Snowman

Bit of an update: Right now, I am typing this at my friends' house in Northway. This morning before they went to school, we towed Roxanne up here so that she would be safe (No looting or vandalism). My ride left Tok on the way here about half an hour ago. There is probably a 30:70 chance that I'll get to Haines in time to head back up with the truck overnight, as the Canadian border on that end closes at 11 pm. If not, I can leave tomorrow morning at 6 am. Either way, I've got a long drive ahead of me, as each way is 6-8 hours and I'm doing it three times in a row. I briefly examined the damage today. I'm not sure where a lot of the #3 rod is. I can clearly see where it's supposed to be, and I found the smaller part, sitting on top of the engine, as well as a small section attached to the piston, which I am praying came disconnected on the power or intake stroke and didn't squash the valves. There is a gigantic hole in the top of the crankcase. It even broke the cylinder liner about an inch up. Chunks everywhere. It's nasty. Ordered parts today, but my debit card was right on the edge of being able to cover it, so I may have to transfer $$ tomorrow, which would mean a slight delay. Rings, bearings, and all gaskets: $518 shipped from 1stsubaruparts. I should have all the "franken-engine" parts amassed, cleaned, and ready to assemble when that stuff gets here next weekend. Gotta go, and I'll post when I get to Haines.

I don't know the specs, but a general rule of thumb is that you should have at least 10psi per 1000rpm. Soob engines can handle running at relatively low oil pressure without any damage, so as long as you've got pressure, it should be fine. An engine that I tore apart was barely at or below that 10psi rule, and it showed absolutely no indications of harm to bearings, etc...

Thanks for the info Torxxx. Assuming that none of these parts have been damaged, I'm going to take everything from the heads out off of the blown engine, as I just had those heads resurfaced, ground the valves and seats, new springs and seals, and custom reground cams. As long as everything inside the short block is the same. Svengouli: As much as it's going to suck to have to redo my engine and everything, cash isn't going to be an issue, so the deal's still on for the rims. I'll just take on a couple more projects to pay for everything. Matt: Thanks for your support. If I do need to get Jon's motor for parts or anything, I'll give you a call. I think the only possibility there is if one or both heads are damaged, I'd want to get a set with lower miles than the engine the short block is coming from (200k). That pulley bolt thing just wierds me out. I tightened it to spec, which if I can remember is 75 ft-lb, less than two months ago. The freaky thing is that after I put it back on the first time, it came off again after just a few miles. If it wasn't for that second time, she might have made it home at least. Oh well, I'll definitely use some loctite on that one now. It's times like this that make me almost consider getting a different primary car, seeing how much money I've thrown at Roxanne. But then I realize that an almost totally rust-free, otherwise in great shape, 86 soob in AK is something to hold on to. C'est la vi.

I've had good luck with www.1stsubaruparts.com. They don't sell it as a kit, but generally have good prices on individual parts.

It is a dark day in the history of my subaru. I left Anchorage for Haines (750 miles) this morning, worrying a bit about the right front wheel bearings, but I had replacements just in case. That part was fine, however, some other little issues came up along the way. Just outside of Northway (roughly half way there), the crank pulley bolt came loose. Before I could tell, the engine temperature had gotten nearly to the red zone. I put the pulley back on, refilled the water that had boiled over and started her up.... knock, knock, knock, knock.....OH S***! Praying to the internal combustion gods, I checked everything over real well and headed off down the road, with at least one rod making copious amounts of noise. I was hoping that I could at least get home before it kicked the bucket so I could rebuild it (well, rebuild it again, it only has 4000 miles on it since I put that engine together), but that was not the case. The pulley slipped off again, it boiled over, and the knock got worse. Thinking that no further damage could be done, I took off once again, babying it as much as possible. Lo and behold, going up a long hill, there was a bunch of metal-on-metal noise, then a big bang and a cloud of steam/smoke from behind. I coasted to a stop and after the smoke cleared, I found the small part of the rod that bolts on sitting on top of the engine next to a very large hole. A passing motorist helped me tow her off the road into a hidden place (most of my belongings are in the car) and gave me a ride into Northway. I am currently at a friend's house, waiting for a person I sort of know to give me a ride home tomorrow afternoon. Then I can get my dad's truck and a tow dolley and come get my poor soob. I think I've pinned down what the cause was. When assembling the engine, we nicked/scraped up one of the rod bearings. We measured it and deemed it okay so I put it in and assembled the engine. Until today, it seemed fine, but I think the overheating and the thinner oil/lower pressure that comes along with it did that bearing in, then it was all over. My plan is to, once I get Roxanne home, take the shortblock from my 89 SPFI parts car, with new rings, bearings, and seals, and use the heads and valvetrain from the dead engine, as they should still be fine. Of course I will thoroughly inspect the heads for warping from the overheating, but it wasn't in the red zone, nor was it hot for very long. I'll also need to check the cams and followers for oil starvation damage, but it was run in that condition for so little time that I doubt any damage occurred there. For the time being, I'll fix the fuel leak and tune-up Alice, the 91 loyale (yuck, 3AT) so I can have a car to drive while putting this engine together. So there is the epic, so far of course, of Roxanne's rebuilt engine doing itself in. Before I get too far into this project, is there anything I need to know about combining SPFI and carbed ea82's? As far as I know they are identical, except for higher compression pistons (hey, at least something good is coming out of this), but I've never really compared the two side by side. See Matt, I told you I'd have a good story on the board:rolleyes: .

If a cherry bomb is quiter than the stock muffler, I bet the stock muffler was in pretty bad shape. Regardless, glad to hear that worked out so well, and welcome to the ghetto muffler club:-p .

Those rims look freakin' awesome!

WJM, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think that a car without an oil cooler would still benefit from a turbo timer. It isn't the oil itself that needs to get cooled off before shutdown, it's the turbo and its bearings. The purpose of the turbo timer is to prevent (I think this is the term) coking of the oil that is in the bearings, caused by the bearings being too hot. An engine without an oil cooler might take longer to cool down the turbo, but it would still happen, thus preventing the problems caused by shutting down a hot turbo.

Echoing what hklaine said, I would suspect one of the seals on the front of the engine. Pan gaskets do leak sometimes, but not that often, and probably not on a newer car like yours. If oil is collecting on the pan and the surrounding area, it's probably coming from one of the seals near the center of the engine, either the front crank seal or oil pump seal. A good trick I've heard about is to clean everything off really well, then sprinkle baby powder or a similar substance all over the bottom of the engine. Drive it for a little while, and it should quickly become apparent where the oil is coming from.

Man, that thing looks sweet! Surely the nicest brat I've seen in person. I was rather surprised how quickly the lift went in (can't wait to do mine!). It rides pretty nicely too. Did you finish up that fender "adjustment" yet Matt?

I've heard about that method for removing seals many times, and I think it would work fine on the front crank seal as well. I may find out myself in a few days, as I might have to do that as well. I would just be very careful not to go too far in with either the drill or the screw, as that could end badly. As to the O-rings, I would replace those while you're in there. I have no idea if they are prone to leaking or not, but the ones I took out of my 140k engine didn't even look like O-rings any more, they were like "squished-flat hard piece of rubber" rings instead.

You might try www.1stsubaruparts.com

I've driven without the rear half for a while, and I know somebody who drove for a year without it.

I'm not sure what to think about the tensioners. Lots of people do replace them every time they do belts or every other time. My recommendation and what I generally go by, is to check them for any excessive rotational resistance or play, and if they seem fine, put them back on after a good cleaning.

Sounds like your drivers side timing belt to me. That one turns the oil pump, which would explain the pressure loss as well. As to the timing belt tensioning tool, you can make a substitute. Just get a chunk of steel about as long as the timing belt pulley is wide and put two bolts in that can go into the holes in the pulley, and another bolt in the middle to turn the whole mess with, and you're good to go. If you just need to get the car home, you can do it without that tool and just tension it as much as the springs on the tensioner pulleys will do, then lock them down. By mistake and ignorance, I ran my car with both belts like that for about 6,000 miles and it was fine.

I wouldn't worry about having a slightly larger diameter. Just get some hose clamps and stick it on there.

What, you guys CLEAN your cars?!

Hmmm... that's an interesting predicament. I seem to remember hearing that on the front you would just remove the brake line from its holder and either let it dangle or attach it somewhere else. I think I'll be out there by three to provide what assistance I can. My class is meeting at 10 today, and it could go anywhere from 2-5 hours, but I'll zip out there directly afterward. Are there any special tools or or other parts or anything that I can get before I head out?

Having never looked at them personally, I'm going by what I hear. The ea82T had three different heads on it, according to what year the car was manufactured. Apparently the first generation cracked very easily, so they added more material and redesigned some stuff to make the second generation head, which still wasn't perfect. So then they added more material and maybe spaced the valves farther apart to further resist cracking. Other people know a lot more about the specifics of this...

Uh.... uh..... uh..................... Something like that would go for way more up in AK.

Good to hear that you found a less expensive solution:) . Here's a thought off the top of my head: Wouldn't the carbureted Honda Civics be packed with vacuum solenoids and valves and stuff since they've got so many darn vacuum lines? I'm just trying to come up with a good place to search for these in the future if the need arises.

Welcome, welcome, come right in! Another thing to check for if you've got exhaust noise is the gasket between the head and the exhaust manifold. These are very prone to leaking, and I've seen them leak with new gaskets if they are cheap gaskets.

On the Weber 32/36 DGV series, the single ported vacuum source is on the front of the carb. I think it's about halfway up the carb, but I'm not sure. It's pretty odvious where it is. On the Hitachi carb, there are two ported vacuum sources, both on the front of the carb, about 2/3 of the way up if I remember correctly. One is for disty advance, the other is for EGR. I don't know if there is a difference between the two, as I switched them back and fourth with no noticable change in engine operation.

From what I've heard, the US and Canada are basically the only places that you CAN'T get a dual-range EJ tranny from the factory.

It seems pretty odvious to me. The disty needs more advance and hence more vacuum as RPM increases. Manifold vacuum decreases as RPM goes up. Ported vacuum increases as RPM goes up. Which one do you think I've got it connected to, and which one has it always been connected to on all the soobs I've ever seen? Ported.