Crabman

Thought it'd be appropriate to chime in here. I picked up an engine that sounds similar to this set up. The heads are very modified 1400 3 port. They are set up to accept dual Weber 48 IDAs as far as I can tell. When I tore it down, I found major damage to the block. Turns out whoever built the thing had the wrong cam in there. Not to mention the engine had held water at one point. I've attached some pics. I have two things to say: 1. Does anyone have an early 1400 cam for sale? One that came out of an engine that had the 3 port heads (dual exhaust port heads)? 2. If not, anyone out there interested in making an offer for the heads? Cheers, Crabman

Thanks for all the advice. I bet you fellas would appreciate a little bit of background info. You may understand my situation better. Its actually really humorous. But this all started out with a bad water pump. Whch I had a spare for. So I go to replace it, and the top two bolts break off into the water pipe on top of the engine. Tried to extract them, but they were so corroded and brittle, it was impossibe. This bums me out for a little while, before I realize I have a spare water pipe too. And I realize to replace that, I just have to take the intake manifold off in order to get to it. Out of the six bolts, that hold on the intake manifold, three break off into the heads. I've extracted bolts before. I know how to do it. I tried with the patience and skill of a surgeon. These damn bolts are fused in the heads, rendering them useless. But I've got spare heads too, from a JDM EA71. I just dropped them off at the machine shop tonight. Only thing I am worried about is the JDM heads have only one inlet for the air suction system, where as my original set of heads have four. I just plan to plug that one hole and see how she runs. You know, she's my daily driver, and I just want to get her back on the road. I have pulled the engine before, I just replaced the clutch, rear seal, and pressure plate a little while ago. I don't have a hoist, though I could borrow one. I have a wife and very young children that consume a lot of my time. If I can do it quicker without removing the engine, I have to go that route. But I do appreciate all of the advice. I'll let everyone know how it goes:D

Thanks Frank. I'm going to look for those holes tonight.

Hey all, Glad the board is back up and running. Good work to everyone involved! I have to do some work on the heads of my '79 Brat, and I'm looking to save a little time and cut some corners. I'm wondering, does anyone know: Is it possible to pull these heads off and on without removing the engine from the bay? Looks like it might be doable, but I want to find out first, before I commit to a certain strategy. All advice and suggestions are welcome. Thanks Much, Crabman

Yes it does look nice. Looks like its a case of 'just add engine'. Looks like it even has the original winch.

I do 80 miles on the highway everyday. I am getting around 24 or 25 in my '79 Brat. I'm a bit heavy footed, and also have to deal with a lot of stop and go LA traffic. Jon, you mileage sounds excellent! What speed do you usually drive at?

I know I know, Forgive me, I'm a bit stuck on camshaft issues lately. Trying to figure out if I pulled a reground cam out of this modified EA71 I tore down. The only way I know to tell for sure is by measuring the lift on the lobes. My manuals have specs for the journals, but I can't find any specs for the lobes. Does anybody have EA71 camshaft specs in their manuals?? If so can you tell me what the normal range is for intake and exhaust lobes on an EA71? If not, does anybody have an old EA71 camshaft lying around that maybe they can get some quick measurements on? Any close up pictures would be helpful too say of the normal lobe duration profile. Thanks much in advance, Crabman

Don't know if their the same, but I bought two excellent complete axels of ebay for my brat. Only $35 a pop.

Thanks for the pics! I could make this engine run if I had your new cam! It's not that the lobes are in different spots, is that the high spots on the lobes are at different places. I'll try to explain better. If you orient either one of your cams to point the same direction as the cam in my picture, try turning your cam so that all of the high spots in the lobes line up with all of the high spots in the lobes on my cam. You wont be able to. This is because those lobes open and close the intake and exhaust valves at very specific times. And since this cam is from an engine that originally had exhaust valves in the center of the head, you couldn't expect that this cam would be compatible with an engine that had exhaust valves on the outside of the head, because the specific times that those valves should be opening and closing would be completely different. Having said all that, some information from you would really help me out. Do you have a part number for that new cam? Is there a number on that cam, between the first and second lobes like in my picture? Do you know where to find another one? Thanks in advance! Crabman

Finished the tear down a while ago. Some good, mostly bad. First off - This case is definitely garbage. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the dark spot is probably some sort of JB weld repair? Other side The deep oil pan is kind of neat. But probably only compatible with sand rails and what not. Any idea what those little hinged doors are for? All four pistons are in decent shape, but the rings were totally shot. The manufacturer is "ARIAS", and I think the model is 353. I found a website for Arias pistons and emailed them looking for compression info, but they got back to me saying that they didn't have any info on this model because it was too old. Finally the cam. And this is where the real mystery is. Because according to my book this cam is from an EA71. The EA71 has exhaust valves on the inside of the heads. These EA63 heads have exhaust valves on the outside. Which indicates to me, that this engine probably never actually ran in this configuration. Perhaps this explains that JB weld repair, and whatever catastrophic event happened to the case? I'd really like to hear what you guys think. If you see something I don't. I am looking for an EA63 cam (from a 4 exhaust port engine) right now. But at this point, I'm not even sure that you can put an EA63 cam in an EA71 case. So it's still totally a question mark, what I can use from this engine and what I can't. Let me know what you think. Cheers, Crabman

Is that the battery in back?

I second this response. Beautiful old soobs are a hard thing to place a firm value on. If I had room, and was looking for an around town soob for the wife and kids, I would pay up to 4K for that beautiful wagon. But to the collector, for the guy that is looking for this specific soob in great condition, it could be much more. Because it is slim pickins out there.

WOW! Looking good! You'll be done in no time.

Yep you are right about the valve arrangement. Early EA63 dual exhaust port heads required that the exhaust valves be on the outside. The later EA63 single port exhaust had the exhaust valves on the inside. What I am asking is how can you tell the two different cams apart from the two different set ups.

I know that the issue of the differences between the early and later EA63 cams has been discussed in the forum before. But I need to renew it right now. For those of you who aren't familiar with it. The early 1400s had dual exhaust port heads, the later 1400s had single exhaust port heads, and this difference necessitated very different cams for the two versions of the EA63 Can anybody tell me any way to identify the different versions of the cam? Can you look into your old books or manuals? Maybe you have a couple of cams sitting in your garage? My chiltons book tells me that the 1600 cam has a 51 stamped on it. The 1800 cam has a 79 stamped on it. No info though for the 1400s. Are there stampings on the 1400 cams? What should they be? For more background info, just check my other thread about tearing down that modified EA71. Any help is much much appreciated.

Oh man now I'm really confused. I got into the case tonight and got the cam out. It's got a number '51' stamped on the side. And according to my Chilton's book, this is a very normal EA71 cam. I also saw stamped, the letter G on the cam, but I could not find out whether or not this meant anything. But here is the kicker. This EA71 block (and cam) is running the EA63 dual exhaust port heads. This goes contrary to everything I've read. EA71 heads have exhaust valves on the inside of the head (as well as the exhaust port). EA63 dual exhaust port heads have exhaust valves on the outside of the head (just like the exhaust ports). MEANING, if you are going to use EA63 dual exhaiust port heads on an EA71 shortblock, you have to run an EA63 cam from and engine that had the dual exhaust port heads of course, because the lobs will be in completely different places. I really need to see some pictures to be sure of all this. Does anyone have pictures of any of the different EA63 cams? Does anybody know any of the identifying features of those cams? Does anyone have pictures of the piston side of the different EA63 heads? I'll try to post some pictures of everything I found tomorrow, but we are getting ready to go out of town soon, so this thread may be on temporary hiatus.

One more request. Do we know, are these heads 'shaved' for sure? Does anyone have pictures of any EA63 or 1400 heads, preferably dual exhaust port for comparison? Much appreciated, Crabman

Uh, OK, I am definitely getting outside my comfort zone here. :-\ There's no way I am going to build an engine that will only run on race gas. Can anyone tell me how to measure the "ccs of the head and volume of the piston dome", or otherwise, can anyone tell me how to accurately estimate the compression. And furthermore, what's ratio's take it into the race gas only zone?

These are great suggestions, thank you. Planning on opening the case tonight, will post more pics if anything interesting.

I'm sorry this is too funny, because I basically live in Torrance, work in Irvine, and I'm stuck out here for a while!! Would much rather be in a small town, maybe not bullhead city. Well if you see any nice gen1's out in those desert wrecking yards, let me know. Things hold up very well out there.

Yes I do believe so. Just outside Kingman. We stopped at many out there. Most closed. Could have been 'Dan's', but that was a long day. I may be wrong about that. You are from AZ? I used to live in Prescott about 8 years ago. Crabman

Has anyone seen an "M" on an EA engine serial number before? Were some engines modified at the factory? New question: Cylinders appear to be 'sleeved'. Is this normal? Possible to resleeve the case? Subaru360 - Agreed, this was probably on a sand rail at one point. And although some work into that deep oil pan, It will definitely won't work in my Brat due to the position of the cross member. Love to see some pics of those pushrods and rockers you mentioned. Well if the cylinders are shot and can't be repaired (reasonably), I also have another EA71 in my garage. It's a JDM fat case. Less than 40,000 on it. Still in the crate. Was planning to keep it as a spare, but now I am thinking I should take the best from both of these engines, and build something really super. Going to be very busy through the weekend, but hope to find some time in the week to get into the case. I love tearing down an engine. Each one has a story. Keep those comments coming fellas. I'll put up pictures of the open case when I've got them. Cheers, Crabman

Yes absolutely, lets see some pics!

Thanks Kostamojen and Zefy. Engine does turn over. So what I'm hearing so far: 1. Heads may need to be rebuilt, valve seats might be poor due to rust. 2. May need new shortblock because of rust in cylinders I'll try to take some pics of the pushrods and exhaust ports. I'll also try to finish up the tear down in the next couple of days too. Still a couple of question marks left about what's in the case. The webers that those heads are set up for are insanely expensive, and may be flat out cost prohibitive, or at least make this a very long term project. http://www.webercarbsdirect.com/product_p/wk328.htm They sure look mean on an engine though. Here's a pic of what they look like on an old bug. I may look into some kind of adapter for the intake manifolds, so I can run a cheaper VW dual carb set up. Money is tight right now! Looking forward to more comments. Thanks guys! Crabman

Yes I hear you Shawn. We we smart as possible and had no bad intentions. Just had to get a better look, I've personally never come across a gen 1 in a wrecking yard before. Just had to know if it would be worthwhile to come back. To tell you the truth, there were a few pieces I needed. But theft was not an option. Too many karmic consequences. I will admit, we knew there were no dogs after walking the perimeter and making a little noise. However at one point, a couple of black birds cawwed, and it was startling enough to send us sprinting to the outback.