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Is there any cheap and easy mods to do to get h/p?


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like the title, is there any cheap and easy mods to gain a litle bit of performance out of the ea 82 engine. would like a weber but cant afford right now.i did drill a few holes in the filter lid to get a lil more air flow. and bought a k&n airfilter. Basically i want to do little cheap things to gain horse power. any suggestions highly appreciated. ??????

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Toy with the timing... find out what it's at stock and bump it up 5 degree's or so :) If its carburated you can modify the carburator, but you must remove it. You dont need to dismantle it but you can make it so it will open both barrels manually.

 

Ive done it on my EA81 and i could tell a difference.

 

-Brian

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Not exactly free, but individually not too expensive - I got noticable gains on my 91 Loyale with each of these:

Clean it out - oil, carbon, and gas tank - with Sea Foam $5-$6

After market Coil - $40-50

Accel Plug Wires - $25-$35

 

Plus what was already said - NGK plugs, experiment with timing, rotor, etc.

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This may be up for debate and is not exactly cheap, but switch over to a good synthetic oil. I switched over to Mobil1 and felt a noticeable increase in acceleration, though it may have just been the placebo effect trying to justify the $20/gallon. On the other hand, tests have been performed that showed a measurable increase in horsepower when an engine was switched to AMSOil. Makes sense when you think about it: slipperyer oil, less drag on the pistons, more power to the crankshaft.

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Convert to SPFI. Some judicious JY spending should get you the parts for not too much.

 

... If its carburated you can modify the carburator, but you must remove it. You dont need to dismantle it but you can make it so it will open both barrels manually.

 

Ive done it on my EA81 and i could tell a difference.

 

-Brian

With all due respect to Brian, and disclosing that I have not personally tried and compared on the soob's Hitachi:

 

This "trick" has been a hot rod favorite for decades, and has generally been debunked as not really working. Unless the vacuum-secondary actuation was improperly setup by the manufacturer, it will open the secondary when the engine is ready for it (which is the purpose of vac-secs). Converting to manual, the secondary can open before the engine is ready to handle the airflow, causing the air velocity to drop, resulting in drop-off of fuel flow through the discharge tubes and fuel falling out of suspension in the manifold. The result is a bogging (flat-spot), followed by the airflow/engine recovering and developing power again. What the driver feels is a jerk and then resumed power, and thinks that is a surge of power. (Sort of like the theme park rides that make you feel like you are accelerating while the room actually stays mounted to the floor.) Holley on their carburetors with manual secondaries deals with this problem by putting an accelerator pump in the secondaries ("double pumpers") to enrichen the mixture.

 

If you want the perception of power, anything that increases perceived engine noise and "feel" will do that. If you have high grade ignition components, going to same-function-but-fancy stuff will not increase power. If you want real power, it is a little more complicated and sophisticated. Calebz said it very well...

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is there any cars that came with a weber that i could bolt on to my ea82? like one i could find in a j/y ? and is the spfi swap a pain in the a..? I dont know 2 much about these soobs. i am pretty knew, but i do love them.

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AFAIK, all of the webers have a different base mounting pattern from the Hitachis, so you need an adapter. There are different configurations for Webers, and I do not recall what model designation is preferred (as to do with things like throttle-cable mounting/position and such).

 

For "cheap", you might consider the Holley/Weber 5200 that came on Ford 4's and V6's of the 70's and 80's (maybe 90's???). Some people have expressed negative feelings about them, but they seemed pretty decent, at least when near-new.

 

Something else to look at is carbs from Nissans. I have not checked their bolt pattern, but I believe that they are the same as our Hitachis. The one that came on my 1980 Nissan Z20 crate engine seemed pretty good, and helped develop some pretty good power and driveability. (Overall, a better driving experience than my dual Weber 40DCOEs.)

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Mobil 1: yes, runs well, but unless you are very very confident of your engine seals I wouldn't recommend it. I changed to Mobil 1 and my EA82T now drops a few drops of oil a day, steadily. Not good. Now I'm looking at a PITA reseal (edit: hey someone just posted a great advice thread on how to reseal without pulling the engine, good timing :D ). Just my 2 cents.

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ya mobil 1 would just run straight threw my engine. i should have car back runnin tomaro so ill take her for a good spin.icon7.gif so how bout plugs. i think i should have enough money for those. what is a good kind? im tryin to get this lil stuff done before the show. it doesnt have to be done but i would like it. i am interested in the spfi swap. that wouldnt be for a while though.

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I don't know what your budget will allow, but I got a good deal here for my weber, and I just found one pretty reasonable at the local j/y

 

it's a DGAV-33B1 32/36

 

the one I have on my EA-81 is a DGAV-33A1

 

I'm no weber expert, but I am guessing that it might be jetted a little diferent, and it has the electric choke, very easy to set-up ... I got mine here for $80 including shipping, so that's what I will sell this one for if your interested :)

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This may be up for debate and is not exactly cheap, but switch over to a good synthetic oil. I switched over to Mobil1 and felt a noticeable increase in acceleration, though it may have just been the placebo effect trying to justify the $20/gallon. On the other hand, tests have been performed that showed a measurable increase in horsepower when an engine was switched to AMSOil. Makes sense when you think about it: slipperyer oil, less drag on the pistons, more power to the crankshaft.

i was told that you shouldn't use a pure synthetic if the motor has more than 30 or 40k miles, because it will slip past your rings and all the seals, this could be bull************ but i don't know, maybe someone here knows differnt.

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People have talked about super-duper copper gaskets and the like. Supposedly these are better than the stock gaskets, and would help keep that synthetic oil in. I think I need to start a thread about switching between the oils, better than hijacking this one... hehe

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