Little Bandit

I have had a hard time finding an EA81 I can measure. By searching online I have found widths from valve cover to valve cover to be listed anywhere between 26" and 28", does anyone know what the max overall width of the EA81 is? Thanks

Does anyone have any pic's of Mikie's buggy's? I am interested in seeing his layouts, as I have some similiar ideas. Mikie do you visit these forums anymore? I see your last post was Jan/09

That is what my original plan was, I actually have one in my garage that I was going to use, but they are not as great of a system as one would first think. 1. They tend to stretch out the car, adding 16"+ easily to the wheelbase, more if you want a decent length chain. 2. Reliability is always an issue 3. Maintaining and living with a chain drive 4. Not the best powerband for most operations 5. Most importantly no reverse, and not many very good options unless you want to spend $2500 for a reverse box. Best option I have seen is running a chain into a car transmission but that still does not help with 1-3. I want this trail buggy to be ultra-reliable, which I can take anywhere. I am probably going to save the motorcycle engine for a future project which will be a smaller single seat more race style buggy. I still think this can work very well, even if it is RWD only. Unless I think I can make the EA81 work when I see one, I am sure I will end up going down this road.

Thanks for the comments guys. My plan was actually to use a NA or Turbo 3 cyl Firefly motor and have the buggy as rear-wheel drive only up till about two weeks ago. I had actually ruled out Subaru's for my drivetrain as it was too large. It wasn't until I realized that you can get a d/r 4WD transmission for them that I became interested in them again. I still think one of those tranny's with an in-line 3cyl (maybe 4 cyl) would be the perfect drivetrain. There are some 2wd justy's around here, still not many though. Not nearly enough to make me overly keen on basing my buggy around a justy. I think I am going to try and find an EA81 to measure up. It might be a little difficult, as I have not found anything older than a 1988 in the junkyard. How do the EA81 with d/r tend to hold up to 27" tires? That is the tire size that I am aiming for at the moment. Thanks

I am keeping my eye out for them, but it may end up being a longer search than I hope for. I have not found any for sale in any on-line classified for all of BC. I have seen his build on another forum, it is very nice and similar to what I want to do, definitely has the same feel for what I want to go for. As he says, the 1200cc quad. I shouldn't have said width is the driving factor, it is part of it, but it all comes down to overall size. The motor that I measured at the junkyard was about 30" in overall width. Actually looking it up I probably measured a EA81 engine, it was in a 1988 Subaru GL 2WD. I have attached a very rough model of the 88 Subaru GL engine/2WD tranny I measured at the junkyard, along with a Sprint 3 Cyl Eng/Transaxle. There is quite a difference in the size between the two. The Subaru is much longer, has more overhang and appears to be quite a bit heavier (~180lbs vs 135lbs for engines only). Looking at them in person, the Subaru "feels" like a much bigger unit, and will probably end up making the buggy feel like a small truck rather than a big quad. I think I could be happy if it was about 3" narrower, and around 150lbs engine weight, I would seriously consider using one at that point.

Hi there, I am in the planning phase of a custom dune buggy project, and I am looking for a small 4WD set-up that I can use as a donor. Ideally I would like something like a 4WD Justy or Suzuki Swift, as it will keep the overall size down to what I want, 60" overall width, 80" Wheelbase, weight around 1,000lbs. The problem is that I have never seen any 4WD Justy's around or for sale in my area, British Columbia Canada. I have seen plenty of 4WD Loyales and 2WD Justy's, etc, but no 4WD Justy's. I was wondering if anyone knows if you can bolt up a 3 cylinder Justy motor to a D/R transmission? These are parts that I am sure I could source locally and since it will be a tube buggy, it won't really be much more work for mounts etc. The flat-4 engine is going to be too wide for what I want to do, so it needs to be an in-line motor, and I would really prefer a 3 cylinder. Thanks in advance