Ross

If you really want something to protect your lights, a single bit of pipe coming off a rear push bar will work, those protectors wont.

Is there enough material left in the head to use a helicoil? On the gaskets, make sure everything is clean and dont overtighten the bolts and it should be sweet...... If the bolts have been overtightened in the past, the covers may be bent? It sounds like you may have solids. Check the push rods, although just because it has pushrods for hyd.s doesn't necissarily mean it still has the hyd.s (someone had replaced them with solids on my ea81t, and left the original push rods, causing me much confusion!). One thing that you could try: -Take rocker cover off. -Slacken a tappet so that there is clearence between rocker and valve. -Leave for 15mins -adjust the tappet so that the clearence is just taken out. -further tighten tappet, say 4 turns -leave for 15-20mins. -loosen tappet again, taking note of how many turns it takes till it goes slack. If there is a difference between the 4 initial turns and the number of turns it takes to back it out, you have hyd. lifters. If its exactly 4 turns to back it out again, you have solids. Doesn't that sound fun to you?

There is a MINT one of those in red along the road from me - old lady driver, looks like it just came from the factory! Seriously - someone has really taken care of it, even the paint is perfect. I bet she could get a fiar bit of cash from the right person for it..

Maybe you should get some gaskets!! I've been re-using the gaskets on them for ages, no leaks. Perhaps yours are just too old/not there!

Use the assembly lube, NOT grease. The grease wont dissolve in the oil.

I don't think the ea82 ones have adjustable tappets? Phizinza, i think perhaps you should check your push rods before you rule out it having hydraulic lifters. Can you take a pic of one? The ends are different. Also, did it have lock washers on the tappet adjusters?

A couple of places i used to go had deep, off camber ruts that used to put he side of the car into the bank often - sometimes it would damage the lights, so i just took them out while i was there.

Nah, the boss is on the top of the engine. look behind the inlet manifold, on the left (looking from front) side of the engine, perhaps 50mm or so from bell housing (thats a guess from memory). It will be about 15mm in diameter, and raised perhaps 5mm. It wont have a hole or anything in it.

You mean the warning light comes on briefly? That usually happens if you have a trailer connector or a high stop light wired in slightly "wrong". Wrong as in its connected to one side of the circuit, so there is an imbalance when its turned on. If thats the case, don't worry about it.

If it was a Haynes manual or similar, it wont say anything about hyd. lifters. Do the above procedure, unless you think its an older engine. You cant see the lifters, but there are a few ways to check if you are unsure: -Hyd lifter engines should have a "do not adjust" sticker on the rockers (may fall off though) -they will have a small boss on the left (looking from front of car) top side of the engine block where the knock sensor is located on turbo cars (it wont be drilled, just a small round boss). -you can also tell from the pushrods - they have different ends on them. Anyway, if its the original engine, do the procedure above.

geez, i've got 28-30 out of mine before, with a 4 speed! Any problems with the way your engine is running will cause poor mileage, so check ignition components, ignition advance, thermostat, choke operation, etc. What colour are you spark plugs when you take them out?

If thats the original engine, it will have hydraulic lifters. Did you adjust them according to the hydraulic lifter procedure? If you adjusted them accoding to the solid lifter adjustment procedure, the will be wrong, and you should re-adjust asap. (i.e. if you used feeler gauges during adjustment, you did it the wrong way!)

That would look sweet with a lift & 27" MTs on it! Start choppin!

No, the compression ratio is a ratio of volumes, not pressures. Depending on the speed at which the compression occurs (this influences the amount of heat lost etc.), the pressure ratio will change. Also, the low pressure is not atmospheric, it is lower by the amount of intake vacuum. You need to compare your compression readings with the values specefied in the fsm.

You can bore it slightly- the only reason you would do it is if its out of spec due to wear. You definitely wont get any significant increase in swept volume from it, for the reasons stated above.

Very nice. Where did you manage to find that?

You should consider New Zealand too- just round the corner and we have heaps of subies too - probably more per capita!

Hmm, well, seeing as the ea81 is reputed to be able to hold 10,000rpm indefinitely, you'd think that the er27 (im assuming the crank is of similar design, just with an extra bit) would hold at least 8,000rpm. Utter speculation though. How many main bearings does the er27 have?

You would need a fair bit fo compresed air for quite a short burst...might work though. My idea was to have a small pulse jet (a very simple and easy to make jet, that makes more noise than anything else) running the turbine instead of the exhaust. Boost regardless of engine on or not! Of course, its a rather silly idea, but it would be good for a laugh!

Sad to say, i gotta agree with the 5 speed swap. I've been resisting it for quite a while, as i'd rather stick with the original stuff, but the 4 speed is really a pain for high speeds. So, i've given in, a 5 speed is going in the turbowagon. (although for the opposite reason - with 185/60 r14s it revs too high at 100km/h!)

And the fuses..... those new bulbs higher wattage by chance??

I think the fact that it is a VF1 (rather than VF2) means that it hasn't had the water cooling retrofit, and you'll have to provide water lines as milesfox said.

If its not already there - it should have had the vf2 retrofit.

Where is your 8psi measured? (before/after the IC?) if its after the IC, there may be close to 10psi before it.

Whatever method you use, you should preheat the parts before welding - they are probably a fairly high carbon steel. Heat to 150degC or thereabouts - slows cooling rate of HAZ and avoids formation of brittle martensite. Low hydrogen electrodes are a good idea too.