Doug's EA81 Rebuild stuff.

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 5:28 pm

90kg ? EA81 ? Someones busted yer scales Tony...the EA81 is only about 60kg minus fly and clutch

Subydoug · Post by **Subydoug** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 5:48 pm

Cheers tony, but I already have a spare ea81 which came outa the wagon. Deffinately pretty light as I stood on my gearbox inner cv cups and lowered the long block in by myself.

Hoping to weld up some stuff this weekend,

Doug

Tweety · Post by **Tweety** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 6:34 pm

under 50yo Steptoe? would be 60 kgms. over 50...90 kgms...

Yeh Doug. on the trike the engine bar that surrounds the engine is removable. then you put a trolley jack under the donk unbolt the engien and roll it out. I installed the ea81 when I was in a wheelchair with a broken leg.

oops

oops again

subaru flat 12

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 7:24 pm

OK, I'll give you that, considering you talk metric not imperial. 40 years since we went metric too ! In a wheel chair with a broken leg ? there was a fella on subxt forum getting about his workshop on crutches - dedication

Subydoug · Post by **Subydoug** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 8:03 pm

Nice! what was your original reasoning for pulling out the VW motor? Guy at work has a little vw based buggy thingy and he just got a porshe boxer for it. Seems like a nice little engine.

Regards

Doug

Tweety · Post by **Tweety** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 10:05 pm

Cost Doug. My engine was new from Brazil and imported from US. Then assembled here in Oz. Lots of issues and poor economy. warranty fixed most but in the end I rang the guru of VW engiens a bloke called Stan Pobjoy in Sydney.

Stan is a veteran in the VW world in racing and has developed his own crankshaft and twin spark heads for aircraft. For a cool 12 grand I could get one hell of an engine. I know a guy with one in his Panther trike and its pretty good. But IMO too expensive. And its stilla Tak tak

The ea81 was installed for an all up price of under 5 grand. Includes adapter plate, custom exhaust, weber, reco dizzy, new radiator and plumbing.

My intention was to go water cooled (have a heater), have a basic old school engine I can work on and with enough power to tow our van (total weight of the rig 1100 kgms.)

I made an error. should have gone EJ. I falsely believed the EJ would need engine mounts and this Panther doesnt have the design to accomodate them- alloy monocoque chassis ends at the transmission. The VW auto, hailed in its time as simplistic and low in drag friction does in fact zap 14hp from the engine. This of course is critical when you have 73hp at the fly making 59 atw. Hence the supercharger concept that brought 100+ and 82 hp respectively- great- except for that fuel bill which being semi retired isnt acceptable. Apart form its smelly black smoked inefficient suck through system.

EJ is out of the question now. I love the ea81 and the improvements with the SPFI have made me quite content. Havent done fuel test yet because it has been using such little fuel I havent refuelled it

But I'm sure it will be good. With the SC I rode with a full tank to Shepparton via Benalla about 140 kms and went through 25 litres!! gauge at half way. (50 litre tank). Since the SPFI conversion it was refuelled at euroa again, rode to Shepp, ran the engine for an hour after injector clean, rode home -(so far 120 kms) and the gauge has just moved off full. Hoping for 450 kms range.

The VW engine was getting 13 l/100kms. (1916cc), SC 16-19 l/100kms, the webered ea81 9-12 l/100kms, SPFI ??

One can incorrectly assume that being only 500 kgms a trike is doubly easy to push along than a Brumby. Not so. A car is much more aerodynamic even a trike without a roof as a parachute!..

I have a few regrets but overall I think in the end all will be good. An auto just needs the extra hp that the EJ would easily give. Manual would not have been an issue.

I';m sure I have enough power now to tow the van. Just max is ideal.

Subydoug · Post by **Subydoug** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 10:48 pm

Well Ive now got just over 850km's on my new EA81. Running sweet, very crispy and has a lovely zzzzzzzzz noise to it that my other one didnt. I went banana's on the heads with a dremel and got a 3 angle valve job in each valve. Tried to make it all curves and bends in the heads a smooth action. With all that and the shaved heads I can deffinately feel a bit more engine under the hood. I can also see it in the fuel consumption though. gone up to around 10-11l to the 100km's. Thats also with one size jet smaller in both primary and secondary main's. Guess I just gotta stop sticking my boot in and listening to her sing

.

Yeah, bummer about the tranny sucking away the pony's. Dyno numbers really put it into perspective dont they. 20% all into the tranny. If only there was a 5spd auto version.

I emagine SPFI will probably be a little bit more efficent. I know just by watching my lambda meter and feeling what the car does, that carbies run rich on part throttle and are pretty erratic compared to efi. Even when I was just messing around with the efi on my old engine, when it held lambda on accelleration is was a lot smoother. If it can tighten up the tollerances in fuel delivery and ignition timing it should be a good upgrade to the standard carbied ea81.

Well if you need some high compression heads, let us know and Il slap my old heads on the shaper and deck them for you. I do believe however that you would be better off getting some MPFI pistons though as I have deffinately noticed an increase in tappet noise on this motor. And yes I have checked the clearances many times

.
Well tweety, hoping your new maf sensor gets this trike rocketing. And yeah, happy to make you a piggyback injector driver that will increase or decrease your duty cycle according to what you want.

Regards

Doug

Tweety · Post by **Tweety** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 11:14 pm

I'll keep it in mind Doug.

I think your tappet noise could be reduced if you went 6 and 10 thou on the clearances (hot). but you's know more than this little black duck

Subydoug · Post by **Subydoug** » Fri Sep 20, 2013 9:17 am

Cant remember what I set them to last. I dont mind the tapping, better then no clearance. Just might be noisy in a trike with an open engine bay.

Doug

Subydoug · Post by **Subydoug** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 11:19 am

Hey fella's

Thought Id throw this up here, see if anyone has some opinions and idea's. I feel Ive harassed Paul enough

.

Dramas with the new motor, did an oil swap at around 1200km's (I think, cant remember) and used a new bottle of oil I had around from my old van days. HPR 20W60.

Didn't notice straight away but the motor started burning oil. Smoke from the tailpipe.
When I realised I swapped back to the oil I was running before (new) which was Castrol GTX 15W40.

Still burns oil now. Could be coincidental that it started after the oil change, maybe not, I don't know.

Here is what I know;

Installed a catch can, try to stop oil getting into the intake, hasn't really done anything. New PCV valve and hoses. As far as I can tell now the PCV system is working 100%

Compression test on the engine straight after driving it. All cylinders came out at 165psi +/- around 2 psi standard deviation. Probably not as high as it should really be but there is some wear in the bores so I expected it.

Doesn't smoke on start up, and doesn't seem to smoke much during first warm up, though I don't usually rev it hard when cold so its not really that valid.

Smokes mostly above 3000rpm. Oil consumption is around 4mm down the dip stick for around 150km's.

Engine seems to runs fine, no misfire at idle or hesitation that has caught my attention.

Spark plugs in cyl's 1,2 and 4 all look good, but number 3 was black like it was running rich. I cleaned the plug, cleaned the rotor button and cap, double checked the lead connections and rechecked. Still black with some nice color showing on the tip of the electrode and ground strap. Still different to the rest.

Thoughts? I think maybe my oil rings are shot, particularly in cylinder 3. About the only thing I can think of. Got some new rings and head gaskets. Il pull the motor out on the weekend and have a peep, put the new rings in.

Do you think its worth just pulling cyl 3 piston out to start with given the nature of the plug (and I can pull it out without taking the motor out of the car)? or is that just lazy

.

Blow-by, hmmm. some times I think its bad, sometimes I think its good. I made a bottle catch can to go between the airbox and rocker cover to see how much oil was coming up into the airbox. In the whole time it was there the bottle probably got a ml or so in it.
Certainly seems like blow by....donno.

What do you guys think?

Doug

RSR 555 · Post by **RSR 555** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 2:01 pm

You're not a worry Doug.. your sms count is about a 1/3 of Guyph's

But I'm back a work for another week, so no good sending any sms this week. I can reply on here and emails though

I was thinking.. Can you swap over the #3 plug with #1 and also swap the HT leads over (including at the dizzy cap) and run the engine like this for a couple of days. This will eliminate or show more difinitive signs of the problem being #3 or not??

Subydoug · Post by **Subydoug** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 2:18 pm

Geez, Il have to start sending more then ay

.

Not a problem, I think Im good now as far as knowledge goes. Yep, Il swap those plugs and leads around and see what it looks like tonight. I cleaned #3 and it was black by the time I got to work, 25kms away. Should be obvious. Also grabbed some flush and thinner oil. Will do that after work.

I think in general its suffering from Tarmacitus. A good dose of beachocilin should clear it up

.

Regards

Doug

RSR 555 · Post by **RSR 555** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 2:24 pm

Subydoug wrote:I think in general its suffering from Tarmacitus. A good dose of beachocilin should clear it up .

I like your thinking.. start a planning now and count me in

Anytime after the 24th

Subydoug · Post by **Subydoug** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 2:45 pm

By the 24th Il be thru my second set of rings

. No problem Il see what I can wrangle up. I believe Toonga mentioned a place in a different thread.....cant remember.

Doug

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 4:55 pm

The issue could have a lot to do with swapping the type of oil while running an engine in - from my experience you typically stay with the same type of oil while the rings bed in for at least the first 10,000km.

If you're happy to strip it down and put a fresh set of rings in it I say go for it - and give the bore a good hone to allow the rings something to bite into as they bed in

Cheers

Bennie

Subydoug · Post by **Subydoug** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 5:11 pm

Yeah mate It was a bad decision

. Well at least that oil is gone now. Only cost me some rings

.

Yeah I have the new rings and gaskets. Reckon I could have the motor out in an hour and a half. Pistons out and rings replaced in another hour or two, then 2 hours to put it all back together. Offcourse nothing in this world ever goes to plan so Il just add 6 hours there and that should be about right

.

Regards

Doug

Subydoug · Post by **Subydoug** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 8:16 pm

Well Paul, after a single trip home, around 25km's, the nicely colored plug out of cyl %1 looked black as the ace of spades coming out of #3

. Could still be the disty cap.....It has a few km's on it.

Just did the flush and new oil filter. Will report back What happens. Im hoping for a dramatic change.

One thing I think is strange to, seems that when I hit a hill is when It chuffs the most. That actually seemed logical to me, but just now on the way back when I hit the hill I backed off the throttle as to maintain the same manifold pressure (via vac gauge) and it didnt make a shit of a difference. Seemed odd to me.

In other news completely unrelated, fueled her up, now getting 11km's per litre or 9.5l per 100km's with some new jets and idle settings. You beaut, and thats in the city as well.

Regards

Doug

Post by **TOONGA** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 8:38 pm

I must ask Doug how old are the leads ?

Have you tested them for continuity?

What colour is the smoke?

TOONGA

Silverbullet · Post by **Silverbullet** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 8:40 pm

Is it sooty black or oily black? if you rub it with your finger does it leave a carbon smudge on your paws? With an oil issue you'd expect it to be oily. It would be unusual to have a sooty black plug on just 1 cylinder though, unlikely a fuel thing.

Good luck with putting new rings in and have the engine back same day, would be quite a feat

I struggled to do an engine swap on my ute in just 1 day but got there.

RSR 555 · Post by **RSR 555** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 9:03 pm

Fuel was my first thought until Doug said he was losing oil, which no turned out to be minimal. Small amounts of oil passed the rings will burn off really easy but if it's broken rings you'll have lots of troubles. Doug still has fairly good compression, so I'm ruling out broken rings. Unburnt fuel would be the thing to check first, as this can be done without pulling the engine down. I'm sure you've got a stoich gauge hey Doug? But those fuel figures show no signs of running rich.