Well, I decided not to get rid of my dad's Brat. After thinking about it I just couldn't do it. I haven't been fooling with Soobs for quite a while so I need advice. Here it goes. He overheated it a while back and upon investigating I found his radiator was 1/2 gone. I put in a new radiator, water pump and a few hoses. A while after that he came back and said it would not idle properly. I think the damage was done. Warped head or blown head gasket? I tried to adjust the throttle cable, that wasn't it. I replaced the cap, rotor, plugs and wires and that wasn't it. I fooled with the idle screw and now it will idle but rough. It starts great, idles good with choke on. Soon as it warms and you hit the throttle to shut off choke it dies. I pulled the motor tonight and I am pondering on what to do next. Should I buy a headset from E-bay and pull the heads, check them and reinstall? Should I spend the time and look for another motor?

 

BTW, I am not up on the codes here. Is an ea82 the OHC 1.8?

Hmmmm....

 

That's kind of a tough question. With overheating, damage can be mild to catasrophic. Is the ONLY problem that it won't idle, or has it lost power or started using coolant or oil, or mixing the two? If it's just the idle problem, I would hold onto that engine. Then again, depending on where you live, you might be able to locate a good-running replacement for a few hundred bucks, which might be easier and cheaper.

 

To answer your engine code query:

 

EA81: 1.8L OHV (the engine in your brat, assuming it wasn't swapped for something else. Actually, if your brat is an early one, you could have an EA71 OHV 1.6L).

 

EA82: 1.8L OHC

 

EJ18/EJ20/EJ22/EJ25....: Numbers corresponding with displacement in liters, OHC (some are DOHC), which are in Legacy, Impreza, Forester.

Car makes good power. Didn't notice any oil in the coolant. Didn't really check the oil closely.

Where in PA? Up near Bloomsburg I have 2 used EA81's. One is known to have a bad headgasket on one side but ran great otherwise, the other was from a car I bought from the junkyard. It was junked for rust reasons. Previous owner said it ran great. You can have both for 75 bucks, one time offer. Boz

Likely the heads are warped if it was overheated, but the HG's are probably good if it's still makeing power. I wouldn't worry about it. Your carb is probably at fualt for the bad idle. The Hitachi's are notorious for that. In my experience, warped heads make little to no difference once they are torqued down with a new gasket. I pulled both heads from my Brat, and neither gasket was leaking but the heads were warped more than 3 times the allowed limit by the FSM.....

 

If you do pull the heads, then have them milled (should be around $30 a head), and use new Fel-Pro head gaskets. They are only $14 brand new - don't buy the cheap ebay gaskets - you will be dissapointed. Plus the Fel-Pro's don't require retorqueing. Do a compression test to make sure your gaskets ARE bad before you pull the heads.

 

Rebuild the Hitachi, and make sure you find ALL the vacuum leaks. This will cure your idle problem I should think.

 

GD