GeneralDisorder

As far as heads - I've seen some serious deterioration from coolant passages blowing into the cylinder. Had several on SPFI/Carb EA82's that I'm sure wouldn't have held for long without a bit of sanding. The place *I* go to has a mill, but my friend that took his heads to have them done when I did the HG's took em to a place that put them on a big belt sander. Actually looked fine, and worked good. And being aluminium heads it would be easy to do that yourself - just get a nice true flat surface like glass, glue down about 6 sheets of the desired sandpaper, and work them under their own weight with a swirling motion till you get a nice even flat surface. Check with a metal straightedge and a feeler gauge. GD

Engine should be fine - the contamination is purely *steam* blowby. It condenses on cold places, but being your oil looks clean there should be no damage to any bearings. The "Kit" comes with crappy intake and exhaust gaskets, valve stem seals, valve cover gaskets, cam case o-rings, and some other misc. bits like the oil fill tube gasket, thottle body/carb base gaskets, etc, etc.... it also has the MPFI/Turbo intake gaskets - it's a universal kit so comes with everything for all the EA82's, not just the SPFI...... All things you either don't need, or definetely want from the dealer. Just buy the individual HG's, and get the rest from the dealer as they are superior. GD

Sounds like a partial blown HG from the cylinder into the water jacket. I've had ones very similar to that where it would only overheat after it lost most of it's coolant. The bit of water/oil mix under the cap is typical of condensation - blowby from the burning coolant. It doesn't mix with the oil, but it does condense on the cooler oil cap like that. You might also find traces in the PCV tubes from the valve covers. This could also be indicating a failed intake gasket - which might account for your coolant loss as well.... for the price of the HG's though - I would just do them regardless as it's not that much more work to take the heads off once the manifold is off, and it's probably a good idea to do the cam case o-rings and reseal the valve covers, etc while you are in there. Set of Fel-Pro's is about $35 shipped from Autozone. Get the cam case o-rings, and the intake gaskets from the dealer - about $10 for all. You'll need a tube of RTV if you don't have some for the cam case. Mark the lifters for re-install. I use a flap of cardboard from a box. Take a utility knife and make an arrow pointing to the front of the engine. Then make two rows of 4 X's in the flap, and shove the lifter and rocker into adjoining X's. This way you can easily keep track of them for reinstall. For the price of the JY engine - it's going to cost triple or more than doing the HG's on your existing engine. Plus at least you *know* what you have right now. You might end up with something that has a rod knock, etc. Plus doing the HG's is less work than pulling the engine IMO. No hoist required for one. Having done it before, a HG job should cost no more than $50 in parts. A bit more if you need to have the heads trued up. BUT you can do that yourself if you are creative . A sheet of glass, a blanket and several sheets of sandpaper will do a nice job actually. These type of graphite/metal HG's actually prefer a more coarse surface than the new engines that use the MLM gaskets. GD

The early EA82 rear drum mechanism is self-adjusting. Easy upgrade if you don't have a set of discs around. You drive backwards and give it a couple good hard stomps to set the self-adjusters. Hell of a lot easier than adjusting the shoes every few thousand. Of course if you have a set of discs that's even better. I love having the discs on my Brat - I haven't touched em in 25,000 miles. GD

I always forget that on the military 5 speeds reverse is where first is supposed to be . 1st is where second would be, etc. Weird heavy duty truck transmissions. GD

What the hell are you talking about? The EA81T is 95 HP. You don't need to shorten any axle shafts for EA series transmissions. For the work required, put an EJ22 in the car - no turbo hassle, and 135 HP. GD

They aren't known for headgaskets - that's the EA82T. Still not worth the hassle though. Put SPFI on your stock engine. That'll give you as much performance as a Weber, and better driveability. It's also generally cheaper. See my write up: http://home.comcast.net/~trilinear/EA81_SPFI.html Ditch the 4 speed. They suck. Beleive me. GD

No - you will have to cut and re-weld the rear mounts if it's a long style bar.... if it's the short style I think mods are required for this too, but I've never done a short style. GD

MMO is really just ATF - which is an excelent lubricant, and has tons of detergents in it. Used car guys use ATF to clean engine bays for a reason, and people use ATF to clean engines of deposits too. HOWEVER - as a flush for a few hundred LIGHT miles it's alright. Do not leave it in - it's not engine oil, and shouldn't be used long term. Only thing that should be in your engine is OIL. Plain and simple. If the stuff had good properties as an engine oil, then it would be in the oil in the first place. Lucas is just plain garbage. *Maybe* in a tractor differential that stayed cold, and slow speed at all times. But really not even then as there's better alternatives for those situations as well. GD

Rockauto has em for $85.... sorry $60 was the EA81 core. But still not over $100. Autozone has em for $71.99... even cheaper. Just got to do your homework...... GD

SPFI has it's own distributor - crank angle sensor. No "module" to fail. It has no parts that really fail at all - it's got needle bearings on the shaft (instead of the crappy sleeve bushings of the carbs units), and an infrared optical pickup/interrupter disc. Nothing inside the disty touches except the shaft bearings. Very, very reliable. Although I haven't had any modules fail in the carb disty's. But then I use only the ND carb disty's. I have had to have the bushings on the ND distys replaced - about $35. But never had to replace a module. Oh - and the aircraft guys use the ND unit too, and just add a second pickup too it. Plus the ND has a hotter spark due to it's matching ND coil wireing. GD

Junk. www.bobistheoilguy.com GD

Flush the heater core. If that doesn't fix it then you need a new core - about $60 and 6 hours of work to remove the dash and get at it. Air bag inflatable suspension w/ride height control. They almost always fail, are difficult and very expensive to repair. Replace it with normal spring struts and coil-overs. GD

Make sure the MAF's bypass port isn't clogged. No air will flow over the MAF element and the engine will die out as the computer attempts to compensate for the incorrect airflow reading. Your ability to run the engine at WOT is because the MAF is ignored at WOT. That's a good reason to suspect issues with the MAF - most especially oil or other gunk clogging the bypass port. MAF's rarely fail, but people often think they have failed because the bypass is clogged and replacing the whole unit fixes the problem. GD

Are you running aftermarket coils? Those will kill the ignitor. Best. Solution. Ever: SPFI. GD

Yep - but you'll never need one. They are near indestructible. GD

I say legalize it. And while we are at it repeal the helment and safety belt laws. Let nature run it's course. We have too much rubber padding. Trying to think of every possible way people can voluntarily remove themselves from the gene-pool and prevent them all..... excercise in futility. If you want to drive 150 mph on your crotch rocket down the interstate with no helment, a wife beater, shorts and flip-flops..... more power to ya buddy. GD

Sell it and buy a 4WD. You'll end up buying one anyway for all the parts you need (it's cheaper than buying them seperate, trust me). So there's just no point in doing a conversion. Keep it nice, sell it, and buy a 4WD to start with. The hassle of conversion isn't generally worth it unless the body is something really, really special. I did it, and as I've told many folks here - I'll never do it again. The time investment is not worth it for a 20 year old car when 4WD's are reddily availible. GD

1. Remove carb. 2. Huck carb at nearest garbage receptacle. 3. Replace with SPFI. The manual secondary just gives you more low-end torque off the line..... really though unless you are seriously hard up for cash, doing anything to the Hitachi is "polishing a turd". GD

Not really, no. The EA71 has too many disadvantages (solid lifters, too small for the SPFI manifold, etc). Get an EA81 and then you can do all that, and the 5 speed. 6 speed is WAY out of your price range / technical abilities. It's got computer controlled VC's, and a strong clutch that would require at least hydrualic actuation. Then there's the matter of the adaptor plate, custom flyhwheel, etc. GD

As sugested I think you may just be using the wrong Redline. The "NS" stuff is what I use as it's forumated for manual transmissions, and adresses exactly the symtoms you seem to be having: http://www.redlineoil.com/products_gearlubricants.asp?productID=38&subCategoryID=15&categoryID=6 The regular 75w90 is "gear oil" which can be used in a transmission, but contains the visco modifier for the limited slip diffs - not really a good thing for a tranny.... from their web site: "75W90 Gear Oil can be used in many transmissions and transaxles; however, other Red Line lubricants have better frictional properties for rapid synchronization." GD

From most common to least common: Check for Loose axle nuts. Check for loose calipers, and caliper brackets. Check the radius rod mounting bolts on the control arm. Check the strut to knuckle mating - the pinch bolt and the tab bolt. Anyway - those are the most common in my experience. GD

That's common on the 4 speeds - the one from my Brat would do that in 4th gear if I came to a complete stop. Just make sure you put in neutral BEFORE stopping and it's fine. It's due to wear on the shift dogs causeing them to bind. When they are spinning it's much easier to disengage them. Mine did that for the 50,000 that I ran it and never got any worse. I'm in the habit of stopping and parking always in neutral anyway so I never even noticed it. GD

Most modern manual trannies now call for ATF anyway. And the trend is growing. It's not because of large differences in the transmissions themselves, but rather large improvements in the qualities of ATF. In other words, it's basically very safe to just USE ATF. Also - think about it this way. When was the last time your heard of a manual tranny destroying it's gearset? You didn't because long, long before that happens the syncro's or the shift dogs are destroyed. So anything that prolongs the life of the syncro's and and prevents grinding or crunching (IE - shift dog destruction) is prefereble EVEN at a slight disadvantage to gearset wear. And yet one more thing to think about - the gears in Automatic transmissions (yes, they have gears too) run in what? Yep - they run in ATF. And with modern ATF and proper flushing intervals it's not uncommon for AT's to go 200 or 300 thousand - and again most failures are not gear wear related but are due to improper shifting from the hydraulic control systems being worn or clogged. Subaru ran ATF in the bonnevile Justy for lower gear resistance. Admittedly this was a race car, but it *was* runing at 125 MPH on a completely bone stock 5 speed in the hot desert.... So you *could* just run a high quality synthetic ATF in it and be just fine. If you like the way it shifts with ATF I say just run that. Check it for color and smell regularly, and you may end up changing the ATF every few oil changes as the manual tranny has no provision for cooling, and if you do long runs it will overheat the ATF and break it down. Simply changing it like you change your oil solves that problem though GD

I thought we had established that your word wasn't good enough..... Well - that certainly is a helpful attitude. I guess we'll never know then. It's fun to speculate on the existance of unicorns though isn't it? Cool - can I be the *villiage* idiot?? Anyway, with your extrordinarily helpful attitude towards replicating your results, I'm sure you'll be sorely missed here GD