what engines fit gen 1 brats

[garner]

Hey folks,

 

Just bought a 78 brat with a hell of an oil leak. I was thinking about swapping a new (bigger hopefully) engine in place of the EA71. What will fit without too much fuss?

 

How about an EA82Turbo?

 

Any advice would be most helpfull

 

garner

[calebz]

anything will fit if you want it bad enough.. do a search on the board for the 78 turbo brat

[TheSubaruJunkie]

To keep things simple, i would just throw a EA81 in there.

 

-Brian

[78TurboBrat]

thanks caleb, yeah it can take anything you want as long as you put your mind to it.

 

here is the link to my photos of the 78 Turbo brat.

http://usmb.net/gallery/albuo84

 

took a year to get it to this stage, and it is a blast to drive.

i didnt build it cause i wanted these parts, i just made one car out of two i had. one with out a title, became one with a title. not bad for free.,

[Kernzie]

My dad did a EA81 swap on his 78 Brat. As I remember there was some change with the motor mounts but it fit OK.

 

Kernzie

[garner]

thanks folks,

 

78TurboBrat, tell me more. I have read some of your posts about your swap. You make it sound simple, just motor and tranny mounts to get it to fit? Certainly there must have been some dificulties if the swap took a year to get together. Sounds very cool. I want one!

 

I imagine alot of you have seen this green 1st gen with what looks like an EJ20T.

 

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=431355.

 

about 6 posts down. Anyone know who's car this is?

 

I have a spare ea71 in good shape. maybe I can turbo it????

[Dr. RX]

If you look closely at the license plate, you will see it is for Queensland Australia, also note which side the steering wheel is on. This is an Australian conversion, they have plenty of the EJ20Gs (turbos) available.

[MilesFox]

if the bellhousing on the tranny doesnt fit the ea81, you may be able to swap the bellhousing from the ea71 to the ea81. i am not sure about the 78 model, but i know the later model ea71 will swap. can anyone back me on this???

[garner]

On the topic of getting a turbo engine in my 1st gen Brat,

 

What is the difference between the EA81T and EA82T?

 

Having now read most of 78TurboBrat's posts about his swap, it does seem like a pain in the arse

 

Would the EA81T be an easier swap? Folks say the EA81 is any easy fit in 1st gen Brats, still true for the EA81T?

 

thanks

[calebz]

EA81T would be substantially harder Than an EA81 for a number of reasons..

 

1) Turbo crossmemeber required

2) Wiring harnes required (Just like if you used an EA82T, there is a computer)

3).. Most importantly, good luck finding an EA81T motor.. pretty hard to come by, and if you scavanged a good EA81T car for a motor and crossmember, there are a number of people on the board that would probably lynch you..

 

If you go with a turbo motor, you will have to deal with fuel injection and computer wiring and such.. do yourself a favor and just go with the EA82T.. and do that only if you are in for a lot of work.. a little fabbing and lots of wiring.

 

Otherwise, take the easy way out like me.. get a TurboWagon and restore your 78 Brat

[78TurboBrat]

the only thing i can say abou tthe wiring, is that yes you can cut it down quite a bit. but then you can also take the whole harness and drop it into your brat and have the lead offs for power windows ,locks, and much more, plus having better wiring that isnt as old and brittle like some of mine was. but it vcan be repaired.

and garner, if you want to see anything up close abou thow i did things, just let me know and as soon as the rains stops and lets things dry out, i will be glad to shoot some more pictures of the area's you are wanting to see. the only reason it took us a year to build the car was due to time, we mostly just did it on the weekends and no not every weekend. there were other projects that were done like swapping a Mitsubishi Conquest from an automatic to a standard. and other things too.

 

So yeah if you have the time and a EA82T motor tranny, and computer and the wiring, from the whole car, then yeah you can do it alot faster. i still am working on fabricating some better motor mounts, and so on, but like it say the way it is now, is drivable. but just needs some more TLC to a few more things.

 

Good luck Garner. either way you decide to go, the best of luck, but just remember some of the guys might not like the idea of you using a EA81T motor. but me, just use what you can get and make the best of it.

[78TurboBrat]

oh yeah Garner, one more though, you could just give me the 78 brat, and i will give you a nice 83 brat running and driving, tagged and inspected, cold air, and great heat. just got new bearings today in the front end. and only has 100125 miles on it.

[garner]

78turbobrat

 

How about getting the engine and tranny to fit? Sounds like you let the motor sit above the frame rails and made custom mounts for engine and tranny.

 

How about the cross member? Did you have to swap or modify it?

 

It also seems like you had a wee bit of trouble with the axle length with the new higher motor. Am I understanding that correctly?

 

thanks so much, I am getting more and more obsessed with this idea and I appreciate your advice

 

1st gen turbo brats rule:headbang:

[wagonpowaa]

garner - I'm planning on swapping an EA81 into my gen 1 brat, and then throwin a weber on it. You have to get the EA81 crossmember otherwise you'll have steering problems (unless you do mudrat's welding procedure). might want to ask him about your problem

[78TurboBrat]

yes made some custom motor mounts and tranny mounts out of some lawnmower blades that i cut and welded into motor and tranny mounts. wasnt having problems with the axels cause of the hight of the motor, it was the width of the tranny , almost a 4 inch difference between the 78 axels and the transmission 5 speed. the tranny is wider and it wouldnt let me use the stock axels, so i had some made.

 

soon to get some video of it doing some burn outs. and post that for you guys

[78TurboBrat]

Well anything can be looked at as a pain in the rump roast, but then you ust have to show it whos boss, like the guy who put the 6 cylinder into his gen 1 brat, dont know what all he had to do, but it is in there, would like to know more about what he had to do, to get it in there, and what it is going to be like when it is done. but i have a 87 wagon with a ea82t motor in it now, and also has the digital dash, i am thinking about building another 78 or 79 brat out of the wagon, but want to find a D/R 5 speed this time.

 

the car wasnt that hard to build just took some thinking and so on, really the hardest part was stripping the wiring down to keep only what i wanted to keeep, that is why i said that it would be easier to change the whole harness into the brat, that way you had options for later for power windows and locks, and many other things.

 

when i build the next one it will have the whole harness from the wagon incorporated into the brat. so that i have the options for everything. and then i can do the power windows and locks, and who knows what other little things i might want to bring into the car.

 

Just so many options and so on, what i basically did for the motor mounts was bolted two peices of lawnmower blades that were welded together, to the cross member, and used the stock motor mounts from the wagon to bolt to the blades sticking out where they needed to be, but the new ones will be a similar thing, but using a better mount instead of the small mount.

 

and like i have said to anyone who wants to know mroe, just email me and i will be gald to go over any details in greater length and help you as much as i can to get your car going.

shoquest2002@yahoo.com

[Caboobaroo]

so whatcha wanna do with that extra motor? I could take that 1600 off your hands:brow: :brow: maybe even get ya a little beer money too:D

[78TurboBrat]

caboobaroo, i have two motors, one is a 79 and the other is a 78 , the 78 is pretty much complete, minus the disty, but i am sure everything else is there. the 79 has the heads taken loose, and the jugs pulled away. the intake is gone, wasnt there when i got the car, and the carb and so on is gone, so basically i would look at it as a long block, missing some parts. i dont think chris or i have any use of the parts on those motors, but i will ask him and see what he says, i am sure he will do something workable with you on it. but i am getting two more brats, one is going to calebez, and the other is going to be built into another project, though i am going to lift this one and make it a great 4x4 with big tires and so on. i will email you as soon as i know what he wants to do. i know he wants to hold onto the transmissions.

[GeneralDisorder]

I don't know about lynching for carving up an EA81T car - if it was a Brat then there's a good possiblity, but a wagon, or even a coupe... well, I would say it would have to matter who was carving it up, and for what purpose - and what condition it was it too. I wouldn't mind seeing some beat up coupe or wagon donate it's engine to build a turbo Brat - that would be alright by me. Turbo wagons and coupes are out there - but turbo Brat's are pretty hard to come by.

 

GD

[78TurboBrat]

saw and outback yesterday, with an h6 in it, what is that ?? i know it is the flat six, but what kind of power, and i know someone is already doing that to there gen 1 brat.

[calebz]

There are a few different H6's that have come out over the years.

 

ER27. 2.7 litre XT6 motor

EG33 3.3 litlre SVX motor

EJ(?)30 current H6 for outbacks and forresters and such.

 

I haven't seen one in a gen one brat, but Adam does have an ER27 in his 82 Brat.

[garner]

hey turbobrat

 

I know you mounted your ea82t higher than stock to avoid the frame rails.

 

How much too wide is the 82T vs the 71

 

How much would the frame rails need to be cut back to get it down to the stock height and keep the roll center down low?

 

Anyone have valve cover to valve cover width of the EA82T?

 

Thanks all

[MilesFox]

i believe the turbo ea81 crossmember is different because of the exhaust syste.

 

you may be able to modify the crossmember to fit around the ea81t motor, but if you had to mount the motor highet like 78turbobrat did, you wouldn thave to go as high

 

the main difference between ea81t and ea82t is the ea81 is pushrods, and ea82 is ohc(timing belts)

 

i think the ea82 is 30 inches, and an ea81 body has 32 inches at its narrowest

 

31 inches is a safe assumption for measurement. if you take all the plastic yiming belt covers off the ea82 motor, that will take a good 1 1/2 inches off the widest parts

 

the other part that would be too wide is where the dist mounts. the dist has 2 bolts holding it on, so you can cut off the side mount and that will help give you room, too. that is probably where you *MIGHT* have to cut the framerail.

 

i would thik an ea82(t) would fit in the 78 brat the same as an ea82 would fit in a LIFTED ea81 body.

 

on my 83 trashwagon5, i had a 6 inch lift when i installed the ea82, i had to cut the frameraim mostly on the driver side to clear the cam cover, and cut 1/2 inch off the t-belt covers, leaving the side of the cam pulley exposed. but i took the lift out, and everything fits just right(proving that no framerail mods need done to fit ea82 in ea81 UNLIFTED, like if tomrhere's gen2 brat, also.

 

but my last 3 ea82 motors i have run with open timing belts, never had reliability issues, and it makes servicing t-belts, oil pumps WAY easier, like a 4 hour job taking 20 minutes easier

[GeneralDisorder]

My feeling is that a built EA81 can match and even exceed the HP of the EA82 Turbo in stock form, so unless you intend to try and get more HP from the EA82T, A built EA81 without the trouble of the turbo or wiring and such would be the best choice.

 

And if you do want to go turbo, then the trouble to put the EA82T in is nearly as much trouble as putting in the EJ22T. In fact - the EJ22T is smaller, and should fit better than the EA82T. Plus you get the AWD drivetrain - nice for a street only car.

 

That's just my thought. Of course the EA82T would be cheaper than the EJ swap. So that could be a factor.

 

GD

[Caboobaroo]

I plan on dropping a EA81T into my 79 wagon but I am gonna take the turbo off and replace it with 2 smaller turbos from like a Chevy Sprint or something. Mudrat79 told me that I would have to replace my steering rack with a later Brat of the same body style so them my axle wouldn't hit my steering column BUT I was talking with Hondasucks and he said he was able to drop an EA81 into his 77 wagon with no problems....who knows until its been done, right?