GeneralDisorder

Rev the engine and try your method again - if it still does it throughout the RPM range, then your problem is something like a head gasket..... My guess would be a vacuum leak on that side of the manifold if it only does it at or close to idle. Check the plugs too, but that's not usually a problem for these engines. GD

Backfire is exactly why I told him to check the ASV - they suck in fresh oxygen for the cat, and when they fail it creates a big exhaust leak - this will result in massive backfireing from the fresh oxygen mixing with unburnt fuel and being ignited by the hot muffler. Backfires can be forceful enough to blow holes in the muffler. I've personally seen quite a few of these fail. GD

First thing to check is actually your drivers side timing belt. The drivers side cam turns the distributor, and if the belt broke you won't get any spark. Just pull the distributor cap off and turn the engine over to see if the rotor turns - if not you know the problem. If it's turning, then you may have a bad ignitor module inside the distributor. Best to just get a junk yard disty for 20 bucks and give it a try. Same with the coil - the OEM coils are tough, and I've yet to personally see one go bad. Often replacement cheapy coils die, and I think a lot of those got there as a result of people either replacing the OEM unit because they thought it might be bad, or because it was just old so they figured it would be a "good idea". I've seen a lot more distributor ignitor failures than coil failures, but test the resistance of both units. GD

Here's a simple one for you - check to make sure the coil bracket is grounded. It should be bolted to the body, but sometimes that stuff gets rusty. ......this may seem silly to ask, but you have one of those weird years - 87's are often carb if they are not 2WD I've noticed. Is your car fuel injected or carbed? GD

If it comes with a boot on it, it's greased. GD

Your EA82 only has one. Whoever told you that is mistaking the older EA81 series which has two objects commonly refered to as "filters". In fact one is a filter, and the other is a vapor seperator. They do two different jobs, but most people are not aware of the difference. At any rate your manual is correct - just one for you. You have SPFI on your Loyale - fuel injection filters are under the hood. His 87 sounds carbed, and would have it's only filter under the car near the pump. GD

My check mark goes beside the valve stem seals, or a bent, sticking valve. You may be in for a head job - I sugest as above you do the comp. test and see whats what. HG's aren't dificult on the EA81, so it's not something to be terribly afraid of. Wait - I just re-read and you say the air filter is soaked..... your PCV system is not functioning. The continued burning of oil after pulling the PCV lines is just residual - it can take a while to burn that off. Run some seafoam into the intake to clean out the cylinders. And replace that PCV valve..... the math here is pretty simple - PCV is the only way oil can get to the air filter - that pretty narrowly defines your problem. GD

Actually - I seriously doubt that has ever occured in the history of the EA81. Ask around - if you find any certifiable evidence to that effect I want to see it. Have you ever even seen the EA81 timing gears? They are about 3/4" thick..... maybe with enough grit in the oil you could wear out a set, but not before the engine loses it's oil pressure and blows a rod.... Maybe if you hit the car with a train.... And he needs to check a LOT of other stuff first - if it's still fireing at full throttle then the valves are working. There is only ONE cam, and were the timing gears broken, it wouldn't fire at all, and you would hear some serious, serious crunching and grinding noises - might even seize the engine. Don't scare the n00bs man - not cool. GD

EA81 - no belts. GD

Yeah - universal or junk yard. Autozone carried a uni-fit that I used on my wagon. GD

If you grease those bad boys now and then, it would prevent the grit from drying out the seals and working it's way in. Another benifit to no covers is that lubeing the idlers and tensioners is actually a feasible proposition. A grease injection "needle" can be had at most good parts stores for your grease gun, and makes the job pretty easy. GD

8 degrees on and 87 would lead me to beleive you have a carbed 4WD EA82.... 700 cold is too low. Your choke should cause it to idle up around 1500 till the engine warms and pulls the choke off. That's why when it's warm it's lower. Check your choke adjustment, idle mixture screw, and idle speed screw then reset your timing when the engine is hot with the vacuum advance for the disty disconnected and plugged. Also - when you have your own problem, create your own thread. No one will see this here in someone else's thread. If you have a question for the person the started the thread about your problem, a PM with a link to your new post asking if their solution applies to your problem would be the best way to handle this. GD

Actually it can't be vaporlock - vapor lock occurs when the fuel in the lines boils and prevents the fuel pump from getting fuel - since his pump is back near the tank, this would be impossible. Check it again tomorow - might just start right up and you can get it home to diagnose. Also - could be a blown Air Suction Valve - when they go, they usually melt the plastic silencer (muffler) and it often gets sucked into the carb intake and will jam the throttle plates. Check down in the carb for debris. GD

If you need some, and can't find em at your local yard, I can grab a handfull next time I'm at the yard. They would fit in the USPS flat rate envelope. I see perfect ones all day long, and the yards around me have at least 20-30 SPFI soobs each right now. As to if they are needed, well the SPFI system has three of them stock - one at the pump, one right before the inlet on the TB, and one right after the outlet on the TB going to the return pipe. I would think just one would be sufficient - after the pump but before the TB. They must serve an important purpose as subaru saw fit to install three where one would have probably done the job. I'm assuming redundancy is the reason - my guess is that when the fuel pump starts to suck air when the tank is nearly empty, those dampeners smooth out the fuel flow and prevent damage to the pressure regulator and injector. Over or under voltage may also cause spikes in the pump pressure that have to be evened out. I would also guess that the pressure regulator can't adjust all that fast to changing pump pressure, and if it had to it would probably cause rapid wearing of the regulator parts. Giving it a steady stream at a constant pressure would prolong it's life - being a mechanical part, the less it has to move, the longer it will last. Anyway - just a few theorys and ideas to consider. GD

I first started it with no 02, but only to verify my wireing and such. It did run without it as I knew it should, but ran pretty poorly. I installed the 02 the next day. Had to swap y-pipes with my wagon, as it had the feedback carb originally, and now has a Weber so was equipped with the 02 Bung (what a great word eh? Just not a lot of situations where you can use the word Bung) As for the Pressure Regulator.... that's an inegral part of the throttle body assembly, and cannot be removed... perhaps you mean they removed the one of those pressure pulse reducer things - in which case yes it will run fine without those. GD

They are pre-greased. Never seen or used oil on the top - it's supposed to be tight, and high friction. Oil would defeat the purpose. A little anti-seize wouldn't hurt, but it's not needed. GD

That makes sense - cavitation would indeed explain the noise. Hadn't thought of that, but I've seen similar things with water pumps and such on other brands. I'll go ahead and move the pump under the car then. Older RU's had the carb pump mounted in the engine bay, so I figured maybe it wasn't such a big deal. The increased fuel demand of the SPFI seems to cause a hail of issues - all part of the fun. Yeah - initially I had thought that the carb pump could maybe help supply the fuel injection pump. That turned out to be not possible however since when the carb pump is not running the FI pump cannot draw through it. A complex chicken and egg problem results with the SPFI pump unable to draw enough fuel to pressurize the system, and the carb pump unable to run fast enough due to the engine not catching, and not supplying a decent voltage. In practice this resulted in the engine not even attmpting the start. On paper you might expect to see it sputter a bit at least, but it would take more cranking than I was willing to do to get the FI filter full, and the system up to 24 psi. I bypassed it with a length of hose. The carb filter is still in place, and maybe I should just remove that and give it a try. Can't hurt to give it a go. I have always planned to move the pump down there anyway, but it's been about 105 here every day in the shade, and I'm not looking forward to a hot driveway, and gasoline running into my oh-so-sweaty armpit. YUM! At least after I get it all worked out, the rest of the system should be good to hook. I've cleaned, tested and replaced near every part of this SPFI setup - it came from 258k miles of rough stoner snowboard duty - it's parent wagon couldn't take it anymore and did itself in with a tree. The SPFI system was defiant to the very end - manging to kill off the body (totaled), engine (punctured oil filter, and drove till it seized), and transmission (stuck in 2nd gear by the obviously considerable force of the impact). I think I got the only usable part left on it..... y-pipe looks alright too, and the wheels live on (motion alloys) on the kid's next victim. GD

It will probably never ruin it. Would wear out some tires perhaps, and maybe eventually cause some axle stress - but axles are consumables on older RU's anyway. GD

Interesting - so you are sugesting I route the pressure regulator return back into the pump supply line before the pump inlet? That's an interesting idea...... I guess it's similar to returning it to the tank, but instead it's getting retured to a point right before the pump. That sounds potentially dangerous and crazy, but ya know I have a feeling it might work. I like it I think I'll get some fittings and give that run. GD

So the SPFI conversion on the Brat's EA81 runs quite well so far.... The idle quality was not what you would call.... lets see here..... good? It was wandering a bit, and idleing rough. Now the Weber ran baby-bottom smooth, so I knew it was FI related. I started checking parts, and replacing stuff with JY bits to verify. Soaked a low mileage IAC in some knarly carb cleaner overnight - looks like new. Nothing changed. Changed the MAF, CTS, TPS (and adjusted) - no change. Adjusted the timing (third or fourth time), adjusted the idle screw, cleaned stuff.... followed by hand wringing and teeth gnashing..... beer...... scour EA82 FSM for several hours.... And then I decided to look into the fuel pressure. I don't have a guage - which presents a new set of problems. I put the fuel pump to my ear and my hand on the intake duct (don't ask how this is possible - it just is with my temporary ghetto fuel pump mounting situation), and I could hear the fuel pump "chewing" (for lack of a better term) in time with the roughness of the engine. I said to myself: "Self - clearly you have a fuel pump problem" followed closely by: "Doh.... Self - you should have bought a spare". I did get a spare today only to find that it's also dead (well technically I guess you might say it's sleeping - if you give it power and then smack it real hard it will take off for a bit.... hibernation perhaps?). I then decided that maybe it just needs a cleaner power supply - wired up a second relay for it, and used the ECU power for the relay control instead. That helped about 50% I would say. I can still hear the pump "chewing" although it's not as loud now. Engine smoothed out, and seems quite a bit better. I'm looking for more tho. So I want some opinions on what this chewing might be? Pump bearings? It seems to have been reduced by applying a 14 guage power supply direcly through a relay, but it's still there. The pump is a long way from the tank. FI filter is newish, as is the carb filter down by the tank..... now on the SPFI cars they don't have a filter under the car - is that because the pump is so beefy that it can chew through anything that gets past it's little screen filter? I'm sick of spending money I don't have on junk yard pumps. I may take this little $16 gem back and see if they will let me swap it out, but who knows if that will happen. Should I go the Ford pump route instead? Should I have a filter before the pump and after it? Or shall I eliminate that one by the tank? Maybe it's too restrictive? The SPFI pump puts out a LOT of fuel, and it seems that whatever is not needed to maintain the SPFI pressure the regulator just sends back to the tank - that makes for a TON more fuel going through the lines than the carb had. Maybe the smaller return line is stressing the pump? Am I making all this too complex? :-\ I do that a lot.... GD

Autozone carries Timken bearings for like $11 each (need two on each side + seals). Heck of a lot cheaper than Napa, and a good brand name in bearings. I don't buy a lot there, but they do carry a few decent parts. Seems like I have to shop around town to get the brands I want at the price I like.... GD

I noticed when I had a *bad* MAF in my SPFI, it would hold at any RPM, but would bog under any sort of acceration.... just something I noticed while doing my SPFI conversion. Similar symptoms to yours This MAF I had was actually bad - the engine would run and idle ok but a little slow (wouldn't run at all without it connected). Just would not rev. Once you got it up there it would stay at that RPM. Weird I know, and maybe not applicable because of his being a turbo but the concept of the MAF is the same regardless so the ECU should be handling it in a similar way.... GD

Oil smoking (out the tailpipe - not CV grease on your cat ) in a subaru is *almost* always caused by one of two things (blue smoke indicating oil consumption in the cylinders, not white indicating HG failure, or leaking manifold gaskets): 1. Bad PCV systems - clogged usually. This causes the crankcase pressure and manifold vacuum to suck oil into the intake from the valve covers. Usually will NOT dissapate as engine warms - often will get worse, and you'll get a puff of smoke each time you accelerate hard. 2. Bad valve stem seals. Allowing oil to get by the valves into the cylinder. Usually shows itself by a big cloud of smoke ONLY when you rev it hard, and usually will dissapate somewhat after being run and warming up. Both are relatively easy to fix - the first being only a 10 to 20 minute fix. The valve stem seals can be replaced without removing the heads - just get an air adaptor to pressureize the cylinder, remove the valve spring, install new seals, and button it all up. GD

Yeah - Tom has a good point - don't go thinking you can use *just* the manifold. The carb won't fit. You'll need an EA82 carb, or preferably a weber. Frankly tho - for the price of a Weber, my money is better spent on doing the fuel injection conversion. It's actually usually a bit cheaper, better on gas, and better performing. GD

I have legacy seats in my EA81 wagon, and Isuzu Impulse seats in my Brat. The Legacy seats are too tall for my taste, but I keep them in the wagon as sitting higher is better for visibility off-road. Seat swaps are common actually - people on here are constantly asking about them. GD