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Sube Nube with a valve train question


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First of all, hello subaru folks. Just picked up a 78 brat yesterday and it's my first subaru in a long line of toyotas. I'm not kidding:

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I towed it home yesterday knowing only from the previous owner "Mechanic said it needs a new engine" Well with a fresh battery it started and ran like crap. So I check compression today and I'm getting 150 on both driver side cylinders and 0 on both passenger side cylinders, damn, not the easy tuneup fix I was hoping for. Valve covers off and I see the problem, both exhaust valves have so much clearance that the rockers barely touch them when they should be at full open. There is not nearly enough adjustment to take up this much slack. Now over to the driver side which looked good on the gauge... The rear intake adjuster has been backed all the way out until it's seated against the rocker to get that valve somewhere close to spec. So my first thought is pushrods in wrong place so I pull an exhaust one out from the good side and one from the bad side. Same length. Then I check one intake one exhaust. Same length too. Then I think wtf? hydraulic lifters in this thing? Then I search on this board and find that my ea71 with the starter mounted on top should have solid lifters. So if anyone actually read all that please point me in the right direction. Right now I just think some "mechanic" worked on this thing and I just need to go find the correct length pushrods or the correct lifters. While I patiently await a helpful reply I'm going to go see if I can get a lifter out of this engine without pulling the head.

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Update. Head is Fd up. Valve seats were completely out.

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Figured out that you can slide the head out just by removing the rocker studs, unbolting the engine mount and lifting the engine a couple inches on the one side. So that saved some time. I think the piston is ok, I'm just going to take the burr off and call it good. Anybody have a head they want to sell me?

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Nice collection of rolla's you have there if I'm not mistaken. I see a mk2 Supra over there in the corner to. Got any plans for that?

 

Sucks about the motor. I had a friend here in Corvallis that would have given you a complete EA71 motor.

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Update: Rebuilt head on the way from some junkyard in WA. Hopefully be running on all cylinders by early next week.

 

Nice collection of rolla's you have there if I'm not mistaken. I see a mk2 Supra over there in the corner to. Got any plans for that?

 

Sucks about the motor. I had a friend here in Corvallis that would have given you a complete EA71 motor.

 

Yep, all corollas. I've contracted some kind disease where every time I see a 70s rolla on CL I black out and when I wake up it's in my driveway and I have less money.

I've got plans for that Supra all right. Plan is to sell it because I'm done with old school fuel injection. It treated me right for 3 solid daily driver years but tracking down it's new intermittent bugs in that mess of 26 year old vacuum lines, wires and sensors is not what I consider a fun car project. It could be driven to Corvallis, hint hint....... if it doesn't sell then I see a turbo, megasquirt 3TC in it's future.

 

I grew up in Corvallis and am going to be down there some time in the next week. If your friend wants to get rid of that motor I could at least offer some beer.

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Sorry for the crazy delay. He already got rid of the ea71 :( He moved and had to clean out his garage and at the time I didn't have room for it either, so he just scrapped it...

 

I would love to take it off your hands, but I don't have any money and don't need another project car haha.

 

Could always swap a JZ motor into the Supra or a 7M-GTE. I have two friends here that have done these swaps. One has finished his 7M swap and my other buddy should have his JZ swap in a couple of weeks.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

So my brat still has a problem. I've got one cylinder not firing at all. It's a little lower compression than the rest. It's at 140 and the others are at 150. This doesn't seem low enough to me for it to not be firing at all. It's getting spark and I even swapped the plug just to be sure. What's the usable pressure range supposed to be on these ea71s?

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  • 3 months later...

Update on the Brat: Apparently even though it is not illegal to drive around with no doors on your car, if you park a car with no doors you will get an abandoned vehicle ticket for $280. Even if said door-less brat is driven daily and parked directly in front of your own house. If the judge doesn't drop this it will more than double my investment in this car. Very frustrating.

 

Oh, and here's the much more exciting Corolla update:

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