Stroking an EA81

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Tue May 09, 2006 6:30 pm

I can't afford an EJ22 engine swap so I'm thinking of stroking the EA81 (which is stock and has done over 300,000km). I figured that stroking would be a cheaper option and still give an acceptable performance upgrade to my Brumby.

Is there anyone in Brisbane who does this sort of work as a drive in / drive out deal?

Suby Wan Kenobi · Post by **Suby Wan Kenobi** » Tue May 09, 2006 7:15 pm

It would be cheaper to buy an EJ22 and put it in there than to stroke an EA81. At the going rate of about $600 for an EJ22 with a few Ks on it with the loom and ECU, plus the cost of a fuel pump. Your stroked EA will require crank rod and possibly piston upgrades, then you will need a new carb.

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Tue May 09, 2006 8:58 pm

Maybe the info is wrong, but I did a search through old posts and read that to get an EJ22 conversion done properly it would cost somewhere between $5,000 - $8,000 (probably more as I would be paying someone to do the job for me).

How much do you think stroking an EA81 would cost?

A thought that keeps popping into my head is that the EJ22 wouldn't be a re-build (ie: long motor) thus its reliability is not guaranteed. I'd have thought that a stroked EA81 would be a more reliable engine when compared to a secondhand EJ22 with unknown history?

As I see it, some pro's for stroking are that I retain the EA81 which is after all a reliable design and I'll have no compliance or engineering certificate issues. When completed I'll have an engine that has been re-built with more power than OEM, and should provide me with dependable, trouble free motoring for years.

Con's ........... apart from spending the dollars, I can't think of any.

Can you?

smoov · Post by **smoov** » Tue May 09, 2006 9:25 pm

didn't think it was possible to stroke an EA81? For the amount of money you would spend on components (if they were even available) on upping the capacity in order to gain performance, it wouldn't be worth the money spending on it.

I suggest that if you intend on using the EA81, then have a full rebuild of it. Then using the upgrades mentioned here:
click here
only then would you fully harness the upgrades that you're thinking about...(stroking, boring, agressive cams..)

I was quoted for my EA82 for a completely reconditioned exchange motor, drive in/drive out for around the $3.5K mark. Then budget probably another $1.5k for those associated (accessory) mods (believe me, they add up!) Sure, if you were mechanically inclined, you could do it for less, but lets just assume here that you aren't for a moment (no offence).

So, with the figures I already quoted you here, we're already looking at $5k. May need to incorporate more for a performance type of rebuild. But lets just leave the figure at 5k for now.

It is possible to pick up an EJXX motor for peanuts... I mean, just in the for sale section, a $500 EJ18. In many people's experiences and opinions, the EJ18 is a far more superior motor to what the EA81 could ever be. And it already has oodles of more boot than what you could potentially get out of the old EA81 reliably. Sure it may not be in the best of conditions, but surely would be enough to keep you going for a long while.
So that leaves you with $4500 to spend on installing it. $500 for an adaptor plate would be rather generous, and $4000 surely would be enough to give to a mechanic for his troubles of installing it and running it?? Can't say that I've had experience in this field, but the next time I'm behind the wheel of an older subaru, and the motor conks out of it, I can honestly say, I'll be heading for OPTION B: EJ Conversion!

Chat to SubaMike, Mudrat, Tim81coupe, Brumberty, Byb01, Subarino, vidler (and probably a whole stack more people) about this.... surely they all can't be wrong!!

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Wed May 10, 2006 1:38 am

Personally I would prefer an EJ22 with high kms and unknown history.
Chances are it will be more reliable and STILL sh_t all over an EA81. No matter how worked it is.

EA81 is an old old engine. You can't get serious power out of one without pushing it's limits which will reduce it's reliability. Every performance upgrade has drawbacks. Yes the EA81 is a reliable design, but stroking it completely throws that out the window. It may be dependable, for a little while but for far less kms than a stock one.

The EJ22 will be completely stock. OEM specs as the factory intended. Everybody knows the EJ series engines last for absolute donkey's years, still work great with high kms. It's got larger capacity, more torque, more power and that's without making an upgrades at all.

I think if you want to have a powerful upgrade, start with a solid base. Change the motor for one that is far superior from the word go. Don't base you're whole project around an old little EA series motor.
Unless you want to retain the originality of the car or something like that?

tim_81coupe · Post by **tim_81coupe** » Wed May 10, 2006 9:16 am

^^ What they said.

If budget is really pressing against an EJ conversion, just do what smoov said and freshen the old girl up and do the standard performance mods. No it won't pull the skin off a rice pudding but I'd bet it would get you another 250-350,000km's, plenty of time to save for a later model car or an EJ swap

On a side note is it running a single Hitachi carb? The Weber is a world of difference.

tassyraider · Post by **tassyraider** » Fri May 12, 2006 9:19 pm

hi i was thinking about ej22 conversion. 1 fellow member the baron i belive put me on to http://www.rslibertyclub.org join then head to trading post in the site theres a liberty in bris at moment being trashed cheerz happy EJing

tassyraider · Post by **tassyraider** » Fri May 12, 2006 9:34 pm

if power out put is the Question ea81 59kw ej18 76kw ej22 100kw in stock form ive done a bit of reserch as depends on how many extra neddies you require my 2 bobs worth

BaronVonChickenPants · Post by **BaronVonChickenPants** » Fri May 12, 2006 10:38 pm

There are people that have worked the EA81's and made them a very capable motor (Brett's Pig springs to mind) but this generally required a lot of time, money and/or effort and was really only done due to a lack of other options (ie: pre EJ).

If you're patient and keep an eye out, you really can snag a bargain on EJ gear, for example Xaymaca and myself went shares in an EJ22, ECU and 5 speed gearbox, total cost, $200 from the rsliberty forum.

My total so far for my EJ project is ~$2,500, I'm not expecting it to be much more than $3,000-3,500 by the time I'm done but that does include buying the project car for $1,000 and doing pretty well all the work myself.

At the same time keep in mind that chubby37 recently scored himself a near perfect '91 liberty for $1,100, complete with factory fitted EJ22

Most engine upgrades or conversion are not done to save money, they're done to be different, for a challenge, because you can but rarely to save money and genereally a conversion done on the cheap to save money will end up costing more than if you did it properly in the first place.

If you're not confident with the conversion side of things and even more so the maintenance and trouble shooting that can go along with a conversion perhaps you'd be better off keeping an eye out for an early liberty or impreza.

But if you want to learn, the EA81 is an excellent engine for playing with to develop some basic mechanical skills, have a look at the thread smoov linked to, by the time you've done these mod's you may even be confident enough to tackle the EJ conversion yourself (with help of course)

OK, thats gotta be close to $2 worth

I'm done now

Zefy · Post by **Zefy** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 9:24 am

I'll go against the flow of this thread and tell you to build an EA81!!

there are TONS of things you can do to an EA81 to give it more performance... although a high performance ea81 probably won't be as good as an ej22...

instead of converting to a weber carb, convert to SPFI off an ea82... one of the biggest ways to gain power is with a different cam... and while you're in there you might aswell put in some high compression pistons...(found in the ea71 engines...)

plain the heads to give a little more CR...

do the exhaust and such...

there... now you've got the coolest EA81 on the block...

tim_81coupe · Post by **tim_81coupe** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 2:13 pm

Zefy wrote:I'll go against the flow of this thread and tell you to build an EA81!!

there are TONS of things you can do to an EA81 to give it more performance... although a high performance ea81 probably won't be as good as an ej22...

instead of converting to a weber carb, convert to SPFI off an ea82... one of the biggest ways to gain power is with a different cam... and while you're in there you might aswell put in some high compression pistons...(found in the ea71 engines...)

plain the heads to give a little more CR...

do the exhaust and such...

there... now you've got the coolest EA81 on the block...

All of this is entirely possible and relatively simple, provided you live in the US of A.
Australia never got the SPFI EA82, the closest thing we can do is the Camira injection swap, this is certainly not for the faint of heart. As far as I know you'll need all the gear off a 1.8 SPFI Camira, then you'll need to fab up an adaptor to fit the T/B to the manifold. Also I think you need a reflash of the Delco ECU, not 100% sure because I've never done this.
All the aftermarket EA71 pistons I've seen in Australia (I worked in spare parts for 5 years) have been exactly the same as the EA81 pistons. I know that using genuine Subaru items you do get a higher compression ratio in an EA81, not sure what the go is with the aftermarket items.

Other than that the other things Zefy said hold true, shave the heads a tad (need shorter pushrods??) and get a cam ground for you. Then proceed to the Baron's post on warming up the EA81 and do all of that too (exhaust, coil, plugs etc).

However once this is done I still reckon an EJ16 would flog the pants off it....

Zefy · Post by **Zefy** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 7:29 pm

tim_81coupe wrote:
Zefy wrote:I'll go against the flow of this thread and tell you to build an EA81!!

there are TONS of things you can do to an EA81 to give it more performance... although a high performance ea81 probably won't be as good as an ej22...

instead of converting to a weber carb, convert to SPFI off an ea82... one of the biggest ways to gain power is with a different cam... and while you're in there you might aswell put in some high compression pistons...(found in the ea71 engines...)

plain the heads to give a little more CR...

do the exhaust and such...

there... now you've got the coolest EA81 on the block...
All of this is entirely possible and relatively simple, provided you live in the US of A.
Australia never got the SPFI EA82, the closest thing we can do is the Camira injection swap, this is certainly not for the faint of heart. As far as I know you'll need all the gear off a 1.8 SPFI Camira, then you'll need to fab up an adaptor to fit the T/B to the manifold. Also I think you need a reflash of the Delco ECU, not 100% sure because I've never done this.
All the aftermarket EA71 pistons I've seen in Australia (I worked in spare parts for 5 years) have been exactly the same as the EA81 pistons. I know that using genuine Subaru items you do get a higher compression ratio in an EA81, not sure what the go is with the aftermarket items.

Other than that the other things Zefy said hold true, shave the heads a tad (need shorter pushrods??) and get a cam ground for you. Then proceed to the Baron's post on warming up the EA81 and do all of that too (exhaust, coil, plugs etc).

However once this is done I still reckon an EJ16 would flog the pants off it....

heh i'm still learning what you guys got and what i got (in canada!

)

if you use ea71 pistons(OEM ones) they are high compression... i'm pretty sure you got the ea71's right? there has to be some difference between the aftermarket ea81 and ea71 pistons... or else the CR would go down on the 1600 giving them even LESS power... not good!

and if you do decide to go performance ea81 i'm pretty sure i could hook you up with some SPFI stuff... its not hard stuff to come by up here...

the biggest mod you could do would be the cam...

would be cool if you were the only guy in australia running suby spfi performance ea81!!!

and whats this about an ej16? i've never heard of such an engine! (ej18 would be the smallest ej series engine we got here...)

have fun!:)

tim_81coupe · Post by **tim_81coupe** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 7:47 pm

I wouldn't be surprised if you get PM's and email's regarding that SPFI stuff Zefy. I certainly know of some people who would want to stick with the EA as a cheaper option.

The EJ16 was fitted to the Australian market Impreza's. Not sure on what year models had them, but the one I have is from a 1996 model. The local importer advertises EJ15's as well! I've heard these motors were in Impreza's delivered to Malaysia.

BaronVonChickenPants · Post by **BaronVonChickenPants** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 8:29 pm

From what I've heard and researched the camira's came in 1.8 and 2L versions, either one will run an ea81/82 with out reprogramming, obviously the 1.8 version would give you more of an economy tune and the 2.0 version more of a performance tune.

I've seen a website where the Delco system (Camira ECU) was fitted to all sorts of engine right up to V8's where the desired tuning was achieved by using different throttle body's and injectors rather than reprogramming.

And making a TB to manifold adaptor can't be all that hard, certainly gotta be easier than a gearbox adapter

It's still on my list of "Gotta try one of these days" projects.

Jordan.

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 9:51 pm

Hey Zefy, rekon you could hook us up with some more MY Hatches too??

We only got one or two!

BaronVonChickenPants · Post by **BaronVonChickenPants** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 9:52 pm

Yeah just whack it in a big post pack bag, I'll take 2

Jordan.

subanator · Post by **subanator** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 12:08 am

If you start playing with the EA81, make sure you have a couple to play with, as they get older you will notice once pulled apart, they maybe suffering a bit of corrosion etc, so get some old engines (dirt cheap) to swap bits off.

The go in the guide is >'84 engines, as they breath better due to intake and valve sizes bigger. They came with elec dissy as well.

The "twin port" engine found only from import, were for twin carb and turbo engines. These are a superior design to the original due to the heads, and turbo's were MPFI. They are becoming rare and expensive now.
Steve from Rising Sun mentioned the import EA71 would easily kick a EA81 due to being later in design, (not to be confused with the original EA71)

Personally IMHO, I would go Weber and MSD ignition, forget SPFI, as the carb is still tuneable.

Bratgeebah · Post by **Bratgeebah** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 8:06 am

Check out Ram Performance. http://ramengines.com/index.html
Their stage 4 dual port heads would cost less than stroking and probably make more power. You'd need a manifold etc so it could get expensive, but they claim 140hp.
Cheap piston kits, forged and cast for ea81 and 82 there as well, including pistons for tubo engines.

Gee

smoov · Post by **smoov** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 10:34 am

US$9k??

slightly economically unfeasible, wouldn't you think?

then there would be shipping.....

even their kits look expensive... remember, its all in US DOLLARS!

i guess this proves the point very clearly as to why the EJXX conversion reigns superior over tinkering with the old EAXX motors for any serious HP increases.

Hell, even a short motor is US$2900, and that makes only around a measely 100hp....

At the end of the day, any serious HP is going to cost money. Lets face it. If you're going to be keeping the EA series motor in your old school soob, you're not willing to spend the cash on the car. If you're spending the money on the EA motor, in hoping to achieve some serious HP, you're either very misinformed, very ignorant, or very stupid.

Subaru upgraded their powerplants to the EJ series for a reason... SUPERIORITY!

Bratgeebah · Post by **Bratgeebah** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 12:37 pm

I agree with you as far as EJ versus EA is concerned. I wasn't suggesting that a stand alone ea81 aeroplane engine package represented better value than an EJ engine conversion.
What I suggested was that a set of their 140hp dual port heads at $us1094
represented better value than stroking. It would be similar cost/cheaper and make more power. Unfortunately you would have to fabricate a manifold (relatively easy with mild steel tube for a webber).
Ever priced forged pistons for an ea?

Gee (misinformed, ignorant and very stupid) 8O