P1507, bogging on highway, and high idle

if its knocking it will retard timing, not throw a CEL, if the knock sensor is shot it will throw a CEL for it.

 

Hmm .. well, I'm due for a fuel filter, so I'll do that. And the i-Speed reflash comes on Monday.

I'll see if that gets me anywhere, but I kinda doubt it will.

Beyond that I should probably straighten out my tranny swap wiring before I go throwing too many sensors at it. If keep it with no VSS signal and the NSS shorted that will continue to be a variable in the mix.

It hasn't failed to get me where I'm going yet (crosses fingers), and if I can make it to Orr & back for the ice races I should be able to make it until spring when I can just crawl under the car in the parking lot and start trying to fit an electronic VSS in that older style tranny case.

 

How can I get more data?

So, with the ice races coming up I expect this to occur several times on the drive.

Is there anything I can do to gather more data???


I'm under the impression that my options with my 01 RS are pretty limited as far as any kind of interaction with the ECU goes, but lately I'm seeing hints that I may be wrong.


Is there any device I could use to monitor or record anything that might help me narrow down where my problem lies?


For example, the other day I was watching a video and someone was getting all kinds of real time data from their 01 RS with an Actron CP9180. Would some feature-laden OBD-II scanner be of use?

Is there laptop + free software that can interface with my particular model year? (I had thought like ECU Explorer would not?)

 

So today on the way to work - going down the highway at around 70mph, any time I gave it WOT in either 4th or 5th gear it bogged. Not really bad, car slowing down bog, but no more acceleration bog. Backing off the throttle to like 85%-ish made the car surge forward and accelerate again. Then if I mashed it again, it would bog.


Ideas? How can I see what's happening? Something must be wrong?

 

Keep making it do it, maybe it will set a CEL.

 

P1722 (missing 4EAT), P1507 (idle air control), P0301 (cyl 1 misfire)


Which cylinder is cylinder 1? How exactly does the ECU determine if its seen a misfire?

 

If there is a misfire, it detects it, your bog is a misfire, its a high load mis-fire, that would mean its spark related. check your plugs again, check your wires again, I know we've been over this a million times but even if they are "new last year" things still can be messed up. My guess is a cracked insulator on #1 cyl.

 

Is Cyl 1 the front passenger side of the motor (closest to ABS)? Suppose I should pull the plug and have a look. Damn thing's practically brand new, and it was the driver's side that had the HG issue, though both sides were replaced.

 

Oh and cyl one is the passenger front.

 

About a year ago my coil pack went bad - as a matter of fact, it was Cyl #1 that got fubar'd.

The contact on the pack was all carboned up, as was each end of the wire.

When that was misfiring - it was VERY apparent. A 4cyl running on 3cyls (at least in that instance) was very, very obvious that a cyl was not running.

This bog does not feel like that bog. Not that I am doubting it could be a spark issue, just saying the two feel very different.

Just a random coincidence that its the same cylinder?

Pulled the cyl #1 wire off a minute ago after running the car and it looks brand new on both ends.

Little bit of burnt smell when I pulled the wire off the plug, but I'm pretty sure I've always gotten that smell on every cylinder when I've done plugs (twice) on this car. Like its maybe the hot wire rubber or a hot gasket or something?

I don't have a plug socket with me so I can't pull that right now to look. Unfortunate, cause its warm today - just spent like 15 minutes outside with no coat and my hands didn't even get cold. If only there wasn't so much slush on the ground I'd get those stinking fog bulbs replaced.

 

You def need to look @ the plug, its probably not missing untill its under heavy load,(ie your full throttle runs and backing off to 85%) thats why I'm thinking spark plug insulator. you running stock NGKs?

 

I pick up my plugs at Morrie's, so I assume they're the correct stock plugs.

The insulator is the porcelain part, right? Would I be looking for something obvious like a crack?

 

Yup a crack. How many miles since they were replaced? they are due every 30k.

 

Miles? Hmmm .... was late summer, so not too many. 10k maybe. Not even due, much less neglectfully overdue to the point of overuse failure. Nothing to say it couldn't be a faulty plug, though, I suppose. Certainly would LOVE that. Cheap and easy to fix and/or check. I'll be bringing the plug socket tomorrow, hopefully it's not -40 or anything crazy.

 

Pulled the Cyl #1 plug. Looks fine to me. Definitely no cracks.

Below are a couple crappy cell phone pics. Some brown discoloration on the bottom of the ceramic - I assume that's the old dielectric grease after a few heat cycles.

The business end looked fine, too. Metallic in color still, bit of a bluish iridescent hue. Not whitish or sooty.

 

Do the plug wires have any oil on them? or have they had any oil on them? specificly down where the plug onto the spark plugs?

 

wait - edit - I haven't looked at all the wires down where they connect to plugs yet.

On cyl 1, there was an odd little (inch long and as thick as a fine tip marker line) brownish smear near the top of that tube the spark plug goes down into - looked like it coulda been oil, but I couldn't figure for the life of me how it coulda got there.

Actual wire, though, didn't have any oily residue or burnt grime or anything on or in it at all.

 

you should bring your car over so I can have a look and drive.

 

It's one of those won't happen when you try to show it to someone else kind of things, though.

It's not every time I drive or even every day - comes and goes, but is around enough now that I'm trying to hunt it down.


If you really want to see it - we need to hop on 35W or 94 during off hours and cruise for about 40 minutes. Seems to always show up then.



Like yesterday on the way to work, half way there it was doing it EVERY time I floored it. At lunch time it wouldn't do it at all, but that's a shorter drive and this seems to crop up more the longer you drive highway speed.

 

This may be retarded, but are the intake bolts tight?

 

lol

I'm not ruling retarded out.

But I have given most things on/around the engine a pretty good tug-test recently - looking for lose hoses, electrical connectors, etc. Certainly haven't noticed anything.

You mean intake manifold? Or, like, where the actual intake tube connects to the throttle body area or whatever (n00b term slaughtering I'm sure)?

I mean, I could be missing something small, but probably not anything major like my whole intake manifold rattling around or something.

 

I didn't notice this in your previous posts, and I'm assuming the answer is no...but did you ever have the car logged? I'd like to see what your car is actually doing when it bogs. My interenet assumption is leading me to believe the front o2 sensor is pooping out on you

 

No. I'd like to see what my car is actually doing too!!

I asked it somewhere recently but never got a good response -

What can I use to log my car??? (http://www.rs25.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97625 http://www.obdkey.com/?? I want something decent and informative, but not hundreds and hundreds of $$ - if its something that would be useful for other Subaru engines - like after a swap - that'd be even better)


I'm a super super n00b about this - so someone please tell me!

I'm under the impression that my options are limited.

Someone tried to reset a cel for me like the first month I had the car with (I think) ECU Explorer - but it couldn't connect to my ECU.

Saw someone using a slightly fancy OBDII scanner from Actron in a Youtube vid the other day - was showing engine load, ignition timing, some other things.

Then today I was reading RS25 stuff on JDash and a palm pilot, using something like a bluetooth ELM module??


HELP?? I'm very confused and have no idea what might be best for this.

 

And I've been thinking front o2 sensor as well - especially considering its taken a couple impacts that correspond with me first noticing symtoms.

Like when I let the header & cat fall smack onto your garage floor - twice, I think, expect one time it didn't hit as hard cause the harness for it was still plugged in. :ugh:


If these symptoms could be explained by a bad front 02 sensor I'd be willing to lay down bets on it (misfire codes??? Bogging I can see, but how could that set a misfire cel unless the bog was actually a misfire - and then how could the misfire be the sensor - running too rich maybe idk?).

 

If you swing it by timshow and mine's parents this weekend (sat) I can take a look @ it, Do some various tests and whatnot. Yes I mean intake manifold

 

Sent you a PM about that

 

Finally got the fuel filter changed yesterday. Hooray for 20* F.

Does anyone have a Scangauge or something or an ELM module I could use to run JDash that they'd borrow me through the weekend?

I'm not sure if a Tactrix cable and EcuExplorer or some other logging software would work, but if some with a cable is willing to loan it to me I'll try?

I'll be going out of town and logging some REAL data when this happens would be helpful.

 

Made it the whole way with no problems. First time that's happened since the problems started.

Only thing that's changed: Fuel filter.

Now I'll see if she makes it back okay, too - but I'm almost betting it will.

Guess that just goes to show - keep up on the regular maintenance and check the simple/cheap stuff first.

 

Shouldn't have spoke so soon, I guess.

Came back yesterday and today. WOT bogging in 4th & 5th and this morning even 3rd happening across a broader RPM range. The kind where I mash the gas pedal and it bogs, but when I let up a bit the car surges forward accelerating again.

Since my odometer isn't working I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure I'm getting awfully crappy gas mileage too (and its always been lower than I'd expect since I bought this car).


Next most likely suspect IMO: o2 sensor. Little on the pricey side to test unless I find a known good used one or a junkyard one.

Why do I think o2? Carbon build-up (seen when doing HG's, running rich, right?), craptastic fuel economy (18-22 mpg, 25 best on long highway drives - seems on the low end right now), previously got P0420 (thinking rear sensor and cat maybe fine, but if the front sensor is wrong the ECU might've triggered 0420), and obviously if the ECU isn't getting accurate A/F readings it could be dumping in tons of fuel and causing a bog, right? Only thing that throws me is that I thought at WOT over like 3800 RPM was open-loop mode and then it shouldn't matter at all about the o2 sensor - but it bogs in that range.

 

Still getting the misfire code?

 

Its on there, yeah - same P1507 & P030x (don't recall off-hand which cylinder this time) - but I can't be positive when it came on since I only pull codes every couple of fill-ups or after something happens and the light's still always on for the 4EAT diagnosis junk.


Weird, and I'm losing my drive to fix it since there's a swap in the near future - but I'll probably be driving it like this for months still, so ......

So damned intermittent. erg.

 

So, weirdness.

I went to tstrboy's last night and he cut out my catalytic converters and welded up some pipe between the header and the midpipe. Nothing pretty, but its exhaust pipe on a N/A that's getting pulled this year, so whatever - isn't flowing like a mandrel-bent SS pipe, but I don't care (can't imagine a slightly less than stellar cat-delete pipe could cause any problems).

Stuck a brand new from Morrie's front o2 sensor in and reused the old rear sensor.


Idled BEAUTIFULLY. Then I reset the ECU. lol (high idle from the tranny swap, erg)


Anyways, drove 169 from Jordan to Mtka Blvd (damned bouncy suspension) and right as I was about to exit - BOG.

But REALLY bad!! Like sputtering and very nearly dying when I touched the gas. Off the gas the rev needle was bouncing between 1k and 2k rpm like it did the one other time it was really bad and I thought maybe I was getting frozen water in my fuel line.

So, I came to a light at the bottom of the off-ramp and tried to take a right turn. I didn't get 3 car lengths.


Turned the car off. Waited a few seconds. Turned it on - fine. Drove the last couple miles home. Checked the code: No codes


WTF??


I'm hoping, praying (yeah, not with my luck, erg.) that it was just some kind of glitch, but ...... I doubt it.

 

its not happy that you called my pipe less then pretty..(considering the piping we had to work with ) ha ha... probably the fact it has NO or virtually NO back pressure might be hurting it a little... not sure how sensitive the NA's are....

 

Lots of people go catless. Doesn't seem to hurt anybody too much as far as loss of backpressure goes.

You can see from this thread there's a lot of history with this one - so I doubt its the cat pipe, just isn't the cats and/or front o2 sensor.

No offense to your fab skills. It does exactly what its supposed, thank you very much.


Nice avatar, btw.

 

****. Bogging at WOT in 3rd on the highway this morning.

So, **** - it's not the o2 or the cats.


What else could it even possibly be? Fried valve or something? I don't think I'll be doing to much more troubleshooting, but just knowing this is unresolved bugs me.

 

Misfire code still troubles me, there is no oil in the plug wells at all?

 

Logging - I know, right - can't really troubleshoot without REAL data! 01 RS N/A - not a lot of options I'm aware of.

Scangauge - put a post up to borrow one, no responses. Not dropping 2 bills on one.
ELM w/ Delta Dash - same kinda deal. No $$ for it, seriously doubt anyone's got one.
Tactrix - just got a cable, but I'm really unclear about what software may or may not work. As far as I know, none do (tried to reset a CEL with ECUExplorer once but it wouldn't connect to the ECU - am I right in thinking it does NOT work even to log with an 01 RS?)

I'll check again and a little more thoroughly. Last time my hand's were freezing. What troubles me is that it shows symptoms and sometimes doesn't throw codes - especially coming back from Nate's when it was SOOO bad.

Thinking I'll just shove my finger down the plug tube and wipe the sides and see if there's any oil on my finger. That a decent enough way to check?

 

header?

 

Bolted on good, new gaskets. No leaks that I can tell, and I have been looking underneath for smoke at cold starts the last few days - its only coming out the tailpipe.

 

aftermarket header?

 

oh sry. stock.


Basically stock RS. custom cat delete pipe (this past weekend, so problem spans that). SPt short ram intake. 93 Legacy 5MT tranny. i-Speed SRS-10 reflashed ECU (doubt this is an issue - problems also span this back to the stock ECU).

I'll check that site. I did look at the tactrix wiki or whatever and looked at most (if not all) of the "supported" software, but I may very well be missing one that works - now that I actually have a cable I probably just need to try some stuff. I'm not afraid of cables and software hooked up to my ECU, at least.

 

any amount of oil on the plug wire down where it plugs onto the plug

 

also.. I have some Subaru diag equipment that is for pre-obII.. have no idea how it works.. will go take a pic later... maybe someone knows how to use it.. h a