glh1975 Posted January 19, 2009 Share Posted January 19, 2009 I'm about ready to get to work on my 1987 GL 4x4 wagon.The hitachi carb is shot.I've got a weber I picked up on Ebay and I also have access to a 1988 2wd Subaru parts car with the auto tranny.It's got fuel injection.Should I buy the adapter plate and put the weber on or fuel inject it?What would the mpg difference be.Also would there be any problems with the ECU going from an auto tranny to a 5 speed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caramanos2000 Posted January 19, 2009 Share Posted January 19, 2009 No ECU issues, Weber and SPFI both have different pros and cons. If you want simplicity go for the SPFI, no tweaking needed. If you a little more involved I think the carb looks sweet and sounds great. SPFI is better in the cold also :banana: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zyewdall Posted January 19, 2009 Share Posted January 19, 2009 If you have access to either, I'd go with the SPFI. Better starting in cold weather. Never have to mess with it. I got 30ish mpg on the highway, and 26ish mpg around town in the SPFI wagon. I'm not sure the weber will be quite as high, but I'll let some of the weber folks chime in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dude Abides Posted January 19, 2009 Share Posted January 19, 2009 Having worked on carbed vehicles and Fuel Injected ones i would say that carbed is simpler but you cant bet the ease of FI. Ive heard lots of problems from these carbs for subarus not being jetted or adjusted right. SPFI is kinda plug and play. Sure youve got the added hastle of ecu and whatnot. Butt they seem to run better and you can get verticle offroad and not have the bowl flood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hatchsub Posted January 19, 2009 Share Posted January 19, 2009 Right now in the cold im seeing 25-27ish mix of highway and backroads with my weber. Best ive seen is 33mpg on the highway on the way to carlisle two summers ago. If a weber is tuned right gas mileage will be comparable to SPFI. Cold starting is the big downside. I finally got my choke to work pretty well but it will never be as good starting in the cold as SPFI. It all comes down to which you prefer basically. If i had to do it over again i may or may not have gone the SPFI route. I love my weber for the simplicity but could def use some nicer cold start behavior. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhxVigo Posted January 19, 2009 Share Posted January 19, 2009 I too have an '87 GL 4wd 5 speed that I would like to do an SPFI conversion on. The parts car is an '88 2wd 3at. Surely this is some cosmic coincidence... My reading thus far suggests the ECU will work, though there may be some silliness involved with the input that tells the ECU the transmission is in park. I've yet to do anything on my own project, so this isn't first hand. It seems to me the Weber would be the easier option, and the SPFI would be the better option. If it were me, I'd go with whichever was the cheaper option. Anyway, if you go with the SPFI swap, I'd definitely be interested in hearing more about it. I'm sure you've already seen them, but I'll put the links here for the SPFI swap manuals I know about: Snowman's SPFI Conversion Manual (ea82 -> ea82) GD's SPFI Conversion Manual (ea82 -> ea81) Cheers, -Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zyewdall Posted January 19, 2009 Share Posted January 19, 2009 Right now in the cold im seeing 25-27ish mix of highway and backroads with my weber. Best ive seen is 33mpg on the highway on the way to carlisle two summers ago. If a weber is tuned right gas mileage will be comparable to SPFI. Cold starting is the big downside. I finally got my choke to work pretty well but it will never be as good starting in the cold as SPFI. It all comes down to which you prefer basically. If i had to do it over again i may or may not have gone the SPFI route. I love my weber for the simplicity but could def use some nicer cold start behavior. Does the weber use a manual choke? My '76 Mazda pickup has a manual choke, and a very simple carbureator (not quite the simplest possible, as it does have the annoying air injection pump), and it will fire right up in zero degree weather if you use the choke. I am very impressed with it. Previously I had owned 80's carbed vehicles, and had learned to hate carbureators... but the simpler ones apparently weren't that bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snowman Posted January 19, 2009 Share Posted January 19, 2009 Most of the Webers used for this swap are electric choke, but you can convert to manual easily enough. I'd have to look it up to verify for sure, but I'm nearly positive that the park-neutral switch either doesn't need to be hooked up at all, or that it can be bypassed with ease. I've never ran a manual EA82 with an auto ECM, but I've run two manual EJ22s with auto ECMs, and didn't have to change anything as far as computer inputs. (Just bypassed the switch so that the stock ignition circuit would crank the starter.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hatchsub Posted January 20, 2009 Share Posted January 20, 2009 Does the weber use a manual choke? My '76 Mazda pickup has a manual choke, and a very simple carbureator (not quite the simplest possible, as it does have the annoying air injection pump), and it will fire right up in zero degree weather if you use the choke. I am very impressed with it. Previously I had owned 80's carbed vehicles, and had learned to hate carbureators... but the simpler ones apparently weren't that bad. It has an electric choke. I put a bit more tension on the choke spring (whatever the technical term for that is) and increased the choke idle and the past two days its started on the first try with a few pumps of the gas. Not sure about if it gets really cold though. Its been a few degrees warmer these past couple days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bratman18 Posted January 20, 2009 Share Posted January 20, 2009 I love my SPFI conversion on my Brat!!!:banana: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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