Carnot

I've been looking for some 13s myself for rallycross. I wish I had known I would need them when TireRack was closing out their Kumho rally tires for $25 each.

Good point, I didn't even look at your location.

Do you want to get rid of the single pulley? I've got an EA-81 that I've removed the AC from and I wouldn't mind having the lighter single pulley to put on there.

I see...so where does that plug in exactly? There is a ring terminal that I have on the small stud on the back of the alternator and also a female spade connector that is on a male spade on the back of the alternator. Is the T-shaped connector supposed to be what's on the male spade?

After removing and reinstalling the engine from my '81 hatch I've had some electrical problems show up. The first problem that I noticed was that there was no power going to the fuel pump. I also discovered that there are a lot of warning lights on the dash that don't go off after the car is started. I put a weber carb on it a couple of weeks ago and it was running fine until now. It still runs, but I had to run a different wire to power the fuel pump. One possibility is a connector that goes near the alternator but isn't plugged into anything. I don't remember if it was plugged into anything before or not. It is a two lead connector that is in the same bundle with the two wires that are hooked up to the alternator. Any ideas on what I should look at?

Take it from me, boys and girls, don't wait until the night before a race to try to work on your car. You'll end up rushing to finish and then you'll do something stupid like intall a clutch disk backwards. It is possible and easy to do (at least with the kit that I got) and it won't work very well if you do it.

I already wired a seperate, new circuit for my electric choke. And yes mine was a feedback carb.

I've recently installed a Weber carb on my '81 hatch. In the process I removed the small wiring harness that went from two plugs near the passenger fender to several sensors around the engine bay. Most of them seem to be related to emissions control stuff for the Hitachi. There are only two things that I can figure out that I might want to keep. One is the water thermometer. The other I think is the oil pressure sensor on the front of the block near the bottom. Are there any other of these sensors that need to stay connected? The car runs great without any of them hooked up.

I'll check that out, but I didn't start poking around under the dash until after I discovered I wasn't getting any power to the fuel pump (verified with a meter). What does the fuel pump controller do exactly? I was under the impression that the fuel pump just runs constantly when ingnition power is on.

I do have a problem with the clutch cable (the original was secured with a pair of vice-grips and some hose clamps) but I think there's something wrong in the clutch assembly somehow as well. I tried actuating the clutch fork with a pair of large channel locks and it wouldn't budge. How much force should it take to move it? It felt like it was getting ready to bend, so I quit pushing on it. That's good to know about the weak assembly, though. I'll have to keep that in mind. Are there any theories as to why I'm not getting power to my fuel pump after removing and reinstalling my engine? Where is a good place to start troubleshooting? I found a fuse in a holder under the dash labelled as "fuel pump" that was still intact, but that's as far as I've gotten.

That's what I was hoping. I don't think I put it in backwards, but that's the only thing I could think of that might be wrong. It didn't take any hurculean efforts to get the PP to bolt on, so I should be good there. I guess I'll try changing out the clutch cable and see if that makes any difference. If not I suppose it's time to pull the engine again and see if I left some spacers in there or something.

I guess maybe I'll have to try to peek in there and see if I left some spacers. Is it even possible to install the clutch disk backwards? Would that cause symptoms like this?

I figured it was probably something like that. They even specified 4WD in their system, but I guess it's just a mistake. I'm sure I'm not the first person to find out the hard way. What kind of spacer was it? Where was it? I didn't notice anything, but I could have jsut been in a hurry.

I've got an '81 DL 4WD hatch that I've been using for rallycross this year. At the last event, I had a ton of problems with the clutch slipping, so I decided to replace it. I ordered a clutch kit from AutoZone, but the clutch disk had the wrong size hole. The splines on the disk measured 3/4" and the input shaft of my 4-speed was 7/8". I got that resolved with a new clutch kit (this time from Advance Auto). I got the clutch installed and slid the engine back into place, but now the clutch doesn't operate correctly. The pedal won't depress at all. It feels like there's no give at all in the pressure plate springs. The only thing I can think is that maybe I put the clutch disk in backwards and that's messing it up somehow. I'm also having problems starting the car after reinstalling the engine. I've recent put a Weber on there and it was running great. I traced the issue to the fuel pump getting no power. What might I have done during the removal and reinstallation of the engine that would cause the power to the fuel pump to suddenly stop working? I could always rewire a new power source to the pump, but I'd rather find the root cause than put a bandaid on it. So to sum up, 3 questions: Why would AutoZone have a clutch kit in their system that doesn't fit my car? Why won't my clutch work? Why doesn't my fuel pump have power anymore?

Well, I'm no expert by any means and I don't know how similar my '81 hatch is to your car, but I'll tell you what I know. There really wasn't anything holding the evaporator assembly in place other than the refrigerant lines and ducting that was just slip fit onto it. You could probably just clean the coils out without depressurizing the system by simply removing the blower assembly (one bolt, two nuts). Once you've done that, if you decide you still want to get the coil out, you just need to disconnect the lines in the engine bay (after depressurizing of course) and pull the box out. this whole thing is probably a lot easier if you remove the glove box (I did). And to stay a little more on topic, if you're removing the evaporator for good you can use a length of 6" diameter flexible aluminum ducting from your local hardware store to fill the gap. I put this in yesterday and it works like a champ. You just bend the ends to match the shape of the other ducts and put a little duct tape around it. -Bryce

Oh yeah, it's quite hot and humid. Fortunately for me, my WRX still has A/C. The hatch is my rallycross monster-in-training and won't see a lot of day to day use. The A/C is coming out along with the carpet, the rear seats, and most of the interior. -Bryce

If I were you, I'd just take the compressor out if you're not going to use it for A/C. That thing is heavy. I'm in the process of doing this on my '81 hatch rallycross beast. I've gotten everything out except the condensor so far. The trickiest part (for me anyway) was relocating the alternator, since it was driven by a second belt on the compressor. I didn't have all the correct brackets to mount the alternator, so I had to get creative. Now I just need to figure out what to do to replace the evaporator under the dash. I think I'm just going to fab some duct work out of dryer vent bits. You should have seen all the insulation and mouse poo that was inside the fan and the coils. It was pretty nasty. -Bryce

A lot of the weight is also really far forward so removing it helps with weight distribution. I figured there was something that I was missing. So does anybody have one of the inboard brackets laying around that they want to sell? How about any pictures of what I should be looking for? -Bryce

I'm attempting to remove the air conditioning from my EA81 '81 hatch but I'm having a little trouble with the alternator relocation. I got an alternator bracket from a non-AC car (at least that's what I was told it is) from a member here on the board, but it is only the slotted bar. I'm not really sure where the hinge bolt of the alternator is supposed to mount. Does it mount in the same place as the hinge for the compressor? I also don't see where this slotted bracket is supposed to mount. I shouldn't have any problem fabbing something that will work, but I'd rather do it the right way. Can somebody explain what I'm missing here? Is there a different bracket that mounts to the block on non-AC cars? Any pictures of an engine bay would be helpful as well. -Bryce

I might have to czech that out. There is definitely something there that looks like a cat. It's a large squarish bulge in the exhaust right after the y-pipe joins together. Any other suggestions as to why this might be happening. I can't help but think this has to have something to do with the O2 sensor (if that's what it is). Is there a way to disable the functionality of the O2 feedback control? -Bryce

I'm having some trouble with my recently acquired '81 DL hatch. I usually starts up without any problems and runs fine for a few minutes, then it starts losing power badly. It's bad enough that it will only just barely maintain 55 mph on flat ground. When it does this it seems to run OK at less than about 1/3 throttle, but anything more than that and it starts to stumble and shake. The strange thing is that if I turn the car off and back on again, it runs fine for a while again (although not as long as the first time) and then falls on its face. I've tried changing out the fuel filter (which was in really bad shape) and running some Sea Foam through the carb. Those seemed to improve the overall performance, but the difference between when it's running right and when it's not is still pretty dramatic. I did notice that there is a broken wire that looks like it went to a sensor in the cat. Is that an O2 sensor? Does this somehow have some control over the carb? The only other things I was going to try was to check for vacuum leaks. Any ideas what might be causing this? -Bryce