This week my buddy and I are going to be putting a new motor in his over head cam wagon we are going to try and put a push rod motor in it . I was wondering if anyone has done this, and if so are there very many things that you have to change over to make it work or does it even work.

 

Jeff

Northern Alliance

Mt. Vernon WA

It can be done (and has been many times) - but we'll need more info on the car it's going in - carbed, SPFI, MPFI, Turbo?

 

GD

i have done the ea81 swap into an 86 sedan with a 5spd, and have done it to an spfi sedan with automatic

 

what year is the car, what trans, and is the car the motor is going to carb, or spfi?

 

i believe chef tim has done the swap also

The car is an 88 GL wagon with a carb. the original motor got smoked.

John (mudrat79) has done it more than once. Was talking to him about it the other day.....

 

GD

sorry needed to finish my thought. its a five speed and the motor going in is out of an old brat (1800cc) it is the best canidate so far.

nothing too special just stock overhead cam carb. to stock push rod 1800

you can put the tranny together with the ea81 the same as the 5spd conversion.

but you will have to use the ea82 flywheel, and the timing marks are different. but if you leave the distributor alone, that wont matter. dont forget to grind the bellhousing on the motor for the flywheel. use the ea81 flywheel bolts

 

the ea82 carb manifold will bolt up to the ea81 motor. but the egr will be in the way of the distributor.

 

either make a block-off plate for the egr, or do this:

 

mark the distributor position and take it out. take off the distributor mount off and install it upside down so it faces the other way. put the distributor in 180 deg backward, but keep the rotor alignment the same.

install your plug wires 180 off on the cap, so they are correct with the rotor

 

that will be the only MAJOR issue

 

or you can just leave the brat carb/intake with the brat motor

 

the pitch bar mount on the ea82 motor will swap to the ea81

 

ea81 motor mounts will fit in the ea82 car

 

connect the dist wires to the coil like normal(you will have to lengthen the wires, or move the coil to the other side of the car

 

you can leave all the spfi wiring connected to the coil, and leave all the spfi wiring hanging around, just tuck it out of the way

 

the tachometer will still work normally. for oil pressure and water temp, you will have to find the right pin on the spfi harness and tie into that, or simply go with mechanical gauges

 

one of those triple gauge sets from wal-mart will fit nicely on top of the steering column, for example

Originally posted by chef_tim

Miles has you pretty well dialed in. Just ask if you need more help. Tim

 

PS one hose for the P/S will need to be manufactured and the coolant hose will also need some moding, I used a 90º piece of 2" (?) copper to make mine.

 

on the glf with te ea82, i used an ea82 power steering lines to adapt the two

 

with the ea81 in the sedan and DL, i used the ea82 water pump, and power steering pump. in order to do like this, i had to make a custom alternator pulley. but an AC-less alternator would have worked, if i had one.

 

the ea82 water pump will match the radiator hose. use the ea82 water pipe off the top of the motor so it fits the ea82 heater hose.

use this if you are using the brat motors existing belt system

 

the ea82 water pump, ps pump, and alternator belts will be in line. but it will be slightly offset from the crank pulley, but it will still work. but it may wear the belt prematurely.

 

both of mine got junked when i was away. i never driven them. its a crying shame, because the sedan only needed the rocker nuts torques, and the dl needed the timing set correctly.

 

but they both ran and had the belt system i just described

 

the ea82 ac pump bracket will also swap over, as i had in both of mine

Miles, you are a book of knowledge! I thought I knew alot...

 

Chris

keep an eye out for my mods page. it will explain ea81 to ea82 swaps, and vice versa

 

same with transmissions too.

 

all my stuff so far is based on what i have done with soobs myself

 

all this knowledge comes from the fact i had spare parts to play with.

but round up all my projects, all the parts were from the cars in my stable. just mixed around between them, no spares between projects

 

very frugal with my combinations

wow that about sums that up thanks for all the info. that sounds like it will be a lot of work, but it will all come together as you go.

If I have any more Q's i'll talk wichya again.

 

Jeff