1987 subaru: dual range

[Barry Donovan]

april 22 burn in attempt

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rejecting rich, but continuing to idle. no charge to sustain.
No overheat. No dash clock, tach, electric engine fan..no explanation.
Valves getting very quiet passenger head.

about 2 hours in now, generator and battery charger running. Only a flutter of tease on the alt gauge.
Thumpy little engine.

The chambers to spotless is the cuprit. Needs a 10 to 1 carbon layer, and the valves are clean too.
The heads and intake is coming from a 7.6 to 1 turbo, lucky to see a 150psi cylinder at full boost...and those exhaust valves they used. Hardly any flow. Fat head valves. Must have been a boost gauge tricker..make one think they are going big...because turbos are scary to the japanese subaru once past 7 psi.

The valves in it now, I'd call medium. 1987 had a very thin faced carb valve, flowed the most, and the loyale is inbetween turbo and the skinny one. I am using the loyale version. Good flow, and strong. Those are paired with the best lifters known for this engine, stay quiet, a little like variable valves.,,and the most lift at the upper end (past 2800)

I am not only avoiding subarus after this, I do not want aluminum anything.
A pile of vortec out the window.

I'll relax in a few years, maybe, to change my mind.
alternators from a monkeys butt never do good. I guess I'd do american aluminum engines. Alternators have been good here for 50 years.
Going to let it run until generator runs out of gas, seems a .25 gallon left in the 63cc tank.

The rich smell is good news. It won't be long now.

swapped alternator back to the 128 amp nissan, that is the one I just had tested. Same low ripple as new, etc. It only looks like the one I just bought. This one bottoms out at 9 volt, gets quite warm to send it. Does not give up. I think that was the original hatred on the nissan flunkers. They simply stopped sending anything, due to the loop. No leader. all quitters. Reminds me of kamikaze.

I think the word "phasing" comes to mind for this 85-87 engine. Subaru did not start firing all four until the loyale. Don't tell seattle, they get confused. The right bank needs to be lit on an accurate 4 stroke for some time. I went though this once already, but it was way too late for the head I chose back when. This one is a baby, just like it has never been used. I first learned phasing on a kc135e. Memory stuck in circuits and metals. Some machines go to the junk yard because of this subject. Its like a dam in the flowing of electricity. Very rare occurrence. Why subarus did this out of the box is a mystery only a tiny mind hardly flowing would understand.

Took battery back in to recharge full, see if it cycles back down to 9 volt tomorrow, self sustaining, or whenever I get to it.
Come to think of it, the mechanic that caught me cussing at this subaru told me to just let it run, see where it bottoms. That must be 5 years or more ago. I went through 3 of the 50 amp subaru original. The nissan with the updated ts16949 standard is a good one. The old nissan 90 amp can work, but there is no leader, no take charge (pun). He knew the alternator was charging without checking anything. Just put your hand on the stator to check for heat. Subaru is not the only weirdo ricer out there.
let it idle, give a shot of higher oil pressure once and awhile (that means throttle, for usmb members that might be reading).

[Barry Donovan]

april 23 burn-in

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alternator swapped yesterday, purchase date was dec 2013. very intrigued to find it has a creeper mode, no all off. Very important This allows for a long time burn-in, but battery will still need help.
Gigantic runtime. Never heard an ea82 going this big. The compression reminds me of an 11 to 1 chevy truck my brother drove.

swapped alt to the middle, my main to the left. Battery stays to the right. Heatsink is aluminum.

needs some more fuel, and a nicer day. it started pouring for some minutes while out there.
still no tach, clock, electric engine fan, or real charge.

getting there. This one is literally afraid of itself.
there was a spell, sounded like engine was coming down to die from high idle..except the intensity was increasing, almost made my eyes twitch. the stoich reading fell down to 13.7 (not enough amps) as it was slowing down by itself, getting bigger. One bank just met the other for the first time.


Big little engine. That should self cancel into streetable. If not, plug your ears.

interesting video, reversing a boiled egg. I laughed to think of aluminum engines that are trained to be run like a wimp for a long time. They need to be spun to the higher mode of more work..like aligning proteins, except, an alloy instead. Now unlike computers, these alignments would rather come down, than work up. that is where volts add to the spin. A hertz called electric.

What I did, that did not allow for quick change, is bake clean at 450F and with the high temp paint, which resists heat. This means hertz. Electric resistance. Demanding a denser bigger motor from something it has never been. I had mentioned this one at 10 to 1, won't be like your subaru 10 to 1. The density factor.

[Barry Donovan]

intermission..will be back in a few.

[Barry Donovan]

gramps

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I was all alone for 9 years with my tin can..in fact made fun of, insulted, and banned.
love seeing this Subaru wagon into the details. My own is still primitive, as it is original 1980s.
I like to see they chose the right body for the overall signature. there really is wounded and dead in america, ignoring those facts.

The section on the oil.. I learned it very simply. If your car predates synthetic, nitrile seals need something organic. I can go as far as castrol syntec "blend". old and new.
The flat 6 by subaru is very new, so they can do anything they want.

The tribeca is indeed the biggest subaru, that is a great place to get a master cylinder and other parts. I use the master cylinder in my little subaru, due to 15 inch wheels. Master cylinders are as much about the weight of the car, as the size of wheels trying to slo down on the brakes.

Something I want to do, is get a picture next to subaru wagon with the flat 6 by factory.. my tin can is very small in comparison. In fact the low profile 15 inch wheels look as proportionate as todays 18+ on the bigger subarus today.

Some don't understand keeping a 3 main going..it hauls butt with the right builder.




Changes our way can only go to ions.. bordering atomic.




I might have said something wise there. Give it some time and space.

[Barry Donovan]

april 25 burn in

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A little closer..
idle is stronger, smoothness. some flutter on the alt gauge, still not going by 11v.
The batteries charge up quicker and quicker each run, needing to plug them back inside.
A trick I remembered was using any source of boosted cables grounded to spare tire bolt.

when this one comes around, my ears will pop like climbing a hill.
Biggest version yet, I choose to forget this gayness upon first starts.My third time..totally went scary american on a subaru engine.
I ponder a genome of a king...


I am glad the truck is sitting next to it.
I tried out the air compressor side of the little shumacher battery booster. Worked good. Truck tire went from 25 to 30 pounds in about 2 minutes.
handy gadget, I then plugged it right onto the subarus battery. The ground on the spare tire bolt.

I am hoping for a 70 degree day by september...

An interesting puddle from the exhaust, seems to be heavy water. Did not dry after a coupe of hours. This must be the last of the cleaners gone airless. Engine too small to burn engine cleaner.
The next step is new ground, as the single port moved fast but less volume...piling a pig of carbon to get this going again. The multiport is a whole different game. This does not have the bobbling 2cyl cam it came with, it really moves the air with my build. This will take a while no matter what I do with it.

Lets hope it is rewarding.

I do have the alternator belt jigging a bit loose, this one is going to rip into a runtime. I hope the subaru rally team figures that trick, as old as an EA81, for themselves.

Losing accessory belt on a boxer is a good sign..

they had dual belts for a reason. I still get away with one, if manual steering.

[Barry Donovan]

the big Nepal quake is turning out to be quite a tragedy. My subaru was all cracked up when I took it in. The worst I had ever seen...still driving down aback road.

no wheel wells in the back, the wheel well interior trim was the wheel well. strut towers with hardened skeletons, chunks missing like my hip bone.

that requires a crazy doctor or a hard hit...an ocean ride on a bad ferry. Lightning, a tornado, blizzards and hurricanes.
Some 28 below.. much more than once. Traffic jams, 130F pavement, floods and heatwaves. City sewers, country plagues.

50 pounds of mig weld is not a gimmick.








this sube has had some lucky stars. I spotted in the earthquake list from today, A 6.5.

This one was less than 250 miles from this cars original titled region. Metlakatla AK
It is still running on the same owners title today. Just the keeping of the title is unusual, as maine does not require it after a time.
I lose motivation, as a lot of work does.. it is not good to forget a cars unique story. It would be like calling a 6 million mile trucker lazy for relaxing in his old age. Calling a 6 year war veteran a clown for walking funny.

RIP to all lost. It is not all that possible for kathmandu to have ancient temples. Gimmicks sell truth, more than lies. Reminds me of a subaru...

Speaking of crazy..
I am reminding myself the EGR has never been removed for this dual port setup, it was the dirtiest channels I recall, almost clogged. Bringing it to bare, clean and earning as higher vacuum, real compression is the biggest change of all. all 3 of my sube engines were extremely dramatic change over, EGR removed entirely. Volts/amps flow was one of them.

Hard to get angry, remembering lessons from the past.
If you are playing with these engines.. the loyale cams are the only one that become a better engine with no EGR. The rest of them, the lobe timing wobble is so bad..best let it gurgle the crazy time into their EGR. That all dies young of course.. but it is worth running to the end if you have to.(I have altered a casting to destroyed respecting original bad cams).

[Barry Donovan]

airless underhood

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almost knocked me over..this is with a hood scoop that works.
popped hood to put fresh battery in...big burst of old airless chamber, came right at my nostrils.

Next start may be the one. Now this part of the routine is really coming back.
the next step is AFR registering, leaky pipe or not, idle of a hummingbird is my build..and the alternator wire gets real warm for a minute...

then tach starts jumping, then smooths as it narrows down to the rpm. Dash clock may take days... and reading crazy in the interim.

I did forget this is the first run for this one with no EGR. 30 years old to boot, engine never dismantled until I did so.It has to kill the right banks chambers. Lucky for this build the pistons have been in my runtime, else this would have been a days and weeks long process at 8 hours a day. "Just walk away".
That is junk bound for most any builder that tried it..and gave up with no advice.

For reference I found a 1985XT (same build as the RX engine I bought - except possibly the interior head lining),
it sounds like its barely running at full speed. That is the dead right bank they shipped with back when. 7.6 to 1 compression even if all four were getting good mix.
Ashame, as the air intake looks correct to feed all four tuned port..and they did not allow it. Half an engine and 110hp.

this guys sarcasm... you would have heard a thump if I was in the car as I punched him in the face.
Another weird thing about these boxers..two engines reaching 110 hp, and one of them ramps up fast enough to bend the hood rod.
Extremely peculiar...although my own is the real 280cfm, so 8k on a limiter would be engaging.

My build shook the hood, during the first run to burp radiator, the rod bent, broke right bank exhaust pipe...the hood came right down in an angle. That was another first. I assumed beyond 10.2 to 1 from first start. Some brake fluid disappeared in the super suck of de-airing the block..

then the old slob it shipped with tried to take over, and that is what I am burning out today. so..if to get one going, a little more thump. Just remember the first start after build..it gets somewhat close to that when the nominal (burned in) settles in.

I am in crap for weather for some time, and want to wait for a 65F (next monday). the coolant is in the heat dispersing calmed de-aired state right now, so I can leave it out there and walk away. It could be a couple of hours, couple of minutes..or even a few more tries at other days.

[Barry Donovan]

he may not have won the race, but was certainly the crowd favorite.

that is a subaru.

I learned that phenomena at a place called speedway 95, and unity raceway. One was loved for a freakish temper. One was loved for the skills...stunt man like, never failing in big angles.

balance and out of balance is a favorite. Having too much of either is not.

This project truly started off in 1997. I needed to save fuel. It is rather funny. My only choice for little car and engine...

I'll finish this one with a max effort. I may not even get to see what its limits are. Let someone else learn it.
I forget what likes these cars, my locale breaks truck frames...and stays very quiet. I have broken a bt of everything, into extra large.
What I learned on my own, working with air force jets, travelling, and altered by the abuse of 40 years dad trucking...
Awe is big, much smaller than that gains the bigger crowd.

people need to open that puny little brain...and expand.

I find this subaru would gather the bimmer crowd, euro anything..English do not giggle at a dual port subaru. I just found a native russian car fan subscribed today. No language to converse..just a video or two.
I stay in esteem, pretending my travels and education never stopped.

The size of an island, is the size of some peoples cars. We are lucky.
My own name is stereotyped to the point of gothic falsity.. always large about something. Including iron historically.
I still accept this one little subaru.

It is a lot of strain sometimes. My hands reel in different days of my past. It is not 40 tons on an eaton shifter..to be driving a ten speed subaru.
Today, I dumped my pork and beans in a melamine bowl to hear it crack...

Still can't downsize my idea of a meal. Starving is the most strain of all.

[Barry Donovan]

shot of fuel

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Turning the main switch on sounds like the drill gun with stainless wire brush I used to clean the head surface..
the sube is on the echo out.

this fine game, it is no wonder people keep walking away.
every once and awhile, it seems they come out of nowhere.

my first impression of traditional fast, while taking it easy, was an EA81 from the 70s. Yes, someone even got those to run beyond the 13 inch tires holding them back. I learned subaru needed help of the big thinking kind almost 30 years ago.

By the time they got some ingredients to go fast..and that began in 1985, dual port engines... its just like they are too late all the time, within their own realm. Shipping serious half runted mitsakes to the world instead.

Glad to see some hanging on. Just gaining the whole motor is a double by nature.
It is not for free. Those builders need some respect.

Recovering old, that is more amazing to me.. my pro time mechanically is just 6 years of 50 year old military planes. Real world drama with cars was a quick lube.. thousands of them.
nobody is happy.

The "echo out" means new surface and density, soon the 60 hertz will go along its intended path. Some older snowmobile engines gain this, and motorcycles..and yes, all of them are asian sourced. I concluded their almuminum alloy is the little monster.
They do not know cold stable ground, from day one of their castings.

Next week I see the first 70s F since october. Should coincide with ready. For now, a walk past the buggy once and awhile, and kick on the fuel pump, to flood the bowl some, get some gas in anything a 4 stroke fire might miss...

let it sit.
An interesting thing I did this year, as these respond to frigid and change forever..
I let the dead heads sit nice and clean. As luck would have it, it went to 26 below and broke an all time record. Now in 90 days after build to gain the echos of what took it to another dimensia.

I used to think this was fun.. rather amazing.
the short block has been in -28F (all built already)

This year should have a few northern monsters from asian aluminum sources.

[Barry Donovan]

watching the subarus paces, nurburgring and usa.

At the end, a japanese man was describing a symbol called a "kokoro" - symbol for heart.
in the silly ad campaigns about subaru and love... it seems masochist to any one of us the beats these to death.




Found the symbol on the web,

good markings even for a beaten subaru.
I am going to invert this to be a template and splash it on the black hood in front of hood scoop...in white.

my car is champagne metallic pink..subarus invented color, the only car ever to ship with it. Still the only one listed in duponts database.

This compilation now, is rare in every direction one might like to decipher. My own sarcasm has been my number one ease of mind.
I'll humor some more.

[hauen]

would probably be better, it's the symbol for "endure" (literally written with the pictograms "knife" and "heart"), which from what I can tell you've more than earned.

[Barry Donovan]

would probably be better, it's the symbol for "endure" (literally written with the pictograms "knife" and "heart"), which from what I can tell you've more than earned.

that is interesting.
My military time drove me to be this laser beamed about something...

it is indeed not the car that endured, not at all.

I do not like clash of culture, as I am a traveller.
I took this on to understand more.
The contrast of my real life and machinery is an eye opener... I rarely speak it. Sometimes unbelievable.

I did learn, if engineers are themselves as a result to their environment... we have no real right to disrespect.
The market seems to be a culprit.

I am only dropping suspension to look like factory, keeping the same exhaust path, be it is 300% bigger...
and call this my version of subaru. Still looks like one.

I do have one more prediction, as I am stepping away from my 17 years of subaru..

one boxer engine, it can be american, and japanese... big and small, short and tall.
That is my awe of this subaru...

the boxer engine can do anything.
going a little more modular, on universal block..but crank and rod options, piston bores and sleeves, and head valve sizing..
a little more chevy like in the aftermarket.
bellhousings, prop drives..

famous forever. The engine itself would be more common than subarus.
pouncing through some mud, flying in the sky... shaving seconds at the dragstrip, or drifting in smoky circles.
filling in the back of an old beetle or vanagon. or 912..

Subaru does all those things now.

back to getting this going in calm and nominal..this weekend has some sun and 70s.

the past month has had peeks of sun just 7 times in 30 days.

within those 30 days, 7 in a row was spitting snow. Several days in a row had squalls with 50-60mph wind sideways.

there is a grey very fine dust on my keyboard, it happened overnight. This place and its sucking worldwide mysteries...
does not help a little subaru.

my ionic breeze pops sparks like popcorn. My subaru feels all these things. I am certain of it.
I ponder a volcano someplace. The backwards spinning storm, it can gain iceland. that is the giant swirl leaving us just today...been here for days, spinning us a wind and rain from the east and north. Huge, it reached past greenland.

[Barry Donovan]

70F try burn-in

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its all coming back to me now.
I can only pretend it does not drive me insane..

temp almost in the red.. I knew it was not an overheat, popped cap right open, all flowing. let it spit little steam bursts, no overheat. Full to the brim, no debris at all int he perfect coolant. I can only assume gas bubbles from cleaners can get out today.. being fairly warm.

Now on this warmest day since build, temp is almost normal. Rad cap back on. One bank is interacting a little more with the other..and alt gauge seems to be hovering at 12v.
No where near normal runtime yet.

Do not know if battery is draining yet, letting it run for another hour...staying at 12v.
still no tach or dash clock.
that will be 3 hours this time.
it must be in 9 hours of fiddling with this engine by now.

Took it a hundred yards to the store, when I knew battery was up and charged...added some gas.
Hard to believe this is only a third of its runtime. The anticipation of a full run is not even exciting anymore.. but I'll pretend it is.

edit:
never again.

EVER.

[Barry Donovan]

burn in attempt- the 10th hour.

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found if I opened air mix for idle way open, the AFR is getting a reading in the 17 range. two exhaust leaks, need to ignore the afr reading lean.
went by sound instead.

the magic of the big rochester... turning a screw is accustomed to 3 times a 1781cc.. to gain the crazyass rich to get this calmed down is easy.
that was a motivation to mount it those few years ago. What I took forever to catch onto is that this was too lean for a burn in.
giving it some fuel now..

this one will be in the low 20s mpg anyway, possibly for years.
Sounds smooth as can be, exhaust leak goes ignored... fires right by in the self balance very calm,on the timed cams.

I hope the electrical layer is next. That tends to thump my ears like an aircraft losing pressure at high altitude when it decides to be a man again...alt gauge comes back in a hurry, the belt or pulley spins in its switch for a second.

I also remembered to unplug all fuses not needed for runtime. Lengthen battery life.

no overheats, temp gauge is back to normal readings, and gained the radiator fan back as well. That came back after 4 random fuses unplugged.

So...once back up and electrified, the fuel needs a huge turn out to get rich on the screw GM tells you to leave alone. The loyales intake is proving to be 250% smaller or more. This dual port needs a lot of fuel for 1.8 liters. No doubt their race engine. This one may even be in the high teens mpg to be stoich. Have to wait and see. The cams are more robust than origin, and the original was terrible on fuel to be normal. Will be an interesting outcome.

For now it is nice to hear a very smooth runtime, I knew I built good. This verifies lifters, valve train etc.
Waiting game.

[Barry Donovan]

burn in (cont)

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gained tach back, that one was simple..it blew the wire right off. must have been january, first engine run.

engine is well seated, the mixtures tell me. Intake etc.
coolant right on the money.
put all fuses back in, except subarus fuel pump control, coil and something called IG..they had that all in one. That was my first dive into insanity 8 years ago. Hence all my own everything related to fuel and ignition. This car has no computer of any kind by factory. How they thunk so negative (pun) could only come from a slow fall to extinction instead of future.

All is working, including engine fan...

Still no battery charge.


the last nerdy thing to think of... headgaskets have got to do something as a final. This event repeated, was a headgasket in 2010 on another engine. That let out a serious odor on a hot day, and the charge came back. This time, it is both heads due to the build. Twice as difficult.

I used Ishino gaskets this time, and they may be as dumb as fel pro.. or whatever engineer declared the needs.

I still think it simply does a slab of copper...but no, gotta play those chemist games with whatever is available.

A step outside, still cool here at night. A ricer off in the distance, seemed open pipe. Slowing down for a corner almost a mile away, winding through the gears again... let off the throttle to coast into the center of this little town with pops in even intervals...

I get a look over the bushes, its a one eyed mid 90s subaru.

did not know they could sound like that. That must be one of those RS no one could make fast enough. Still no turbo on that one.

I'll keep after the old buggy with patience. Thisis the oldest RS type build known to subaru. Should be historic, and a little more valued than I make it seem. Not even a beetle went that far to get some air fuel and fire moving. Safe to assume, the afraid of itself is static pressure, and this just might be the loudest ever when it chooses to come back out. I chuckled at the last two times I won one of these over. I even had a very long term mechanic chuckling over one of my subarus.

I have 2 other engines to remember during this madness. One was lawnmower engine in shop class in the '80s. I thought I could be the hot rodder of the bunch and squash a little more compression. We all got a good lesson from this.. the magneto wanted to fire the engine next to it, instead of itself. I had to shim the gasket.

This sube will come back out, as it does have fire, exhaust is healthy. Coolant is right on now. The temps on the cat produce water drips. This one is simply a reversal of boost to high compresion n/a. All alloy related.

if it is anyone to say not give up...

in contrast parked right next to the little sube. A locomotive sound of an old iron v8 block, less than a ricer high idle is 60mph and the sound of wind going past the chassis. thumping along that slow is as big ears listening as the screaming ricer.

The biggest frustration to me..is people who do not know both ends of machinery and the fairy taled rainbow.