In my efforts to resuscitate my91 loyale I have acquired a used head but I now notice a crack between the valves....what I wonder is how significant this is? It's an old car and I'd be satisfied with another 50,000 miles. Is it even worthwhile to put this head onto the engine? I'll work on getting a picture up...

Mark

those cracks are common and not terribly problematic. they pretty much all have them, though some do get bad enough to ruin the head. have to watch for some of the inner passeges around the exhaust and there was something about the valve seal area where they can go too far but I cant remember exactly.

 

might be worth your time to get a machine shop to check them out, or at least take a good picture and post it here so those that work on them often can see.

 

all in all, if they dont leak id run them.

its fine unless it actually extends into the coolant passage. If you can't get a fingernail inside the crack, it's ok

Thanks for the advice. at the risk of sounding stupid...I have a good picture, but can't figure out how to post it. The Faqs say to use the 'attach' button but I can't find one anywhere...

easiest way is to just sign up at photobucket or another pic hosting site. it will have codes listed for the different methods of linking photos that you can just copy and paste (image code will just paste in the text here).

 

that way you can have pics that you want to share on there and link wherever you feel like. it doesn't cost anything.

post them on a site like facebook, google+, photobucket, ect. then copy the image url from a picture and click this (on this site) when making a reply then paste the image url in the box that pops up and do that for how many pictures you have

Subaru issued a TSB to ignore them. Being it's a non-turbo I don't even need to see pictures - just put it back on - it will be fine.

 

GD

In my efforts to resuscitate my91 loyale I have acquired a used head but I now notice a crack between the valves....what I wonder is how significant this is? It's an old car and I'd be satisfied with another 50,000 miles. Is it even worthwhile to put this head onto the engine? I'll work on getting a picture up...

Mark

 

Look for a tiny crack in the rib in the exhaust port, before you put it back in. If it has one, then you have another door stop.

i take a blunt small punch and gentaly peen the cracks closed so combustion cant get into the crack and enlarge it

i take a blunt small punch and gentaly peen the cracks closed so combustion cant get into the crack and enlarge it

 

+1

 

Small punch, so you don't disturb the valve seat.

My experience has been that the crack will just come back even if you peen them, stitch them, etc. Since it's a non issue I go with Subaru's engineering advice - ignore them completely. Never had a failure related to between-valve cracks on a non-turbo.

 

GD

The worst that can happen if the crack enlarges enough is a dropped valve seat. You can stake the crack near the valve seat to keep them from popping out.

only one time the crack burned under the valve seat and made a path past it was messy head was done

I thank you all for your input. I'm even slower getting pix on facebook than I am getting the head on this subaru, but your advice has enabled me to order the damn gasket set anyway. If I ever get this thing running I'll post pictures, although I might just wait a few weeks for the temperature to come out of the single digits.

Hi Spayordie,

 

like this?

 

 

I've just had the same problem and decided to have the heads repaired, more pics and words at:

 

http://www.nagara.co.uk/headworks.htm

Repairing these cracks is a WASTE OF TIME and will not ultimately hold. It's been tried over and over and over and it simply doesn't work. The cracks are benign and coupled with the fact they will return almost immediately it's completely senseless to repair them.

 

GD

General Disorder,

Do you think it's a waste for all Subaru heads or just for the EA82 heads? I'll be interested to see if they come back having had them fixed.

Nick

The crack is not a problem unless the material has seperated. In which case the head will need to be repaired or replaced. When repaired properly, the head will last as long as it did originally. Rule of thumb is if you can get a thumbnail inside the crack it is bad!

Non EA82 heads don't crack that I've seen. All three versions of the EA82 heads do and in 99.99% of cases the crack does not matter. People have had them welded, stitched, peened, and pinned - nothing holds. In fact you run the risk of creating a loose valve seat problem if the head *can't* crack in that location - it could pull the material away from the seat instead and the seat can fall out. I can't see how you could find it very interesting to have that happen nor do I see how you could determine if it has cracked again without disassembling the head from the engine to visually check. Further there really is no need for you to test the theory as it is well established in the Subaru community that the cracks will return.

 

GD

All heads will develop a crack sooner or later..new or welded up..after 25 yrs of driving an Ea82, I have never had a problem from cracks that develop naturally.."naturally" meaning the cracks are more closer to hairline in size and were not created by the engine over heating thus warping the head..the only time that I have ever reused such a head (from over heating) only pushed the crack deeper into the water jackets...thus leaking slowly..

Edited January 11, 201313 yr by Petersubaru

Will that cause an issue for machine shop to clean up the heads resurface, vales ground in??

Junk yards still have loyales in them. I would keep looking until you can come up with heads that are not cracked. But who is to say that the heads that you already have in your car are cracked. Did you take those heads out yet and examine them? They made 3 generations of the EA82T MPFI turbo head, but only one generation of the EA82 loyale head, as I understand it. You can't use the turbo head in a non-turbo loyale. Was your loyale using a lot of coolant before it stopped working? That could be due to either cracked heads, loose cylinder head bolts, or leaky hose connections. When you take your head off, be sure and note as to whether you had any loose cylinder head bolts. If you have loose cylinder head bolts and no cracks in your heads, then just get a valve job on the heads, buy new cylinder head gaskets, and put them back in. And when putting on the camtower, be sure and apply a slight amount of gasket maker around the two contact oil passage holes, that pass oil from the cylinder head to the camtower. And also get the genuine subaru O-ring for each cylinder head at the indented oil passage hole that contacts the camtower. The engine will run quieter.

 

And don't put any short cylinder head bolts in the holes that require the longer cylinder head bolts. Because you will strip out the threads in your block when you attempt to tighten them to spec. Then your block is toast.

Edited January 21, 201412 yr by scoobiedubie

people are finding these cracks when they pull the heads from bad head gaskets. It's easy to blame the crack for a HG failure.

 

But bet your pennies, go pull off the heads from a known good running ea82 and 99% of the time there will be the same crack in perfectly working heads.

Welding cracks is bad idea DOSENT WORK bad news have had to cleanup so many bad head cars because of poorly done weldup jobs the problem is the casting is poorus and holds carbon bits the make the welds not bond properly and after heatup and cooldown cycles the welds give out guide falls down piston gos smack and you look for new engine. Subaru had some very good tooling to build those heads and I think was some very tech temp related work to put those seats in head.