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turboing a non turbo ea82

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I have a 93 loyale 4wd. I want to see about putting a turbo to it. I have a huge classic subie junk yard not to far from me. Just wondering how big of a project it would be going from a tbi system to turbocharged. I'm eventually going to put my 2"lift on and get a set of 14" rims with a 195/74 off road tire on it and would like the little extra hp.

You are asking for an almost immediate explosion of internal parts. Even the EA82T, built (obviously) for boost, is notoriously weak. Boosting a stock n/a EA82 is just going to be a short-lived experiment ending in danger.

You'll blow it up before you can say wahooo.. If you wanting power do a ej22 swap. It'll be less work than a ea82t swap and the ej gives you a much needed gain for the only wagons.

If you are clever, swap over a whole ea82t with harness and all.

 

I get what you want to do. the turbo up pipe will fit, you would have to invent plumbing for the spfi throttle. keep boost low within 7 psi. I have no experience with a project like this. If you dig the archives you might find something about adding a 2nd injector to come on during boost.

 

I have seen an example of an ea82 with CIS from bosch installed, but not turbo. This was an mpfi manifold and heads on a n/a block. the spfi block has 9. compression, so you would be better off with a carb block 8.5 as ea82t engine is 7.7 and kinda weak on the low end. The CIS injecotrs threaded into axle nuts welded onto the intake, as the cis injecotr was the same thread as the axle nit.

 

People will tell you no it's not a good idea to turbo an spfi. Keep in mind to not over boost it as it should run relieble at normal boost if you keep the cooling systerm happy.

id throttle back the boost a bit.  the actual turbo models have much lower compression as stated above and even at 7.7 CR they don't take much more than 7psi of boost.  on the old XT forum people used to recommend an exhaust temp gauge.  if you see your combustion temps going way up take your foot out of it.  doing this will help your motor survive the experiment.  be careful of leaning out under full pedal and boost, if the spfi cant keep up and leans out the motor will have issues.

 

check out the rating on the fuel injector.  the actual turbo motors were multipoint and still had a tendency to lean out if they werent in top order,  injectors have rating system so make sure whatever injector (s) you use are rated for the target numbers.

word is that to boost an NA Subaru boxer of this era - could be fun for a while, and a lot of that could depend on how good the motor is in the first place. A fella did one down under , set the timing at ten instead of 20 to make up for extra comp. It was later advertised for sale, with a suspected spun bearing. He did report that it was extra torquey down low.

 

I like the idea of the exhaust temp gauge. Must look into this ....

  • 2 weeks later...

win i got my 86 RX the motor was seized so i put the mipf heads on my good EA82 carb motor and it seems to do ok so fare

Terrible idea practically and functionally.  But if you're just wanting to play and tinker, go for it.

 

gutless engine, still slow as dirt even with forced induction, and it'll introduce more single points of failure, make it less reliable, more failure prone, lots of work.

if you're game and want to tinker and pay for less reliability, more work, and very little performance gain and still having a slow vehicle, then yes, go for it you'll certainly learn a lot in the process.

 

but there's way better options for your time and dollar.

 

 

If you're still game, you have to either custom make the exhaust piping or cut and notch your engine cross member or install a complete turbo crossmember for stock exhaust clearance.

There was a guy who did this on the board a few years back.  Look for posts by WJM  in the archives.  

 

Bottom line: he did it , it works at low boost, it has a short life, and it is not worth the effort unless you already have piles of parts and don't care how many times it blows up.

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