Mjez

just got back home from work, it almost felt like being on vacation after 4 days of fighting with subaru in the garage. anywa, going to the garage now to measure the resistance at ECU, if I could only remember which pins I'm suppose to check:confused: ...

easy to say, this is the only Subaru i could find at this junkyard out of couple of hundred cars. I'm reading now about similar problem on a VW with 2.2 ltr Subaru motor. BTW, resistance if I'm not mistaking was just over 60 ohms, but I might double check that.

Cougar, I’ve been just thinking about the same thing, maybe the Subaru I found at the junkyard had a similar problem and owner decided it’s not worth fixing it so he just dumped it at local junkyard. After all the car I found has no body damages, interior also looks in good shape besides couple of panels removed from around gear selector. I didn’t remove timing belt covers off of it yet to see if maybe timing belt snapped. But the truth is that all the parts I’ve tried since the problem on my father’s in law car come from the car I found at junkyard, hmmm, what are the chances? I think we need good mathematician to answer that question. Any way, I checked power coming to ECU and I get 12.22 volts on all 3 pins (15,16, and 42). I just noticed something as I was trying to crank it just now. Security light goes off after I turn the ignition key to position 2 and as soon as I turn it further, to starting position, it’ll start flashing again. Does this mean anything? Oh, I should also mention that the same day we replaced timing belt my father in law installed new radio in his car, could this have anything to do with it? I doubt it but you never know. I’m concern now about that strange clicking noise when pressing gas pedal. As I mentioned earlier while I was trying to check TPS one of the wires came off of one of the pins on TPS connector and ever since I got high frequency clicking noise coming from the back of the motor or possibly automatic transmission whenever throttle is depressed. Isn’t TPS connected to AT? Could I mess up something on the transmission by this? I’m thinking if it’s worth going back to that junkyard now to get the cam position sensor… Matt

yes, yes, I'm still here. my father in law asked me yesterday to look for a local shop but I'm not ready to give-up yet. thanks for some useful info. I'm going to garage now to see what I can find. Will check for power going to the ECU... Matt

I swapped cables to the firing side of coil and they work fine, I get a nice shinny spark out of all the cables.

plugs are fine, I also tried pulling the codes off of it with negative result, light would not flash at all. what's HT leads?

thanks 9pec for some useful info. I already tried to fire the other channel and and it did just fine. I did it like you said it, jumper wires between ignitor-to-coil connector and the other side fired just fine. I hate to give up on this car but at this moment I see no other option. I think I'm gonna go look for a shop that could juts get it working.

maybe I'm wrong, it says to check pin 2 and 13, pin 13 sends signal to ignitor. pin 13 is also the pin that has almost no voltage on it when cranking the motor... hmmm... will check it tomorrow morning. don't want to pi$$ off my neighbors which live above my garage... thanks again Matt

I can't get to that temp sensor. I tried for a while and gave up. would it be easier to check it at the ECU? which pin gets input from that sensor? and would I be checking its resistance? I replaced crank sensor with one from junkyard but still nothing. I also checked the timing again. both marks on both cam sprokets allign just fine. checked for tabs on crank sproket, all there. going back to hard starts, father in law said he's never had to crank it so many times before as he was when this first started happening about a week ago. I ran out of ideas and no longer want to work on this car... at least for now. someone said to check ignition relay, again, would I be getting anything on one side of the ignition and nothing on the other if I have a bad ignition relay? could someone answer this for me, I don't know anymore. but I think I'll still measure the voltage at the ECU for that. thanks Matt

never mind, I think I just found an answer myself. crank angle sensor...

CAS? is it crank position sensor with different name?

if it was neutral lockout would I be getting spark out of one side of the coil? does this car has some kind of a circuit that will prevent you from starting it when something else does not function, if so how come it won't stop sending all the signals at the ignitor so there is no spark at all instead of sending some? what's IACV? never heard of it. didn't check the filter, after cranking the motor with pushing gas pedal it smelled as if I took a bath in gasoline. plus what bad gas has to do with no spark at one side of the coil? don't know whose the manufacturer of the belt, my father in law got it, but it seemed exactly the same and also had those marks on it which in turn matched the timing points on the sprokets. Belt didn't break on the car. My father in law got this car in December and we figured it's time to change the belt because the old one looked like it had some miles on it. after chenging the belt car was perfect for couple of weeks. then my father in law got new spark plugs for it. again, it ran perfect for the next couple of days. after that he had a hard time starting it for the next couple of days but only in the morning. then on friday he said he had a hard time starting it in the morning and in the afternoon before and after work. finally it died last saturday and ever since then we've been trying to fix it but as you can see without success. so tomorrow my job is to find a local mechanic that could look at it. problem is I would rather drop it off at some place where they know Subarus so at least they would know what the'ry doing and what to look for on the car. I've never owned Subaru in my life, not even my friends, so nobody knows of a good shop. again, thank you all for all your help. will try more soon. Matt

also, I checked the ignitor and it seems fine. I ran a wire from pin 1 and then tuched the battery positive contact to see if I get a spark at coil, spark looked just fine. then I did the same for pin 2 of ignitor and it looked good again... so that eliminates the faulty ignitor. Nipper, I fallowed what manual said with testing the TPS and got nothing else but clicking sound out from... hmmm, maybe transmission? don't know. manual says to hook the jumper wires from connector to the TPS and then turn the ignition key to position 2 and to ckeck the voltage between both. during this I noticed clinking sound from the bottom back of the engine. How do you check it with ohmmeter? do I just hook it up to outside pins and turn the throttle? what readings should I get, in what range?

tensioner looked fine, plus I checked the timing points on all sprokets and they still align. don't know wha else to tell you.

would go to local shop if the car was running, at this point it's paying hundreds for tow fees only.

The crank and cam sensors have been checked and they do output analog signal. I also checked the tabs on both crank as well as cam sprockets. Coil pack’s been checked for resistance, plus as I said before it has a spark coming out of one half of the coil, but when I switched connection to the coil then the other half started sparking but not the first half. Ignitor output’s been checked with digital probe, it only outputs from one side of the connector. Fuel injectors are functioning, when attempted to start it earlier while pumping gas pedal and pulling out spark plugs they were completely covered in gasoline. No dirty connectors that I can see. CPS was a little dirty from oil but I cleaned it. Can’t test TPS. I tried but I got some strange clicking sound coming from the bottom of the motor so I stopped right there. Can’t find the right equipment to test it. Seems like my alligator clips are no good for this task. Can’t disconnect the temp sensor at its harness. Anyone has a good idea of how to pull it off? Intake is looking clean. I think some of those could be eliminated since I get spark on half of the ignition coil, don’t you guys think? Is it possible that the igniter in the car is bad and so is the one from the junkyard? Is there a good way to test the ignitor? I noticed something interesting while connecting ignitor to ohmmeter. Ignitor outputs going to coil were acting funny. One had no resistance at all and the other was fluctuating, it looked as if it was going from overload down to nothing and then back to overload. Looked interesting because the ignitor from junkyard wasn’t doing anything like it. So what is causing that I get spark at coil for cylinders 1 and 2 but no spark at all for cylinders 3 and 4??? Also, did I mention that I checked the wiring between ECU and ignitor connectors as well as between ignitor and coil connectors. Also, output of pin 14 on ECU is different than output on pin 13. One has 1.1 volts and the other has only 0.1 volts. Interesting, isn’t it? Now I’m thinking of going to the store to buy a scanner and to hook it up to this car hoping it would show me something. I’m just afraid that maybe it won’t show anything since the car wasn’t running at all plus it had its battery disconnected more than once. Just in case, what kind of scanner/connector do I need to get to hook it up to this car? Would it be just any OBD II scanner? Thanks again to all of you Matt

do I need to take that whole thing apart again, or is there an easier way to check those tabs? what if I took it out and used flash light to see if those tabs are still there? Anyone want to purchase this Subaru? c'mon, it would ba a great summer project.... hahaha Matt

I get no voltage at pins 1 and 2 of the ignitor when kye in the ignition is switched on. I also tested pins 13 and 14 of the ECU which are leading to pins 2 and 1 of the ignitor while cranking the motor. I got 1+ volts coming out of pin 14 and around 0.1 volts coming out of pin 13 of the ECU. Are those suppose to be the same or different??? anyone in north Chicago suburbs would like to come over and let us use some parts from his or her car to check and see what we need:lol: I'm running out of ideas here... Matt

going back to check those pins with kye turned on in the ignition, let you know in a minute what I get. I can't even remember any more whether I checked it already or not... will see soon. Matt

So here are the results, after plugging in another ECU car still does not start. I also checked AC voltage at pins 1 and 3 at coil connector; those pins are connected to pins 2 and 1 at ignitor. I got about 35-45 mV at pin 1 and about 80+ mV at pin 3 while cranking the engine. Someone said that if outputs are different then ignitor should be fine. So what do I do now? Any more ideas before I have a heart attack… I swapped ECUs, checked connection from ECU to the igniter, checked igniter (or at least I think I did unless you know of a better method to do it), checked connection between igniter and coil, checked both crankshaft as well as camshaft position sensors and they do send signal in mV, I have no idea whether the signal from both of them is getting anywhere but they sure do send this signal somewhere, reversed pins at the coil to see if the other side gives spark, checked cables. What in gods name should I do now????????? HELP HELP HELP Matt

wires between ECU and ignitor are fine, resistance between pin 1-3 and 2-3 of the ignitor are: 614 ohms and 621 ohms. I also checked wiring between pins 1 and 2 coming out of ignitor and pins 1 and 3 at the connector to the coil, those also seem fine. going to plug in the ECU from junkyard, will let you know how that went in few minutes. matt

Ok, so wires between ECU and ignitor are fine. Now, someone mentioned before to check resistance between pins 1-3 and 2-3 on the ignitor. So I did and here’s what I got, resistance between those pins on my old ignitor are totally different from resistance on the ignitor I got from junkyard. I tried both of those ignitors and still could not start this car. Hmmm, make me think now. Ok, another question: the ECU I got from junkyard has different number/numbers on it. I pulled it out of same Subaru, but the one from junkyard is couple of months younger than the one in my garage. My question is, can I hook the other ECU to my car without causing any further damages to the electrical circuitry? Going back to ignitor, I think I got different reading from the other two pins. I believe those are pins 5 and 6. I remember one was in kohms and other was in Mohms. Does this mean anything??? Matt

one more thing, could it be bad engine ground? where is the engine ground located in this car? looked for one earlier, found something but wasn't sure if that's it. Matt

thanks, going to garage now, I'll try new ECU that I just picked up from junkyard. so far I only tested wires between coil harness and that 16 pin connector and it checked out just fine. I guess I'll try cranking it with new ECU first, if nothing then I test connection between ECU and ignitor, those should read very little resistance. also, someone told me to cut wires going from ignitor to coil and connect them to ground and 12v supply to see if it works like that, if so it would point out to bad ignitor.... will see in couple of hours. I really want to get it over with today, next few days I need to fix AC problem on my wife's car, and it's getting worm in Chicago so need to hurry up with Subaru now. thanks guys Matt

when I was replacing timing belt I looked at those and they looked fine. that was about couple of weeks ago... I guess I'll look again then... going to junk yard today to find a used ECU, but first will test the signal coming coil, I just found digital probe so should be able to see if it blinks or not. thanks all for help Matt