ea81t into ea81 w/4spd d/r 4wd

[themoneypit]

ok, probably a stupid question but here goes. i just bought an 84 gl turbo wagon. it was automatic 4wd but shes pretty rusty. will that turbo motor bolt up to a 4spd 4wd d/r tranny or do i need a new bell housing? ive got an 87 hatch i want to put the turbo motor into. ive got the complete wagon so all the wiring/ecu etc... shouldnt be a problem. let me know guys thanks, any advice will be awesome

[MSSLGECKO]

Yes, an EA81T will bolt to a 4SPD D/R.

Folks on the board who have done swaps generally advise that swapping an EA81T is more hassle than it's worth (to them).

The 3AT is lame, my EA81T wagon has a 5SPD D/R and it's way better.

 

Good luck

[baccaruda]

it's going to be a BIG hassle but the EA81T is a blast to drive. I have a turbo coupe and I can't WAIT to swap a 5sp-D/R into it this spring, the auto SUCKS.

 

Make sure you have an '84 FSM or a good GOOD wiring diagram. Have also a digital camera and either an old cheap shop laptop or at least a printer so you can have your pics in front of you.

I would strongly suggest that you give the engine a major servicing while out of the car, and I would also suggest that you keep the power steering..

 

Really, the best way to do this would be to drop the ENTIRE crossmember including engine, Xmember, and all front suspension, from the wagon. The EA81T has better front springs than the regular EA81s so you'll want those even if you get new front struts.

 

And for all this work, you might consider putting in a 5sp-D/R instead of mating it to a 4. For all of the effort this will take, I personally would want to end up with the best possible result.

[75subie]

while doing your swap, it'll probly be worth upgrading your turbo/exhaust, along with new head gaskets, oil pump, ect. those ea81t's are known for having cracked heads between the valves, and blowing hg's. its worth all the prevention work you can do.

 

an ea82t turbo charger would be a decent upgrade, along with an intercooler of some sort, and maybe a bov......

[themoneypit]

well im probably going to leave the 4spd for now, the wagon has another good 4spd d/r in the back of it, so cant see buying another tranny. i was planning on dropping the entire crossmember front end and engine, but if those motors are known for bad head gaskets, i wonder if its even worth all the hassle? maybe i should put a weber carb on the stock motor first and see if that makes it good enough for now. then when i have the extra cash ill have that motor gone thru before i do the transplant.

i just hate the fact that climbing hills on the highway the you practically have to be in the slow lane :-\ even with ur foot to the floor. thanks for the input thou

[GeneralDisorder]

They aren't known for headgaskets - that's the EA82T. Still not worth the hassle though.

 

Put SPFI on your stock engine. That'll give you as much performance as a Weber, and better driveability. It's also generally cheaper. See my write up:

 

http://home.comcast.net/~trilinear/EA81_SPFI.html

 

Ditch the 4 speed. They suck. Beleive me.

 

GD

[75subie]

well, out of the 5 ea81ts i`ve ever seen in real life, 4 of them had head gasket issues, so you can understand my reasoning;)

 

 

that spfi swap sounds pretty good tho

[WRX1AB]

I did it, it was well worth the hassel. If you do it, go whole hog, get hte 89 xt gearbox, and rear end, get your front drive shafts shortened and go with the carrier bearing rearward driveshaft. get the rear control arms off hte xt too and bolt them more or less straight on. xt front hubs too, but thats a hassesl, but much better breatks. remember to take teh brain and all the wiring harness. I cut the injection harness out of the rest of the harness and had the motor as a stand alone circuit with a turbo timer. worked great!

 

If I were to do it diferently i would consider the same parts in a hatch. I went full street so it was a little lowered and had 14's with yokham 215 60's on it and kybs all round and sway bars.

 

it did unfortunatlry develope what looked like a head gasket and I took the heads off, replaced gaskets but it still did it. I even examined for cracks but none there, had heads pressure tested and they passed. It turne dout but it wasnt a head gasket that was causing all that water in the motor, it was a rotten intake manifold. you could tell because if you kept the boost pressure up hte water stopped leaking, but it was hard to drive like that all teh time.

 

It was by far the most fun I have had with a subaru, no-body expected hte 140+horse wagon, and it handeles really well too.

 

best trick with tehat gear box: hand brake on, middle diff open, gearbox in low, 7krpm, drop clutch. no-one expects that, or hte low range drage race.

[GeneralDisorder]

no-body expected hte 140+horse wagon, and it handeles really well too.

 

What the hell are you talking about? The EA81T is 95 HP.

 

You don't need to shorten any axle shafts for EA series transmissions.

 

For the work required, put an EJ22 in the car - no turbo hassle, and 135 HP.

 

GD

[mikeshoup]

Since you already have an EA81T and won't have to spend any more money for an SPFI swap or an EJ22 swap...

 

Go for the EA81T. For only 95HP, it scoots well Just keep it from overheating, and you won't have to worry about any head gasket problems. If you still have the EA81T oil cooler, keep that.

[themoneypit]

yeah, have the complete ea81t wagon, i will look at that spi link too if thats easier.. i mean i have an xt6 to drive too, but id love for the hatch to have some more nut to it, as i want to put a lift and 15s on it, ill prob keep the 4spds till they ************ the bed, then find a 5spd for it, unless i find one in the meantime at a price thats right. the wagon only has 92k on it so its a low mileage motor i dont think overheating will be a problem. the car was my bro in laws and he drove it every day till the automatic tranny popped. i dunno what im gonna do yet, this wont happen till spring or summer anyhow, was just gettin some ideas of what to do when the time comes...:cool:

[baccaruda]

you'd be better off selling the good turbo motor toward funding an EJ swap.

Fundamentally I think the EA81T is only about 10-15% more difficult to swap in, but.. why go to all the work to end up with 95HP and a higher maintenance motor, when you can end up with a 135HP motor that's easier to maintain and easier to find parts for.

If you decide to go that route, sell the whole EA81T car either here or to some home-build aircraft fanatic, they love those motors and they have more money to play with than your average old-subaru fan - think fabricating a plane from scratch.

[stinky]

There's a lot to be said about keeping the car as stock as possible, especially in places where the modifications rules are nice and strict.

 

I've got an ea81t in my brumby (brat) with an aftermarket ECU (wolf3d) I get 120HP at the wheels and all that's been done to it is a TMIC, better cat back exhaust and turbo from ea82t. Oh and 5spd d/r gearbox.

 

At some stage I want to put in custom headers ( like the TWE ones ) custom dump pipe, and good mandrel bent piping for the IC.

 

I can spin the front wheels all the way into third gear. I love it, gives me plenty more juice, but stays completely legal.

 

However, If I was doing it from scratch with what I know now, I'd definately be putting in a worked EJ22, or an EJ turbo depending on what was avaliable.

[Hodaka Rider]

5spd: the reason the EA-81's suck on hills is the tranny. You are either redlining it in 3rd, or running below optimum power in 4th. The 5spd ads a gear in the middle there, which makes hills a little easier. Plus, low range is lower. Win/Win.

[themoneypit]

yeah i hear ya there, when i drive to work theres a few good size hills on the highway, and i hate "crawling" up them, i advanced the timing as much as possible, still same result, its gotta be that 4spd... if i do the 5spd swap, would i use the 4wd linkage from the 4 spd with the stock lever? if not, do u have to leave the center console pieces out and have it look like crap inside? i know the ea82 d/r trannys had a different style lever for the 4wd.

[970subaru]

semi highjack,

anyone here upped the boost on an ea81t? how much power yall think they could handle if you put on a VF11, some kind of efi like megasquirt, plus an intercooler? 200hp maybe? and would it work to do that to a regular ea81 too? they are pretty low compression and have a closed deck so it should work ok huh?

[86BRATMAN]

yeah i hear ya there, when i drive to work theres a few good size hills on the highway, and i hate "crawling" up them, i advanced the timing as much as possible, still same result, its gotta be that 4spd... if i do the 5spd swap, would i use the 4wd linkage from the 4 spd with the stock lever? if not, do u have to leave the center console pieces out and have it look like crap inside? i know the ea82 d/r trannys had a different style lever for the 4wd.

 

no you just need to get the interior console from an ea82 car with d/r trans and bolt it into the ea81 car, looks stock and very clean, check in the photo section a few people have done it and uploaded pics

[GeneralDisorder]

no you just need to get the interior console from an ea82 car with d/r trans and bolt it into the ea81 car, looks stock and very clean, check in the photo section a few people have done it and uploaded pics

 

You don't have to do that - you can use the stock EA81 consoles. My Brat looks 100% stock inside. Just added a 2WD 5 speed EA81 shift knob to mark the extra gear.

 

Using the EA82 consoles looks like poo.

 

Not much point in me taking a picture - have a look at your 4 speed interior - that's what mine looks like.

 

GD

[stinky]

semi highjack,

anyone here upped the boost on an ea81t? how much power yall think they could handle if you put on a VF11, some kind of efi like megasquirt, plus an intercooler? 200hp maybe? and would it work to do that to a regular ea81 too? they are pretty low compression and have a closed deck so it should work ok huh?

 

I'm running 10psi boost on in mine using the turbo from a ea82t , a Wolf3d ECU and TMIC. as I said earlier 120HP at the wheels, anyone know roughly what that would be at the flywheel ?

[970subaru]

100?

[86BRATMAN]

I'm running 10psi boost on in mine using the turbo from a ea82t , a Wolf3d ECU and TMIC. as I said earlier 120HP at the wheels, anyone know roughly what that would be at the flywheel ?

 

Assuming the general loss for a fwd vehicle i'd say around the 150-155 hp range at the flywheel

 

Could be different on a subie tho, never seen or heard of one on a dyno

[WRX1AB]

What the hell are you talking about? The EA81T is 95 HP.

 

You don't need to shorten any axle shafts for EA series transmissions.

 

For the work required, put an EJ22 in the car - no turbo hassle, and 135 HP.

 

GD

 

maybe not 140, but it was nice, and I did up the boost, but didnt move the maf and didnt get around to changing the manifold blow off valve so it ran rich as it dumped pressure. I got a plug for it and a variable blow off but never put it on. THe 89 turbo was much larger than the 84, my guess is it got the same power as an ea82t whatever that is (maybe a little more with the wastegate adjuster) but if you like, i stand corrected.

 

THe 82 dl has much smaller diameter drive shafts and cv's than the 89 xt. there was no way of converting over no matter what combnation of shafts and cv's. there are others who shortened the fronts to fit this gearbox htat i found out about after i did it. I had to take the hubs and then shorten teh shafts by an inch. hte ea82s are about 2 inchs wider than the 81's. there is no way in hell the ej22 is going to fit into an 79-84 wagon or hatch or sedan, the unibody rails are far too close, but will fit in an ea82 vehivle (hence the 2 inches wider to fit the overhead cam motor) thats why there are no early 80's subes with over head cam. hte ej22 is only marginaly wider than the ea82, but both are much wider than teh ea81.

[WRX1AB]

yeah, have the complete ea81t wagon, i will look at that spi link too if thats easier.. i mean i have an xt6 to drive too, but id love for the hatch to have some more nut to it, as i want to put a lift and 15s on it, ill prob keep the 4spds till they ************ the bed, then find a 5spd for it, unless i find one in the meantime at a price thats right. the wagon only has 92k on it so its a low mileage motor i dont think overheating will be a problem. the car was my bro in laws and he drove it every day till the automatic tranny popped. i dunno what im gonna do yet, this wont happen till spring or summer anyhow, was just gettin some ideas of what to do when the time comes...:cool:

 

if you do pull the motor, take the ignition retard system from the driver side fender. its a pass through box for the distributor and the ig mod, and plugs into the knock sensor.

[WRX1AB]

you'd be better off selling the good turbo motor toward funding an EJ swap.

Fundamentally I think the EA81T is only about 10-15% more difficult to swap in, but.. why go to all the work to end up with 95HP and a higher maintenance motor, when you can end up with a 135HP motor that's easier to maintain and easier to find parts for.

If you decide to go that route, sell the whole EA81T car either here or to some home-build aircraft fanatic, they love those motors and they have more money to play with than your average old-subaru fan - think fabricating a plane from scratch.

 

 

ej wont fit, no chance forget it. its easier to weld the driveshafts than to move the body rails.

 

youd be better off selling the 81t to an aircraft guy (they pay bank!) and buying a legacy. not more reliable though, more seals, more belts... a good motor, but a water pump takes a lot more time than 15 mins and a lot more cash too.

 

all motor swaps are a pain, all custom work is worse. THe only problem with the 81 t into an 81 is plumbing and wiring, and most of that is easy. you could always go the easy rout and leave the 4 speed mounting is a no brainer. Mine was a pain beacuase I really like that dual range locking middle diff all wheel drive 5 speed with posi, and the bell hosueings are exact. hell, thats a better box that what I ahve in my legacy which si 3 open difs and no low range.

 

so why the 89 box? low range, open middle diff, hand brake on (fronts) is a very cool trick. and no-one expects the 140 (0r 95) horse rear wheel smoking donut making wagon....no-body.

 

I posted pics when i did it, dont know where they are now.

[mikeshoup]

ej wont fit, no chance forget it. its easier to weld the driveshafts than to move the body rails.

Have you tried the swap yourself?

 

I've heard of quite a few stock height EJ swaps into EA81 bodied cars. Its the Gen1 bodied cars that are too narrow. Also, the EJ is narrower than the EA82 because of the lack of a cam carrier. Plus, there have been those who have fit EA82s into EA81 bodied cars.

 

As far as axles, EA81 FWD shafts + Legacy DOJs will give you the required 25 spline DOJ.

 

BTW, the EA82T is 115hp stock, unless its from an 87.5+ XT with spider intake. Those made 130hp-135hp.