EA82T Teardown - Subaru RX Build Ep. 7

In this one Jared goes to town on the old turbo flat four which has a few unpleasant surprises left. Groovy tunes and time-lapse aplenty. You'll also see timing belt, head and valve removal.
Filmed in February 2019, Edited and Uploaded May 2021.

[@manhoot]

The little soo-bar-oooo. Wow

[@nagaraworkshop]

Hi Jared, I was fascinated to watch. Cracked cylinder heads are a problem. Some owners claim that the cracks are not a problem but that is only true if the cracks are on the surface and don't go all the way down into the water jacket. I had my heads welded up by an expert who does head welding for Cosworth. He (very generously) did it for free as he was fairly certain the heads would crack again. I then had a local machine shop machine the welds and fit new valve seat inserts. I had a couple of years of trouble free motoring but then the heads cracked again. If you have too much pressure in the water jacket you lose coolant into the cylinders on the intake strokes and also lose coolant via the expansion tank and anywhere else it can leak out. By the way, the re-crack after 2 years was due to an overheat when a hose let go. If the engine never overheats, the heads will be fine. I still have the (rusty!) car and will rebuild it again one day I hope as they are super-rare here in the UK. Check out my rebuild here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hZuYdYyaabd1gac&pp=ygURbmFnYXJhIGF1dG9tb3RpdmU%3D best wishes.

[@dontcallmeuncle]

Greatest engine Subaru ever built

[@jaredrusk1053]

Please, say more on that! The greatest??

[@dontcallmeuncle]

@@jaredrusk1053 well, I like driving my na 87 2wd 5sd XT with the ea82 a lot more than my 02 legacy gt, the ea feels bullet proof even though I had to replace all the accessories, two cylinders are at 30% compression and it’s been towed the most, the first ej in the legacy blew up while I was in Devils Canyon Oregon, and the replacement ej feels gutless and wish I knew you can’t mod them to get more horsepower at all before buying it, the legacy BH5 is my favorite Subaru, well second next to my XT, I believe you can turbo an na ea82 because the head is cast iron, or am I drunk?

[@Mr-Clark]

I used to be a big fan of Subarus of the 80s and 90s. After having 6 Subarus and 4 of them having cylinder #1 low compression problems, I decided to ditch Subaru ever since. Bad faulty gaskets even in the 80s. lol It just had low compression just on cylinder #1. All 4. Luckily oil and coolant not mixing. Just exhaust gases leaking into the cooling system.

[@WolfVane]

This was a very satisfying tear down! And gives me insight into my future. Thanks

[@MyGoProAdventures1]

Very cool! Excited for the up coming rebuild! Good luck boys love the detail your showing makes me feel very confident in doing my motor one day 😅

[@stevewilliekuzneski]

Really anxiously waiting for Ep 8.

[@jaredrusk1053]

Lol fo real tho. I'm on it

[@pipetoloza737]

Me too!

[@nickhoffmann8855]

I love the vibe in your videos. Can´t wait for the next. Good luck with the engine

[@michaely6665]

My ea82 heads were cracked but only between the valve seats, not down into the valve passages like yours. IMHO i wouldn't reuse ones cracked as far down like yours.

[@aaroncarlson3686]

Awesome to see an update! . . . . If you ever consider selling the car, let me know! haha

[@collincurtis5024]

I’m excited to see what happens with this car

[@zinx159]

When's the next part though?! haha, i enjoy these. I'm looking at a Leone atm, hopefully checking it out tomorrow :D Merry Christmas!

[@AlcyoneModschannel]

Unfortunately you won’t find an EA82 without cracked heads they all have them due to poor design what’s important is how thick and how far the cracks are wether you can just put it back together or take the heads to a machine shop at the hopes they can fill the cracks if you get the chance ask for some help from a fellow named Miles Fox of the Subaru Alliance he’s a back east guru of these EA82 engines hood this helps

[@takane_42]

Nice to see someone NOT swapping to EJ 🙂 EA82T has to be Subaru's worst or strangest engine. Japan/Euro-spec performance might have been "okay" with 136HP and 200Nm, but otherwise it's a frankenstein engine. For example: - they made it when EJ series was in development, and most likely they wanted to extend the life of EA for 1985 - 1990 with minimum money and resources spent - old EA81 had exhaust valves in the middle -> exhaust gases went out better. EA82 tried to make inlet breathing better by placing inlet valves in the middle - exhaust output is very poor on EA82, since the channels go inside the head so much. it also helps the heads and exhaust valves to be too hot - exhaust manifold is also very poor. particularly the turbo side T-joint at the head. also helps to burn the exhaust valves (and crack the heads) - they had some issues with aluminium casting of the heads (I believe there are 3 versions/iterations) - originally the EA82 has one intake port/head. they added second one for Turbo model, but the casting is otherwise unchanged so the port has to go around head bolt and is thus very different versus the origingal port - the 2 belt cam system is needlessly complicated. a bit like "add-on" on EA81 - etc. 🤪

[@jaredrusk1053]

Great info! I had hoped to be able to interview Dr. Michael Seal, one of the chief engineers on the EA82t, a guy local to me and a friend of a friend. Unfortunately he passed in '21. He could have accounted for much of the strangeness. As an exercise in cost-savings I'm sure it was a great success.

[@bigcrazyassbayouboy]

I just got my first ea82 engine none turbo tho. Onlything motor is already torn apart so I get the pleasure of figuring out how to put it back together. Came with new 20 over pistons, rings, gasket set, and connecting rod bearings. Hopefully I figure it out.

[@jaredrusk1053]

Sounds like fun. Good luck!

[@danielpahutan4094]

Really great stuff. Im working on an N/A ea82, this helps so much. Is there a specific reason to remove the valves? Is this necessary to do the head gaskets and a general seal/gasket overhaul? Looking forward to the next episode!

[@jaredrusk1053]

Trying to get that cylinder compression up. I believe in the next episode we'll get a look at the valve cleaning and seat grinding. Not necessary for every hg job but easy enough when you have it apart and very to likely to gain you at least a few lb/ft of compression.

[@ChopDerPander]

yo i just bought an rx coupe, im from snohomish county we should meet up bruv.

[@jaredrusk1053]

Sick dude! I'll let you know if I'm over that way!