35 replies to this topic

[joostvdw]

AH! that's crazy. so you ruled out the wiring harness completely it sounds like?

too bad you don't have a dropping resistor and or ECU to swap. i have a couple ECU's one or two are turbo's.....you want to post the part number of your ECU?

yeah, I'm totally bummed right now, been working on this for 4 days straight and I can't think of anything that could be wrong, I measured everything a dozen times and it still looks like a problem in the body harnass (which I replaced with 2 straight wires)

I will have a look at the part number, but after dinner, so check back later

[grossgary]

actually....i still think i'd look into the distributor and CAS. that's the one item that i've had problems with twice that were very hard to track down. tested good, car acted very strange. after hours of testing, swapping parts and following the FSM, it finally started after swapping in another distributor. had that happen twice. i know you can't swap, but maybe you could take it apart and clean up the CAS and internals.

[joostvdw]

actually....i still think i'd look into the distributor and CAS. that's the one item that i've had problems with twice that were very hard to track down. tested good, car acted very strange. after hours of testing, swapping parts and following the FSM, it finally started after swapping in another distributor. had that happen twice. i know you can't swap, but maybe you could take it apart and clean up the CAS and internals.

mm, well, I could always try I guess...

it sparks good though,

how should/can I check the CAS? I have a 88 NA XT FSM in .pdf but I can't really find a exploded view of it or some sort of way to test them.

[grossgary]

i think you'll find the CAS troubleshooting flow charts in the part of the FSM's that list the CEL codes. i believe a CAS code is 11, but don't quote me on that. look that up and check out the tests. again, i know yours doesn't show a code 11, but neither of my faulty distributors showed a code 11 either.

also - BOTH of mine, while bad, tested fine. so testing may not show you anything. it might show that it's bad...but if it passes all the tests that doesn't mean it's good and you're left right where you are right now. not until i finally swapped in new ones did it fix the problem. i think the sensors just got dirty or mal-adjusted somehow, i still have those disty's but haven't taken them apart yet to see. so we don't know that yours is bad. and even if it is, it may test fine (like both of mine did).

without swapping in a known good disty or putting yours in another vehicle i don't know that you can verify it's good (i have two bad disty's that test fine). but taking it apart and cleaning it may show something or fix the issue, that's why i say i'd probably do that first.

[daeron]

is it possible that you have issues with individual injectors?

It REALLY sounds to me like a dropping resistor problem, but most of my fuel injection experience is with my Z, not on a subaru... if there is any way to test the dropping resistor I would do that. A trip to a junkyard for a spare distributor and dropping resistor to swap in would be nice...

[joostvdw]

right, just as mysterious as this problem developed, it dissapeared

I replaced the wires from the ECU to the injectors, still ran like crap yesterday, fired it up today and everything was fine, drove around the block for a bit, not a single problem,

I do hope it doesn't happen again, but who knows

anyway, thanks a lot everybody who has helped me! you guys are my only (to be perfectly honest, together with xt6.net) source of information and help and haven't let me down!

[calebz]

Magic problem resolutions make me nervous, but it sure is nice sometimes.

[grossgary]

joost,
that's awesome. but i have to say electrical stuff like this usually comes back. have you tried "resetting" the ECU and unplugging the battery for a couple hours since the rewiring effort?

[joostvdw]

well, of course, the problem came back and the car didn't run for a while, but I didn't want to bore you with that , I do have good news now! read on...

I have been having water problems since I've got this car, I had entire indoor swimming pools at the passenger feet. Of course, this wasn't very good for the car or the wiring, and it has come back to bite me.

I was trying to dry it today and cut up some foam tape holding the wires flat under the passenger seat, and this is what I found:




as you can see, those four wires, were the wires for the injectors , but now comes the strange bit, the wiring loom was all original, all tape original, no-one has tampered with it, so this bodge-job of solder and tape, was from the factory the only thing I could think of was that they ran out of wire and soldered it together, 18 years ago....

the swimming pool combined with this semi open connection made a nice electrochemical reaction, as can be seen here:



the greenish stuff is copperoxide and the white stuff is tinoxide, it was some sort of paste, the water acting as a bonding agent and conductor, so actually, my car ran on water for a while

anyway, after replacing that piece of wire, making new solder joints, taping them in properly, the car started up, ran perfectly and has been so since.

happy ending don't you think?

[flyjum]

Cool now my injectors are not firing either... I think my MPFI is not getting power because im missing 4 relays.

[daeron]

YAY, Hooray!!!

Magic Wires are always fun to find..... congrats, this was a tricky one.