Looking for advice

[dustinsdad]

Well, like so many others i am new and thiis sight is cool! But here is my deal have recently acqiured a 1990 loyale that is in good condition but the motor seized up tight on the previous owner while driving. Upon inspection .. no oil... and motor absouletly will not budge. So I drug it home for the great price of nothing just get it out of his drive way. Car is in my shop about to pull the motor out. I would like to fix this in the most cost effective manner possible. I am willing to spend money that is well spent, so I am feeling that the motor in it is probably beyond repair. Question should I find an old motor, upgrade to a bigger motor, have this one rebuilt if possible. I want to fix this right so that I can use it as a work car. After this is fixed an running then i am going to move onto a 1984 brat that is my avatar, and fix that up for my 12 year old. One question is could I take the engine out of the BRAT and put it in the loyale,(it runs good has only 90,000 original miles) and then save the brat for the lift, Ej, 5spd D/r etc. etc that i have been reading so much about on here. Your comments are greatly appreciated!

[idosubaru]

you probably know but the loyale is an EA82 fuel injected (SPFI) motor and the brat will be an EA81 carb. i'll let others comment on swapping that know more. folks do SPFI conversions into EA81's so i don't see any reason you can't do the opposite - create the same SPFI EA81 and put it into your loyale.

 

there's a really good write up on the SPFI EA81 swap, might want to browse that.

 

if you really are going to yank the EA81 for some swap on the brat then why not put the effort into dropping the EA81 into the loyale. won't have any timing belts to mess with.

 

the EA82 is not worth rebuilding except as a fun/learning exercise.

 

I'd get, or price around for at least, another EA82 and drop it in. throw valve cover gaskets, cam seal, cam cap oring, crank seal, reseal the oil pump, and install one of those cheap ebay timing belt kits and you'll have a reliable vehicle capable of a lot of miles. Use subaru seals. That entire list is all accessible behind the timing belts so makes sense to do it while it's out of the vehicle and be done with it, it's all pretty simple really.

 

If you're really amped up, reseal the whole thing with new headgaskets too while it's out of the car (use Fel Pro Perma Torques if you do).