid-pipe to muffler, it's just in front of the rear wheel/axle.

I did a comp test on it over the weekend; Cold; #1=100, #2=85, #3=85, #4=95. Warmed up; #1=110, #2=110, #3=105, #4=105. I used those slightly dished pistons in it. I would link a pic and/or the thread, but for some reason, I can't do that. Grrr! The thread was "IDing EA82 Blocks", pistons are shown in opening post. Pistons were removed, de-ringed, cleaned, re-ringed(same rings), and put back, same hole they came out of. Green plugs are disconnected. Once I get it up to 55mph or so, if I can keep it around 3,000+ rpms, she'll do okay. But a steep hill will drag it down, no response to throttle input unless I downshift to 4th. I've driven this same route for 8+ years, and have not had an issue maintaining speed on these hills before. It's just been recently that the issue has arose, both this engine, and the EA81(running the SPFI). I have left it in 5th, and just gave it more throttle, just to see what it would do. Just continues to bog down, and I hear no spark knock, period. Thinking I should, but don't know if it would if the ECU isn't giving it any advance. Don't know much about FI systems, old carb and vac advance guy here. Talking to Harve brought up the fact that 2 engines are doing same thing, maybe it's a computer issue. So, I'm on here asking for thoughts..

IS it probable for the ECU to loose the ability to advance the ignition timing? The freshly resealed EA82 runs good, just lacks power when pulling hills on my daily drive to/from work. T-belt timing is dead on, disty was set at 20*, but I have bumped it up a tad which slightly improved things. Talking with a co-worker, he brought up a possible ECU issue. I'm not real knowledgeable on these things to be honest. Do know the EA81 I had in there did the same on hills, but I was thinking it was more of an engine issue than control issue. Got 2 other ECU's here, Black case of unknown year, and the one from the '92 parts Loyale. Be the weekend before I have time to swap one in.

Sounds like the Y-pipe to mid-pipe gasket. You really want to use Dealer only for intake and exhaust gaskets, as after market just don't hold up. Exhaust - 44022GA330 Intake - 14035AA150 (carb/spfi both Ea81 and EA82)

Timken and National lists it as a 201CC bearing, SKF lists it as a 6201RSJ bearing. 32mm/1.2598" OD 12mm/.4724" ID 10mm/.0397" Width A parts store should be able to order it with that info, probably have one on shelf.

Put the side with bad seal towards crankshaft. That said, you should be able to find that bearing locally, check at a bearing supplier.

Good platform to start with, well worth the cost. Gotta say, that valve sticking out of the cylinder head is a 1st for me in some 45 years of wrenching on vehicles. Be interesting to see the rest of the damage in that cylinder.

I would suggest you clean/inspect all of the ground wires going to the engine along with battery terminals. Temp sensor is the ground for the circuit, offering varying resistance to ground as temps change. If connections are dirty, it changes the total resistance value, giving false readings.

Ok. So much for that. No improvement. Did however do a compression check on it, just to know. Thermometer in garage said it was 25*F when I got out there, turned heater on and pulled the plugs. Cold engine; #1=100 #2=85 #3=85 #4=95 Not great, but not to bad. Put plugs back in, started it up, backed it out and let it run while I played with the snow blower. Got it back in, pulled plugs, redid compression test. #1=110 #2=110 #3=105 #4=105 Got to get me another vacuum gauge, hook that up, see what it says. Something just isn't right.

Nice one! BRAT's,, Gotta Love 'em!!! Didn't notice the rims were Purple while 1st looking at the pic, until I read your last post. Went back to pic, yep, they be Purplish. Thought the camera angle had just made the "Bronze" color look "off". For rockers, you will have to find some good used ones, or adapt some in for an EA82 bodied vehicle. EA81 rockers are no longer available new.

Still not quite right. Took usual route into work Monday morning, she did not like any of the hills. I had to downshift into 4th to maintain speed. Never had to do that before, even with a load of stuff in the back, so something isn't right. Took a look at T-belt alignment during lunch, it looked good. Took long way home, less hills. Had to do some work on Wife's HHR, so didn't do anything on Wagon. Tuesday after work, I got it in the garage. Went thru the T-belt install again just to be sure it was done right. T-belts are as close to dead on as they are going to get. Rechecked ignition timing, set at 20*. Quick jaunt up and down the street, same doggishness happening. Arg! Wednesday, during lunch, I decided to give it a tad more advance on disty timing. The drive home was better, but it still wasn't right. I could maintain speed going up a hill, but could not increase speed any. Did a lot of reading on here, and watched MilesFox's videos of T-belt and disty install. Ok, maybe I did the disty wrong... When I dropped the disty in, I had brought it up on #1 compression stroke and set the timing mark to 20*, installed disty, rotor pointed at #1 tower on cap. Once engine was started and warmed up, I set timing with the timing light. Possible error there. Did my usual Saturday errands, got it in the garage. Put it on #1 compression stroke at 0*, pulled disty and reinstalled it pointing at #1. Started it up, let it run some, set timing to 20*, called it a day as we had company coming over. I'll take for a spin later today, see if things improved any.

If you opt to go with the 7/16" stud, no drilling is needed, tap will fit the existing hole. Best to use starting tap then follow with bottoming tap to get a couple more threads in the hole. Plenty of material left to go with which ever thread repair kit you want to use should you decide to so to go back to "stock" thread size.

The larger one looks very much like the ones I have here for the XT6 MPFI ER27 engines. That's just going by the larger opening and the screen.

EA81 body part swapping; Tail lights are specific to the body type I believe. Same with rear bumper, BRAT ones are different. Hatch doors fit the BRAT, but you have to swap window glass. Everything from the seats forward swap between body types, exception being dual/quad headlight system, but they "can be" swapped also. '82 BRATs have different front fenders, slight change around side markers, antenna on DS vs. PS for later ones. Gas tanks are FWD-4WD specific. You can fit the FWD tank under a 4WD if you're lifted 4" or so. No recess in FWD tank for the rear diff. Rear suspension swaps for the most part, shocks may be different, not sure. Some one else would have to do a list of EA82 differences, I'm not real knowledgeable on those, and there are differences over the years.