The ea81 cv mod thread

[superooo]

Is gone, cant find info on modding my axles for a lift, im putting xt springs up front and ea82 rear coilovers, would wagon rears be best? I have an 87 ea81 hatch. Im going dr 5 spd with lsd and lsd rear, thinking 2 inch front lift, but how much lift would it take to just put ea82 axles? I know 2 isnt enough, but most of the lft threads regard ea82

[superooo]

Found this dead link if anyone has a copy of it

http://home.comcast.net/~trilinear/axle_rebuilding.html

[Uberoo]

You can put ea82 front suspension under your hatch.just use ea82 everything except for ea81 top hats on the struts so it all bolts up.You need to extend the ea82 radius rods by 1.25 or 1.5" IIRC. You will need to cut your ea81 tierods in half and weld on ea82 outer tie rods.No need to lift it to fit ea82 stuff under there.But the ea82 stuff has more suspension travel and stronger axles.2" of suspension lift is ok. If you want more lift than that you will need to throw in a body lift as well.

 

if you can't weld then you can swap ea82 front crossmeber + all the suspension bits,but that does require at least a 2" body lift to adapt it in.

 

 

Your hatch uses a torsion bar rear suspension and just uses conventional shocks.To lift the rear there is an adjustment bolt on the center of the torsion bar accesible through the floor under the rear seat.Might have to spray out all the crud with a hose first.Also its easier to adjust the bolt if the rear tires are off the ground by jacking up on the rear diff.

[86BRATMAN]

Why cut the tie rods? I've threaded ea81 tie rod ends onto ea82 and legacy steering racks. So there should be absolutely no reason why you couldn't use ea82 tie rod ends on the ea81 rack.

[Uberoo]

I dunno mine didn't thread on but my car had a manual rack,while the ea82 donor had power steering so that might of had something to do with it.

[musubk]

The EA82 outer tie rods, or 'tie rod ends', will thread onto the EA81 inner tie rods, but they still weren't long enough to reach from my EA81 manual rack to the steering knuckle. I ended up cutting the EA81 inner tie rods and welding a sleeve in the middle to lengthen them about an inch.

Swapping the EA82 outer+inner tie rods looks like it would be long enough, but the inner won't thread on at all. The EA82 tie rod uses a 'male' tie rod and the EA81 uses a 'female' tie rod. I have documentation of that particular problem

 

I was working with EA82 power steering tie rods and EA81 manual tie rods, just like Uberoo

Edited October 3, 2016 by musubk

[86BRATMAN]

I didn't think about the length difference. It makes sense now, thanks for the explanation.