hatchsubQuote:

Originally Posted by ravenes

I'll get some pictures tomorrow if we manage to put this exaust back together.

 

 

 

I hope this isnt a dumb question but are you running it without the exhaust right now? Cause if thats the case that could be a big part of your problem or the whole problem. These cars are designed to run on a certain amount of backpressure. If you are running it without the exhaust or a big portion of it the it wont run right. Just a thought though it might be way off.

 

No, actually we're smarter than that!! We've not started it since we took out the cat converter. we just got out of the garage just a few minutes ago, we replaced the oil pump, which was leaky, also the front main seal, and adjusted the valves. Oh, and we took out the AC too. So tomorrow we're going to put on the exaust and then we can test out the break booster!

 

don't know why that 2nd picture doesnt want to show up....

 

 

 

These cars are designed to run on a certain amount of backpressure.

 

 

Not true. But you're right, it's not a good idea to run it without any exhaust bolted up. Won't harm anything it you're just firing it for a few seconds, though.

Quote:

 

Originally Posted by hatchsub

These cars are designed to run on a certain amount of backpressure.

 

Not true. But you're right, it's not a good idea to run it without any exhaust bolted up. Won't harm anything it you're just firing it for a few seconds, though.

 

 

BALONEY! they should idle just fine, but there is a "dead spot" just off idle, with a corresponding loss of torque, after that, the sky's the limit as far as high rpm low speed driving, 5k @35, or whatever, circle track corn field racing against a crappy buick century that eventually burnt up quite well

none of the hitachi ea81 carbs ever run the same as the next.. i've had too many ea81 cars to know..

 

example.. 89'gl ea81 4wd hatch all original, 140 something on the odo, would bury the spedo down to the M in MPH on the flats. got 34 mpg and ran flawlessly.. hell the guy i sold it is still runnin around in it, its been to the west coast, all up and down the east coast etc in the last 2 years that he has had it.. its driven through a couple deer, ditches and a saturn i think.. still drives it, changes the oil and puts gas in it, thats it..

 

now we took a 1 barrel setup off a friends ea81 2wd hatch and put an ea82 carb on it.. (carb condition was unknown) thats stupid thing could barely run 65 and couldn't get out of its own way if it wanted too. but it got 30 mpg.. lol

 

the brat i just got is different than both of the above.. she'll run 85 with the 15" pugs on it, dunno about gas mileage yet, and when you mash down on it, the secondary opens and it lets you know with a cone like roar like most hondas, lol.. it almost seems as if the secondary is opening with the throttle regarless of vacuum.. (hitachis have vacuum operated secondaries)

i dunno, i just know she runs good

 

and there been a couple i have had that gave me ************ like yours is giving you.. so i ripped it off, de-emissioned it and slapped a weber on it, and they'd run like they should..

 

note: a weber will give you more grunt off the line and midrange power, but i have yet to have any of my webered cars have a higher top end or speed than a couple of my factoy hitachi cars.. (maybe thats cause my webered ones were lifted? dunno.. just my experience with webering a soob..

I wish I were closer to where you live.I have 1 weber that needs to be rejetted.I have it taken apart and awaiting a rebuild kit and jets.You ought to swing up to denver sometime.Lots of people here that I am sure could help you out.I may be able to come down that way if you need something though.

Hey when I had my 1986 subaru up here like 3 years ago I ran no cat/y pipe! just twin cherry bomb dune buggy mufflers out this sides, painted black and hidden inches under the doors with custom hangers. It had almost no backpressure. I knew a guy I could get it inspected under :cool: too! If you do run low back pressure you need to re-jet your carb, and get a free flow air element you would be fine.

 

The first beater hatch I had when I was 11, I turned the exhaust upward with some U shape pipes I made with a mig welder, nothing other than jerry rigged rat work. But hey I was 11 and I wanted bull horns thru my hood! They where straight pipes, and yes at night time the occassional blew fire at night when I over gassed it, I found out later an extra coil with and on/off switch and some spare plugs welded in the pipe helped;) (this car was not road legal by any means, no doors, no roof, no windows other than windsheild, no front fenders, and some carelessly drilled MGA rims for tall tires). The no roof option came from me wanting a convertable, there just happened to be a salzal near by that day! Though it had to be the sweetest off roader I ever owned. custom I beam front bumper! and tube frame supports! Not bad for a free rust bucket that an old lady didn't want anymore It always out classed my brothers Toyota 4x4 feild beater! Evertime, even when filling up for gas.

 

The backpressure lacking didn't hurt the car, nore did hours of beatings that even local custom jeepers wouldn't dare do. It ran for 4 years with over 230,000 miles on it until the block finally cracked one really cold winter in barn storage (I must have not gotten all of the water out) it was a good 1800 though bless her!

 

-judging from this I seriously doubt you would hurt you car with the exhaust off it. Though with the custom cheery bomb's it did often idle like a harley while warming up not to mention how freaking beastly it sounds while accelerating quick!

 

PEace, Fishums

alright folks...on to the garage now.and jerry, i'm interested in that webber if it's any good.

 

here's a useless photo....

 

break booster was not the problem

 

 

man! that is a nice looking hatch!!! I would buy it up, and give it an EJ swap then it would run nice AND look nice :cool:

 

dont give up on it, it can be very frustrating- I know, ive been there before with all my EA cars... carby power is hard to get to work good (unless your a carb guru!) so good luck, and may the board be with you

So we're pretty sure we've taken care of the soob. it runs a lot better now, and all we did was tanked the carburator body and base plate, also we changed the fuel pump, so that seemed to of taken care of it. It still doesn't run as smooth as we think it should, I think we need to check the compression on the cylinders. It doesn't run as strong and/or smooth as it should be.

 

On a different note...We yanked out the AC, and everything AC realted, condensor and so forth. a lot more room to play around with. The break booster works perfectly, though we still don't have strong breaks. (yes the petal is solid). Might check the pads and so forth. Any hints on what to check with the breaks? It's been sittin for about 2 years since before we got it, so we're not sure what it might be.

 

We still need to get an emissions sticker for it, and not sure how that's going to work because we gutted the cat converter, and blocked off a EGR valve (though we really aren't sure what they are for...anyone?)

 

The car backfires now, but probably because the EGR valves are open and maybe blocking them will solve that?

 

Take a look at the two subs, the pretty shiny one is mine, and the ugly rusty pile is my sisters. (and to think she had to pay for hers :-) Mine has been in the garage for the last week, I'm going to wax it up and polish my pretty aluminuim wheels, so then you can drool over your computer monitor. hah

 

 

 

The car backfires now, but probably because the EGR valves are open and maybe blocking them will solve that?

 

 

 

Umm.. if your EGR valve is stuck open that would cause your car to run poorly. If you block it off or get a new valve my bet is it will run great.

It has been a long while but I went through something very similar. There are exhaust recirculating valves on the bottom of your heads that if they start sticking will cause an EA81 to run like crap and "backfire". No power and kinda falls on it's face if floored. I bypassed mine when I installed the weber but like you replaced all kinds of crap before I found out what it was. Somebody with a better memory can pobably call them by name. Seems like I later remember reading a post about plugging them with a quarter.

That sounds like a timing problem there man...when i changed my water pump the computer had to relearn the timing of the engine because i had unhooked the battery.(also check to make sure you batter connections are clean....)

 

It wouldn't start in the morning and when you slammed it would die....

 

Change your timing belts...(it probably hasn't been done in a while anyway and you DON'T want that to go)

 

When you have done that drive the car on a long 200 mile round trip...if the EA81 has a computer it will retime itself and hopefully that will fix the problem

 

 

hope i could be of help,

 

Bill

well my car is carburated so I don't have a computer. As soon as I get an emissions sticker, I'll block off the EGRs and then see what happens. Maybe i'll see if blocking them off will produce more power before the fact, just to see.

Pay close attention to 'o' ring gasket on back of oil pump. Darned things seem to be able to slip out of place and lets the oil pump suck air. Makes awful commotion as tappets clatter worse then Mazda v6.

weird, mine's carb'd and has a computer.

so you honestly think my 84gl hatchback ea81 has a computer somewhere??! how would I know? haha. sounds kind of crazy to me.

ummmm

ea81s don't have timing belts, or computers for that matter. at least they didn't in '84

 

That sounds like a timing problem there man...when i changed my water pump the computer had to relearn the timing of the engine because i had unhooked the battery.(also check to make sure you batter connections are clean....)

 

It wouldn't start in the morning and when you slammed it would die....

 

Change your timing belts...(it probably hasn't been done in a while anyway and you DON'T want that to go)

 

When you have done that drive the car on a long 200 mile round trip...if the EA81 has a computer it will retime itself and hopefully that will fix the problem

 

 

hope i could be of help,

 

Bill

so you honestly think my 84gl hatchback ea81 has a computer somewhere??! how would I know? haha. sounds kind of crazy to me.

turn your key to the 'on' position (dont start the car). if you look up underneath the dash but above the steering column there should be a little black box with a red blinking LED. that is your computer.

 

oh, and afaik they don't retime themselves either.

The computers on the ea81 chassis vehicles are pretty simple and not really too much of a so called computer.They are more of an idiot box to tell you if a sensor needs to be replaced.There are a couple members on here that have removed the "black box" completely.So think of the black computer box as more of a diagnostics box in my mind.

so you honestly think my 84gl hatchback ea81 has a computer somewhere??! how would I know? haha. sounds kind of crazy to me.