I'm in the process of rebuilding my Hitachi carburetor in hopes to get my ea81 engine on my '83 brat running a little better. I will also be replacing my vacuum lines. I'm really tempted to just get rid of the Hitachi and the gobs of vacuum BS and replace it with a Weber. Every time I open up the hood I'm floored by the complexity of the carb and associated vacuum lines, I'm used to working on motorcycle carbs from the 70's...

 

My concern is whether or not it would pas Portland Oregon DEQ with a Weber. Anyone have any experience with this? If anyone here in portland has done this and passed i'd be really interested in hearing from you!

 

thanks

I took my '81 Hatch with Hitachi through last fall and it breezed through.  I think I was there all of 10 minutes, re-registered and out the door.

 

I took my Webered '82 Jeep with 258 inline six with 70k miles through last month and it took me 1.5 days to get it dialed in.  I know that's not a great comparison, but my point is that I had to lean it way the hell out to get it through.  Your Brat would probably get through easier than the Jeep, but if your first pass or two are terrible, and you don't have access to a wide-band O2 sensor A/F gauge, then it might be worth it to take it to a tune shop and have them tune it and avoid the hassle...especially when the lines are long.

Ive spent many hours fighting these Hitachis. If you get one that runs good leave it alone. If you start having problems get rid of it. The bummer is there isnt alot of options for carbs and the SPFI systems are becoming scarce.

Considering the cost of a weber kit ide prefur FI.

This system was like many common too the era, overly complex and a little hard to sort out. I dont know how strict your visual inspections are there but much of the system could be thinned out with the Hitachi left in place.