piratetrucker Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 Hi All, I have a 93 loyale wagon 5sp s/r 4x4 SPFI that I want to swap in an MPFI motor from an 80 something (later I guess) xt 2wd car. The story - I bought this wagon from some friends that were getting rid of it almost a year and a half ago. They had the head gaskets done not long before selling it to me and my wife. About 6 months later, the head gasket went again. I had it fixed at a shop (same one that did it before) since at the time I had no place to work on it myself. That was year ago, and now the dang thing has blown it again. I don't want to do another head gasket job since I don't know what the deal is with this thing. The good news is that my cousin who lives next door has this XT that has been sitting forever (over 5 years I guess by now) but had new heads and gaskets and some other things installed before he just lost interest in it. He said I could have whatever I wanted from it, so I guess I want the motor :-) I know that you need the wiring harness and ECU, and that the fender needs to come off to get the harness out, but what else is difficult about this job? Do I need to seperate wires or pull apart the harness? Does the dash need to come out? My dad and I are pretty handy with cars and have done similar jobs before. Anything to watch out for with this one? I just wanted to hear from someone that had done the same thing and had a little more specific experience. Thanks!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneralDisorder Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 XT's are quite a bit different. The ECU is in the trunk, so the harness will be WAY too long. You'll want the XT fsm to figure out the wiring. It can be done, but it would be easier to just fix your HG's. The MPFI engines only make about 5 HP more than the SPFI, and that much work isn't worth the effort for that kind of return. Sounds like your HG's weren't installed properly. Use Fel-Pro's and have the heads milled flat - should take care of it for a long time. GD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piratetrucker Posted February 18, 2007 Author Share Posted February 18, 2007 XT's are quite a bit different. The ECU is in the trunk, so the harness will be WAY too long. You'll want the XT fsm to figure out the wiring. It can be done, but it would be easier to just fix your HG's. The MPFI engines only make about 5 HP more than the SPFI, and that much work isn't worth the effort for that kind of return. Sounds like your HG's weren't installed properly. Use Fel-Pro's and have the heads milled flat - should take care of it for a long time. GD My worry is that the heads have been milled too many times, and now the compression ratio is too high. Also, the head might be cracked, and then I'll need a new head. The XT engine is free - did I mention that? Unless of course someone just wants to buy the wagon and XT from me so I can get a truck. We are trying to buy a house in one of the most inflated markets in the country, so there's no money, but a truck would be great. Thanks for the info on the XT's harness. I'll have to give it a look-see when the weather gets above freezing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneralDisorder Posted February 18, 2007 Share Posted February 18, 2007 They can be milled many times. And the increase in compression from a simple milling to true up the surface isn't really even enough to worry about calculating. I had .020" taken off my EA81's heads *specifically* to increase the compression as much as possible. .020" is WAY more than would be needed to just prep the surface for sealing (it's the max allowed before the heads must be replaced according to the FSM), and even then my comp. still only increased from 8.7:1 to *maybe* close to 9:1. Besides that, you probably won't have to have them milled again if it was done before. The increase for a simple surface prep would be less than 0.1:1 - not enough to make any difference. And the engine may be free, but the labor isn't. It's not a simple process. My first conversion harness took about 10 hours of prep work just to get it ready for testing, and I didn't have to shorten anything. You are looking at probably a couple weeks of downtime to get it straightened out and driveable again unless you have done this sort of thing before. GD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prospeeder Posted February 18, 2007 Share Posted February 18, 2007 you could just drive that XT around and fix your Loyal, it shouldnt be blowing headgaskets like that for no reason. unless your overheating it.... or sustaining higher temps (like 3/4 of the gauge or more) constantly. You may be due for a new radiator or waterpump. Are you making sure to have the headbolts torqued down to the right specs and everything? whos doing it? a shop? if your taking it to the same shop, id either get a different shop to do it or do it yourself Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piratetrucker Posted February 18, 2007 Author Share Posted February 18, 2007 you could just drive that XT around and fix your Loyal, it shouldnt be blowing headgaskets like that for no reason. unless your overheating it.... or sustaining higher temps (like 3/4 of the gauge or more) constantly. You may be due for a new radiator or waterpump. Are you making sure to have the headbolts torqued down to the right specs and everything? whos doing it? a shop? if your taking it to the same shop, id either get a different shop to do it or do it yourself It started to run hot, I assume from pushing air into the cooling system (air bubbles popping up) due to cracked head or head gasket. I replaced the T-stat and cap anyway. Water pump looks good. Still it's pushing air bubbles to the radiator. The shop is a well known shop around here specializing in Roos, and I've never heard a bad word about them from other people that I've talked too. I like to do my own work usually, and so I'm pretty picky about the shops I go to when needed. My dads TR-6 was taking up the garage at the time with a clutch job, so I couldn't do the heads myself. I suspect they are probably cracked now since it did overheat. Maybe I'll just sell it? I don't know... It's a great car otherwise. No TOD, nice tires and no rust. It really cheeses my nachos that this happened. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prospeeder Posted February 18, 2007 Share Posted February 18, 2007 my Subaru RX 1.8 Turbo would bubble into the radiator when warm and it would run hot (3/4 or abit more) but not overheat, it turned out to be the radiator. I got a brand new one for 90$ and the car runs 1/3 of the gauge and it hasnt bubbles since. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piratetrucker Posted February 18, 2007 Author Share Posted February 18, 2007 my Subaru RX 1.8 Turbo would bubble into the radiator when warm and it would run hot (3/4 or abit more) but not overheat, it turned out to be the radiator. I got a brand new one for 90$ and the car runs 1/3 of the gauge and it hasnt bubbles since. What was the cause of the bubble's?? Mine will run all the way up to the red, then comes back down and is fine. If I open the cap before starting, it does good and won't over heat until the second or third time I drive it from cold. It takes that long to build the pressure up in the system and prevent the water from getting to the t-stat to pop it. It's very small bubbles. Anyway... How hard is it swap in an MPFI motor?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prospeeder Posted February 18, 2007 Share Posted February 18, 2007 mine was the water would actually Boil from getting too hot, from the sounds of it you defintly have a head/gasket problem. was it running hot before it blew? normals below 1/2 way on the temp. It might be easier just to find out the problem and get it done, mabye do it yourself. But really for the swap, just swap wiring harnesses and engines and you should be ok. You could find a Turbo cars wiring harness, it would be shorter.....but im not 100% sure the N/A and turbo harnesses interchange. But you have to take out the WHOLE dash and make sure you know where everything goes and be able to trouble shoot stuff that doesnt work. Search for it, i know i read how a guy swapped a SPFI for a turbo MPFI motor and it didnt go well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piratetrucker Posted February 18, 2007 Author Share Posted February 18, 2007 mine was the water would actually Boil from getting too hot, from the sounds of it you defintly have a head/gasket problem. was it running hot before it blew? normals below 1/2 way on the temp. It might be easier just to find out the problem and get it done, mabye do it yourself. But really for the swap, just swap wiring harnesses and engines and you should be ok. You could find a Turbo cars wiring harness, it would be shorter.....but im not 100% sure the N/A and turbo harnesses interchange. But you have to take out the WHOLE dash and make sure you know where everything goes and be able to trouble shoot stuff that doesnt work. Search for it, i know i read how a guy swapped a SPFI for a turbo MPFI motor and it didnt go well Yeah. Mine bubbles from cold. Ran great before that. That whole dash thing sucks though. I can do it, no prob - It's just dang cold around here which isn't so good for motivation. I did do a little searching, so I'm aware of some things. I wasn't sure about the dash, but I guess it's gotta come out. What a PITA. Oh well. Thanks for the info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daeron Posted February 19, 2007 Share Posted February 19, 2007 My guess is that it would be less difficult to simply find a pair of good SPFI heads in a junkyard, get them spec'd out (you can do it yourself easily enough) and do the headgaskets again. Use Fel-pro perma torque headgaskets, and dealer only intake manifld gaskets and cam case O-rings. I have had the bubbly overflow for six months now, and my engine has finally started to run like crap.. comp numbers are, from front of car, drivers side first, 180, 185; 155, 155.....I have all my parts on order and should have the job done this week. from what I hear pulling the engine is unnecessary, and I have never been this deep into a soob motor before. Honestly, *I* have never been this deep into any car engine before... because I have never blown a headgasket. I have sat in on many complete engine builds, but being the nephew/son/grease monkey doesnt count. That being said, I will let you know in a week how it has gone. hopefully I will even take lots of pictures and do a write up for the USRM.. its shocking that no one has done a walk-through for one of the more common, and more intense (for newbies) procedures on this motor, and if I can rectify that, I would love to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneralDisorder Posted February 19, 2007 Share Posted February 19, 2007 I suspect they are probably cracked now since it did overheat. Pure speculation, and being a non-turbo I can almost gaurantee they aren't cracked. You probably have a partially blown HG from one of the passenger side cylinders into an adjacent water jacket. How do I know this? Because I've done half a dozen of them. There's no need to remove the dash for an MPFI swap - especially since you won't even have the right harness to plug and play with the body. The XT is radically different from all other EA82's, and the harness won't fit the car. Removing the dash wouldn't help you. What would need to be done is the entire MPFI control system stripped from the XT harness and piggybacked to the existing SPFI harness. This is not a simple task, and would require at least access to the XT factory service manual to complete properly. There's pedal switches, clutch switches, and nuetral switches to deal with that have to be mated to the SPFI tranny..... there's several days worth of just wireing. Do the HG's - your're looking at a weekends worth of work. About $50 in gaskets and materials. About $70 to mill both heads if they need it. Often only the side that blew will require milling. Replace your upper and lower radiator hoses, and heater core hoses, and make SURE there's no air in the system. Should be good to go. Most likely the shop did a poor job on the HG's, or used non perma torque gaskets. The dealer gaskets require retorqueing after 500 miles - was that done? GD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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