B4 Legacy acting up again... any ideas folks

Where do i start?
Got me legacy back on fri having left it in a subaru dealership in cork for a week, before it went in ( for the second time in a few weeks i might add) it had been jumpy (again) and i was eager to get it looked at,hadnt a bulls notion what the problem was, i was thinking anything from dirty fuel, coil packs, wastegates, remapping, 2much or not emough octane booster, or the wrong octane booster would be causing problems.i had only replaced the MAF a few weeks ago like. Anyway i got it back fri, drove it since then (not like a lunatic either) and it felt ok but maybe a little down on power, but i didnt panic, 2coils had been replaced ( 600euo) and i thought it was all sorted, until this evening again ( having been at the show earlier) was driving with octane booster in the tank and it started to get all jumpy again, it seems that when i add octane booster it causes this to happen.I thought the opposite was supposed to happen im wondering whether anything major is about to happen and should i drive like miss daisy just in case.Or could it be the fuel pump giving in,( Subaru mechanic said it may be that) :dunno: do they have a habit of packing in? :dunno:
I know its best to get er mapped anyway, and i will in a few weeks but what else could it be, any1 in the cork area willing to have a look at it for me,that could advise on what to replace next or have experienced this before,its driving me nuts now :evil: and pretty soon i'll have every part replaced if this keeps going, im currently trying to raise the cash for the work by selling my kidneys on e bay........ :lol: :lol: :lol:

Thanks

have you tried reseting the ecu?

There is a fella in glanmire called John O'Leary who works with group N rally cars who might be able to help 021 4822378

B4's seem to constantly have running issues from wat i';m hearing lately....

similer type stuff, down power, small or big turbo not working properly, lumpy etc etc etc........

AS regards to your fuel pump theres actually a fuel filter in the tank aswell..carroll roache offered to replace mine for 160 i think..i brought mine to them for diagnostics..found no faults reckoned it was a dirty filter in the tank..probably happens when the cars are sitting up in japan or on the boat..i just added fuel cleaners from the motor factors, injetcor cleaners from stp and some other stuff (il get you the name of it dipatanie i think) over a week or so and went back to using lucas and the car runs fine now.

if you problem is still the same then the e600 for coil packs seemed to me just to get some money out of you at the end like most main stealers..........

go back to the garage and say your not happy...

Yeah B4's seem to be DET Machines from what Ive seen so far. Had issues last mapping weekend but have another couple b4's getting mapped soon so will be able judge better after a few are compared. One on the last weekend dident show any DET but couldent be mapped due to another issue.

One b4 at the weekend had 30% fuel added to try cope with the DET and had 9 degress of timing takin away and only then did the DET get better. Mapper reckons he could have lost about 70lbs and 70bhp. There was 2 options from there and first was to put it back to the way it was or secondly loose the power and save the engine bill.  

Turns out the b4's come with a higher compresion ratio ( 9.00:1 ) then the Impreza and REALLY seems to suffer on our crap fuel. Ill update this thread with results of the next ones up. 1 dident apear to have major DET which is a good sign but time will tell.

Damo

Yeah 600 is ALOT.

My brother dropped his Legacy into a fella in the Wollen Mills in Douglas this morning - Mark Murphy Motors. He rallies Subarus and seems to know his stuff.

Will let you know how he gets on anyway. His was down on power and running lumpy.
He sent it to Ryans and they hadn't a clue what to do with it. Couldn't even measure what boost he was running. To me that's a disaster seeing that 60 - 70% of Subarus are turbo. Surely they should have a plub in boost gauge for cars without one.

I drove Subarus for 7 years and every time I was in Eddie Garry's Main Subaru Dealers in Waterford having my car services there was one if not two B4's with the engine completely out. That's 7 years of B4's with serious probs and rarely an impreza in the same boat so it must be down to the twin turbos needing good juice or the B4's getting serious abuse in Japland before coming here.

As regards higher compression ratios this would mean the need for better fuel but this could easily be compensated for by any mapper worth his salt.

The prob with a lot of jap imports is that it is often impossible to identify all the mods that have been carried out on them but ecu tek software will reveal the problem.

Only a guess but it might be worth having a compression test carried out and testing the injectors to see if any of them are failing. Having to turn up the fuelling is a sure sign that an injector is gradually failing.

Frawls

lads,
cheers for the info really appreciate it , for starters the ecu was reset twice in the garage, i called to john o leary ( preps rally cars)in glanmire before it went to ryans and he said to call back if they couldnt resolve it, i'll give him a shout if its the same in a few days after ive tried the fuel cleaners etc, i got talking to huzzy today and he said he'd look at it this evening and run a compression test and give it a once over so thats almost all the advice i recieved covered.. I almost lost the head in Ryans when they tried to bill me for putting new plugs in and the labour for it, and i had told the service manager that they had only been replaced. no way was i paying for em when they couldn do what was asked of them properly.. so im taking PROzac for my nerves now, them l&ngers would cause a fella to go for anger management :evil: :lol: :lol: :lol:

thanks again lads

Jaysus Kevin your having a bad time..... thought all was well when I last heard from you....

I didn't want to say anything before but that garage (don't mention them here) that it came from are fairly dodgy and I've heard of alot of cars they sell giving trouble (not just scoobies)... hopefully you can get yours sorted.

Alan.

Could the sh1tty and lumpy running be caused by a bad earth on the fuel pump? It might be worth looking into. It will cost feck all to do it but no harm in trying.

[quote author=FRAWLS link=topic=2413.msg22033#msg22033 date=1179768192]

As regards higher compression ratios this would mean the need for better fuel but this could easily be compensated for by any mapper worth his salt.

[/quote]

I dont know regarding turbos but engines running higher compression actually suffer less power loss on 95 than lower compression..this can be seen with s2000's and vzr's, dc2 integras etc but all engines are different

[quote author=FRAWLS link=topic=2413.msg22033#msg22033 date=1179768192]

As regards higher compression ratios this would mean the need for better fuel but this could easily be compensated for by any mapper worth his salt.

Frawls
[/quote]


I wouldent say easily Dave, Like you say the mapper can compensate to an extent for it but if its to high for the fuel then thats it. There are a few mappers that have stoped mapping B4's full stop.

Its just a matter of upping the duty cycle on the injectors and reducing the boost. No sweat for a mapper I would have thought. If there's a problem with the fuelling or boost ecutek will show this on the laptop so they can be fixed and the car mapped later.

As regards higher compression engines the latest higher compression engines, it is true they suffere less from lower octane fuel but they need low sulphur fuel especially any direct injection petrol engines. The use of direct injection and smaller turbos allows the latest petrol turbo engines to run unusually high compression ratios (with virtually no turbo lag) especially when compared with old school petrol turbos which run low compression ratios and suffer a lot of turbo lag. In this regard the B4 is one of the old school turbos so the compression ratio would be nothing like the direct injection petrol turbos so I cant see any ECU TEK mapper having any problem mapping them.

As I've said before the problem is the difficulty identifying the various mods carried out back in Japland and any other mechanical problems which may also have happened in the intervening period. I really doubt high compression is the problem with this B4. It sounds more like a fueling problem but as always that's only a guess.

Frawls

He got it sorted lads.... Boost Solenoid! (Thanks to Huzzy)

I'm sure he'll post up his findings

Alan.

At Last.........  some1 found the problem and it is easily fixed, called to huzzy last evening in east cork,(who has owned 5 or 6 imprezas to date)we took the B4 for a spin, car was making a liar outta me, it didnt get jumpy once, so we drove to his place and put it over a pit in his garage ( a fine garage i might add) checked the fuel pump and it was fine,i had experienced the car being jumpy more so when it was cold so when it cooled down he and his mate Rob took it for another spin, sure as hell it was jumpy,thank god for that cos at least i knew i wasnt imagining it,he noticed the needle on the boost guage was dropping off slightly during acceleration and even though the car seemed to boost fairly evenly it was a little odd. He suggested that it was the boost solenoid needed replacing but wouldnt be sure 'til we put 1 in that was running right, so Rob donated his from his uk spec impreza turbo temporarily to see if it would solve the mystery, ten mins later and with us all round the open bonnet looking on in anticpation, good old HUZZY had it replaced. . twas test time....off he went with Rob and returned a few mins later,smiling saying 'now she's a lot quicker and its working fine, mystery solved!
Indeed it was the boost solenoid needing replacement! so Huzzy put the solenoid back into robs car and my defective 1 in mine,We locked up the garage just before midnight,full credit due to huzzy ( and Rob ) my stress levels have dropped something savage! also thanks to the whizz kid of an electrician who was on hand should anything else go wrong (aidrian i think? sorry mate forgot your name in the panic) he also owns a very large collection of vintage cars (old school petrolhead)and seems to know his stuff. I'd Recommend them both for any1 needing a car checked out/ serviced-very helpful indeed!
So Now im just waiting on a solenoid from up north to get me sorted.... the LEGACY continues ( pardon the pun!) :lol: :lol:
Thanks to all of you for the info and that Lad who's handy with the spanners ( and the drumsticks appently)HUZZY, owe\ya one mate!

good stuff kevin glad you got sorted

Cheers dagnut........... atis great to get good help these days,and at least its another piece of useful knowledge gained, thats what its all about aint it!