1992 Subaru Loyale wagon 4WD won’t start

[J41YD3D.]

Recently I pulled and resealed the whole ea82 engine in my 92 loyale wagon. I have since put the engine back in and buttoned up the engine, but I haven’t had any luck starting it. I realized my mistake first off, the timing was way of. I set the passenger side and driver side camshafts to 12 o’ clock. After watching miles fox on YouTube I’m pretty sure I have that issue fixed. However, I set the timing to the middle mark of the three marks on the flywheel. I started the timing with the drivers side setting it to 12 o’ clock then putting the belt on and rotating it 180 degrees so now it’s at 6 o’ clock. Then I moved to the passenger side set it to 12 o’ clock, put the timing belt on and proceeded to rotate it 180 degrees. After that I set the distributor to the first cylinder, while on the center mark on the fly wheel. I then rotated the engine until I got to the 0 mark on the flywheel but the cams where no longer at the top and bottom but I didn’t think much of. I thought I was solid so I put the motor back together and tried turning it over to no avail, played with the distributor for a while to no avail. I know I’m getting spark and fuel. Cranking it doesn’t give an uneven sound like it’s only running on a few cylinders. It’s even all the way through. I smell gas after cranking it and I backfiring through the intake. This is the first time I’ve ever rebuilt an engine so I need so help I’m lost. Cheers! 

[1 Lucky Texan]

the backfiring through the intake sounds to me like the timing is still off.

 

[J41YD3D.]

22 hours ago, 1 Lucky Texan said:

the backfiring through the intake sounds to me like the timing is still off.

 

It definitely was and to make matters worst I had the 2nd cylinder and the 4th spark plug wires mixed up. She runs no problem now. I guess that’s why many people didn’t respond because they realized I was an idiot soon to figure it out lol. 

[1 Lucky Texan]

hey, you stayed with and got it going. kudos

[el_freddo]

Well you figured it out yourself before a dozen posts telling you want to check and look out for, kudos from me too for that. 

And don’t stress, before I knew about forums I had my rebuilt EA82 only ever running on one bank at a time. It took me about 6 months of working on the car before I worked out what the problem was - and that was only because my sister’s L series had the same issue after a HG swap. Once we worked that one out I had mine solved in just a few minutes. I was so stoked! 

So don’t go beating yourself up on not having replies with ideas but still finding the issue! Forums are slow now compared to pre Facebook and “smart” phones became a thing. 

Cheers 

Bennie

[Steptoe's photos]

a simple compression test can help determine if valve timing is correct. Ignition timing and lead order are another thing

I mark all my leads and cap with coloured zip ties , red on both ends of #1 lead, and where it fits to cap, blue on two, grEEn on thrEE, yellow on #4 - fool proof !

 

[scoobydube]

Single defective items that can by themselves keep the engine from starting and has put thousands of Subarus in junk yards:

1. the black fusible link is the main engine but any of them can start to break or get hard and brittle, causing intermittent and then total failure.

2.  the thing a ma jig that bolts to the body, directly behind the fusible link box, that had one wire to the coil and the long black wire running to left side engine attachment next to the battery, where the ground wire attaches.  The thing a ma jig also keeps static off of your radio and right before it blows, you get a lot of radio static.

3. the main engine ground wire get brittle and loses most of it's ability to conduct electricity and ground out the engine, at it's attachment to the frame.  This single defect will cause the engine to run poorly when you operate any other accessory on the vehicle.  For instance, you can almost kill the engine by operating your electric windows, if you have them.    These wires may not last more that 250,000 miles.

4. a loose wire inside of the distributor cap

5. the short wire between the Positive battery terminal and the fusible link box, gets hard at the terminal end, brittle and loses most if not all of it's ability to conduct electricity, causing poor performance before a total engine failure.  You splice in a new lead to the battery terminal, by splaying both ends of the two wire ends that you are joining, in order to get the maximum about of contact surface.

6. the distributor electronics just suddenly went out.

7. the hot wire that runs into the back of the alternator, gets brittle, hard and breaks, causing the engine to perform poorly before it suddenly fails.

8. bad plugs will cause your alternator to fail prematurely.  Some plugs require replacement every 15,000 miles.

9. coil failure or corrosion inside of the lead wire from the coil to the distributor.

10.  Bonus:  a failure of the replaceable round switch below the dash board, to the left of the steering column, will cause the interior fan to suddenly fail, especially if you had just been running it at it's maximum speed.  There are about 5 of these identical switches below that dash in the same location so you are going to have to get a known good switch and plug it into each switch socket, one at a time, before you find the burned out one.  There may be black discoloration on the burned out one.