GeneralDisorder

Gots me a Weber..... 2WD vs. 4WD makes a big difference too. My 2WD EA81 with a Weber would do 110 before it reached equilibrium with the wind. I can easily hit 100 with my EA82 5 speed 4WD. Perhaps it's the Weber helping, or perhaps it's just a good engine.... couldn't get out of it's own way with a running start on the Hitachi I got it with GD

Your timing may be drastically off. 75 should not be the top speed. They aren't fast cars by any stretch of the imagination, but my 86 carbed EA82 can do well over 100..... your's should be faster as it's got 6 more HP stock. Make sure the timing is properly set at 20 degrees BTDC. If it is, you may consider checking to see if the timing belt drive sprockets on the crank got mixed up - there's an inner and and outer. The inner one has a groove for the front crank seal. If they are reversed the engine will still run but will be down on power and may overheat. Likely the overheating is a result of Florida temps and an old radiator. It's best to replace them as they are cheap and don't do well with any amount of corrosion. GD

Not in the US. But they do exist. A member from Barbados had/has one. One of the reasons it's not too hard to retrofit a disty to the EJ is that there's casting marks for the machine work needed to fit it to the passenger head. There's also an EJ15 that came as a carb option in some countries. Apparently with the 2 door Imp body they get over 40 MPG. Megasquirt has no problem with the EJ CAS - in fact some folks use them for other engines. There's not a lot of published *settings* for EJ's, but then there's really not a lot of published settings in general. Most people tune by driving once the engine is running. Laptop in the passenger seat is very helpful. GD

ECU's are tough critters unless you hook up the battery backwards. I've done a lot of plugging and unpluging, testing, poking, and other jiggery-pokery with my SPFI harnesses and have yet to damage one in the slightest. I've got about 4 extra ones sitting around here and they all work. GD

Generally won't destroy a quality axle - cheaply rebuilt unit - yes. So will bad tranny mounts. The tranny mounts on EA81's are crap. Mounts should always be checked, but a quality axle won't be overly stressed from poor mounts. The axles are designed to operate at a variety of angles. Rebuilt units generally have welded cages and races that wear out rapidly due to poor tempering, and poorly machined tollerances (often done with a die grinder by eye ). GD

Larger diameter shafts and joints were used in all 4WD spec EA81's. It's not Brat specific. The GCK's are redesigned useing better than original 4WD spec components and are completely new. As far as I know, no one has ever broken one or had one fail. It wouldn't be easy. GD

With MegaSquirt there's no need for carbs and wierd distributors from Ford's to modify the fuel intake. You can attach any TB you want and tune it any way you want for about $350. It also allows any engine to be installed - start with an EA82 SPFI, then later drop in an EJ22T, then maybe later on a WRX EJ20, etc, etc. All without touching the wireing to any great degree or having to locate stock harnesses or ECU's. Just retune with your old PII laptop running Windows 95 or whatever you can find at the goodwill. At this point carbs are a solution for those who are afraid of FI, or have no knowledge of electronics or software. Anything a carb can do, FI can do better and more reliably. And I challenge anyone to prove me wrong.... and with the addition of open-source FI packages like MS it's cheaper than most performance carbs too. GD

SPFI doesn't do anything for top end either. For that, you need a cam change. GD

No, you are just using poorly remaned axles. Go to autozone and ask them to order you a new GCK axle. GD

The Accel coil may have damaged the ignitor in the distributor. The experience of this board indicates that ALL aftermarket coils are potential problems for EA series distributors. Almost all distributor module failures are a result of this kind of jiggery-pokery with ignition components (coils, plugs/gap, or wires). Use the stock Hitachi or ND coil - they cost MORE than the supposed "high performance" units from Accel and MSD ect, and are resistance matched to the distributor module. Many have run for several decades without failure, and there's no evidence that a "higher performing" coil translates to any measureable amount of performance gain other than the obvious 25 HP gain from the yellow paint or faux-chrome. The spark plug has ONE job - to ignite the mixture. It either does, or does not accomplish this task on each cylinder compression stroke. For all practical purposes there is no such thing as a "better" ignition, or a "more complete" ignition. That's just marketing hype that's targeting the wallets of mindless consumers. It's like putting a towel rack on a Honda - the car will never see speeds sufficient to warrant the application, nor would attaching it to the flimsy trunk lid do any kind of suspension loading. If the plug does not ignite the charge, you will encounter a noticeable "miss" and your emissions will go through the roof. This is almost always a result of poorly gapped plugs or old deteriorated plug wires. The original coils rarely die, and are of much superior quality to the aftermarket units. The Subaru engineers knew their stuff, and the ignition system is designed to ignite the mixture with well over a 99.9% probablility. There's almost no room for improvement here, and anyone that tells you differently really doesn't have a decent grasp of the overall design and intended purpose of the EA series engines. GD

That's an EA81 manifold. EA82's have the coolant outlet on the passenger front. Looks like a standard EA81 to me (with power steering, and the AC alternator bracket). Came from a higher end EA81, and from the looks of it an 82 or newer. GD

There's no such thing as a "starter relay" (unless you count the solenoid, which is mounted on the starter). The crank circuit is not a relay circuit. Full soleoid power flows through the ignition switch, and optionally the inhibitor switch if you have an automatic. My write up covers the wiring pretty well: http://home.comcast.net/~trilinear/EA81_SPFI.html GD

You have a feedback carb. The ECU isn't your problem, it's either the coolant temp sensor, the O2 sensor, or the carb itself. Rip the thing off and replace it with a Weber 32/36 DGV. You probably have the carter/weber single barrel. They are known for a variety of issues. GD

I did a loyale 3AT to 5 speed D/R swap a few months back and it was a 3.9 as well. They are definately out there. This particular one was a 91 IIRC. GD

I'm running a 91 harness and manifold with an 87 ECU in my Brat. Just so I wouldn't have to use a clutch switch and change the pedal assembly. They are all interchangeable - I've even used a Loyale Auto ECU in my Brat and it still worked fine. The only difference is some switches in the manual ECU's, but they were added to unused pins so the older ECU just doesn't look for them. GD

Nope - unrelated part. The gear is free-floating in the case. GD

The advance doesn't have nearly as much to do with it as the cam. The EA82 SPFI is a higher reving engine, and produces fully 16 more peak HP than an EA81. As such it's cam grind isn't as "torquey" as the EA81. It does rev easier and faster than a carbed engine though, so it really doesn't make than much difference. The EA82 SPFI that's in my Brat right now is quite a significant improvement over the EA81 it had. It will make perfectly fine torque if you give it the revs it needs. SPFI on a stock EA81 has comparable torque to the Weber. It doesn't have the "spot" where the secondary opens so it behaves differently. But it's a pretty darn big TB, and you get a LOT of air through it. The sound isn't the same as the Weber, but the power is there just the same. Also much more condusive to snorkel setups as the intake duct is round and requires no adaptors. The SPFI system itself is really flexible actualy. It's sensors give it the ability to adjust for engine flow, and by using MegaSquirt you could actually tune it anyway you wish. Timing and advance curves are all easily modified. Quite a fun challenge actually. GD

You ever replaced the O2 man? They get slow after a few years. GD

It's important to properly route the cable UNDER both the steering column and the heater core hoses. If you don't it won't last long. OEM only on clutch cables. It's also important to have either the return spring or the HH cable hooked up to make the clutch return properly and not wear out the release bearing. GD

HG's aren't that big of an issue - they last just about as long as any other brand out there ~200,000 give or take if you take care of the cooling system. If you are repeatedly blowing them then there's some problem with the head, block or cooling system, you haven't got them installed correctly or they aren't quality gaskets. Running higher boost on the turbo's will do it also. GD

You would have to run it with MegaSquirt.... I guess you would run it like a bank fired MPFI. Only one of the TPS's would be hooked up of course. It would probably work, but it would require a lot of tuning and tweaking. Personally I would just use a larger TB off some other vehicle and custom build a manifold. GD

It's true - even here they are getting a bit more uncommon. I usually see only 1 or 2 in the junk yards now. On a good day I might find 4. The few left are being saved it looks like - sold on craigslist or on the street rather than being sent to the JY as more and more people get web access and see they can get more from a car from free online advertising than the yards will give them. GD

The egg does work, and will last a little while actually. Basically the hot coolant and water pump results in scrambled eggs that jam in the small holes as the coolant circulates. Mythbusters got it to work with a pretty good sized hole they made using an awl (ice pick) that had a stream of water shooting out of it. Quite the leak I would say. Sure it's temporary, but it's impressive in it's effectiveness and cheapness. Definately an option to make it to next payday.... and doesn't result in a clogged heater core or other adverse effects. The egg will eventually break down and just drain out unlike some of that expensive stop-leak crap. GD

I used the yellow/red to the ECU, and the black to ground and have never had a speed sensor code go off. Black is always ground in almost all electrical systems, and the signal wire does not require a seperate power supply as the speedometer signal generator is an electro-mechanical pulse generator. It creates it's own small signal voltage by passing a magnet near a coil of wire. That's why it's such a small voltage. I also have factory CC on my 84 wagon, and black is grounded through the CC unit. It's all in the wireing diagram of the FSM for the CC system. GD

They aren't that rare. I've seen dozens. There's a guy that drives one near my work in fact. All STD hatch models were EA71 and 4 speed's. They made em till 89. GD