7 replies to this topic

[Rollie715]

After watching a few Soobs go through some amazing offroad situations at Walker Valley this past weekend, I've got a question for you Weber Carb experts. In contrast, I saw a huge difference between an EA81 Hatch with 29" tires with a Weber and an EA82 Wagon with 27" tires with an SPFI. The Weber Hatch did most of his driving with foot off the clutch and a little feathering of the throttle when ever the engine would lug down and almost die. You could almost hear each cylinder fire separately kinda like a small tractor sound. On the other hand the SPFI Wagon would lug down and almost die so the driver rode the clutch a lot and revved up the engine more. As an end result, the EA82 burnt his clutch so much there was a cloud of smoke around the car and a nice burnt clutch smell.

My question for you all is: I'm building up a similar EA82 wagon with an existing SPFI and want to know if it would benefit by adding a Weber carb? I'm not too concerned about added power at higher rpm, but am looking for a way to get that low end high torque capability so as to effectively give me a better crawl advantage. I'm also running the 27" tires, and don't really want to add a transfer case. I don't want to lose the other advantages of having fuel injection by going to a carburetor unless I am convinced it could have a dramatic improvement on low end torque?

Any experience out there on this issue using an EA82?

Thanks
Rollie

_____________________________________________________________
88 GL Wagon, SPFI, 6" SJR Lift, 27" SSRs on 6-lug Toyota Alloys

[Tom63050]

The EA81 hatch almost certainly had a dual-range trans--the factor that helped it is lower gears. The EA82 wagon might have been single-range, therefore geared higher. Also, the hatch is quite a bit lighter.

I've had stock carb, Weber, and SPFI. Like most people who've tried all three, I think SPFI is overall the best way to go. I like the Weber too, for power and gas mileage improvements over the stock carb; but with SPFI you don't have issues with different altitudes, or too much lean angle.

I recommend you get your hands on a 5-speed D/R trans, made for the EA82s from 86 to 89 (I think).

[Rollie715]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, the EA82 wagon does indeed have a Dual Range 5 speed already. I can't imagine how bad it would have been without low range. I'm thinking maybe it also has a little to do with the condition of the engine. This engine I believe is high mileage and may be suffering somewhat in the torque department already.

And definitely I can see a huge weight difference. The hatch is really stripped down and the wagon still has all it's heavy parts intact.

I was just hoping to find an easier solution for making the wagon go a little better offroad.

Rollie

[Subarian]

I've got the 32/36, and you'd pick up a little over the stock carb, but I doubt you'd pick up anything over the SPFI. One difference might be in the idle- I'm not sure how low the idle can go on the SPFI, but I can get my Weber to idle pretty smoothly down to about 450-500 rpm. I still don't think that would be enough of an advantage to switch from SPFI, though.

[singletrack]

EA81's just have more torque, plain and simple.

[NoahDL88]

As one of the few on the board that have gone from SPFI to a weber, i can say without hesitation, DON'T. If your SPFI isn't runing right, fix it. the weber won't fix the existing problems in your engine. SPFI is like running 1000 jets, while the weber has 2. 2<1000.

[Snowman]

As one of the few on the board that have gone from SPFI to a weber, i can say without hesitation, DON'T. If your SPFI isn't runing right, fix it. the weber won't fix the existing problems in your engine. SPFI is like running 1000 jets, while the weber has 2. 2<1000.

Ditto.

I think that the SPFI wagon had something wrong with it. My EA82 seemed to have more torque with the SPFI on it than with the Weber.

[Subarian]

A lot can be credited to the driver as well.