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help, major catastrophy *updated with pics*


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well i have a spfi ea82 and a few days ago I changed the head gaskets and t-belts and along with most other gaskets. I started the motor back up and it ran okay. After a few min of running the motor came to a sudden stop.

Apparently a rocker arm was on sideways and a valve basically went into the piston. Now there is a hole in my piston and a broken valve/ruined head. The motor has 190K on it and im wondering what would be my best option? I can get another piston and rod for free or close to free. Ive been looking around for a motor and im not having much luck. Im somewhat decent with rebuilding motors of non-subaru variety. Would it be bad to clean the oil pan out and put a new rod/piston in and rod bearings in and slap it back together? Do you have to split the case to remove the rod? Im not up for splitting the case. I only paid 300 for the car so im not looking the drop a lot of money in it.

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You have the rarest injury I have ever read for an ea82 (only one other and it was a turbo extremed) since I have been posting here, going on 2 years and owning, learning soobs for almost 20 with an ea82. To slam a piston all the way through as you claim, in the non-interference ea82- Scrap the whole block.Even sucking in a valve could push it around in its guide, what happened to you is quite bizarre.. in fact having a hard time portraying it imaginatively. would love to see photos if you take it apart. 6 posts in 3 years, you must have had an equally quiet soob. :)

I could safely assume cyl wall of injured piston will never be the same , even if there are no marks, I am referring to the shape of the wall. Photos would be seeing to believe. Wow.

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i felt the cy walls and there is maybe one spot that seems lke maybe a little knick or somthing. Il take a closer look soon when i pull the motor out. Il have to take some pics like you said, its not a pretty sight. Well is it possilbe to remove the rod without splitting the case. The car was in the driveway running about 2k rpm when it broke. so its didnt turn over much after it broke.

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you can replace the piston without splitting the block. do a search on this forum for instructions on how it's done. pull wrist pin, then rotate crank until the rod pushes the piston out far enough to remove it....or just thread a bolt in the hole created by the valve!!!! and yank it out...that's sort of a joke, but that damage could help in removal once the pin is out.

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You probably didn't have all the cam tower bolts tight enough, or the valve got stuck in it's guide. This isn't real common, but it does happen. So far I've only had one engine do that, and the owner was helping me assemble it - he did the cam tower bolts and I suspect the one under that rocker arm wasn't tight.

 

Basically toss that engine in the dumpster. Replacing the piston, while possible without splitting the block, is going to be a lot of work for maybe nothing. You have a lot of metal contamination inside the engine, and it's going to be hard to tell if the rod is slightly bent or not. I would use it for parts and find another short block.

 

GD

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If you get another long block, make sure you get an SPFI one. The MPFI, carb, and of coerse the turbo engines have less compression due to the different pistons.

 

MPFI is the same compression as the SPFI block, but will require your SPFI heads. Carb is only slightly less and will still run fine. Stay away from Turbo's

 

GD

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well I pulled the motor this evening. Looks like the rod has a nick in the end of it. Appears to be risky reusing the old block. Il prolly see about pulling the messed up piston out anyway. We would have taken some good pics but my friend forgot his camera. Il put some up soon. Its quite easy to pull the motor btw, lot easier than a honda.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Wow, that's incredible.... never seen that before..... good job! ;)

 

Did you end up getting that SPFI motor I told you about?

 

 

yah i got that motor in the car now... seems to be running good. For now we are fixing the rust spots. May be a little documentation on that too.

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