Lots of problems after engine swap...

[losingalltouch]

Recently swapped the engine on my 86 gl-10 turbo MT after blowing a head gasket, and now have a set of problems. I replaced the EA82T with another one imported from japan. I stripped down the engine and used all the original components except for the turbo. I know there's a few things wrong with the components before I did the engine swap, but nothing was this bad. I also replaced the clutch, and prior to doing the engine swap I repacked the front bearings and replaced the lower ball joints.

First problem, the idle is super erratic, changing 100 or more rpms every second or so in the range of 100-1500 rpms, dropping down to 600-900rpms randomly. When it gets down to normal idle speed, the engine usually dies because the rpms jump around so much (it'll dip down to about 400 and then stall). I checked the vaccum system and everything seems to be hooked up fine. Timing seems to be correct.

 

Next major problem: only driven it at like 20mph max, but every time i lift my foot off the accelerator there's this dull metal-on-metal noise that turns my stomache. Almost sounds like the muffler's dragging but it's not.

 

All I can figure so far is I should reset the ecu and see what happens. Any suggestions would be helpful as I know of about 3 pages of possibilities that could be wrong with it. The car didn't behave this way before the engine swap, so I'm trying to consider what has changed, since i kept all the old components.

 

Thanks for any help.

Edited October 7, 2009 by losingalltouch

[Turbone]

Take a can of brake/carb cleaner and start spaying around the vac hoses.

Listen for a change in idle and that should be your leak, if its a vac leak problem.

As for the dull sound when letting of the gas, I would think thats a engine or tranny mount issue. Also make sure the pitch stopper is connected.

[coroboto]

I had this same issue (rough running not gut churning sound) except it only happened after the car was warm...the point I am getting at was that it was the distributor in my case. There is something like a low ground fault ...that is what my mechanic said. The distributor was sending a ground to the ECM. Hope that might help.

 

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=28577&highlight=loyale+hesitation&page=4

 

Hope this helps.

[losingalltouch]

Thank you so much, did some more tinkering and it only idles rough when the engine is warm. From what I can gather you had to replace the distributor, but not the ECM? I'd like to think it's just a loose ground but it's probably not that simple. I'll look for vac leaks as well.