jim milewski

I agree, if you lay the two plugs side by side the NGK has a thick spark like a magneto used to give, the Iridiums give a narrow spark, almost hard to see, and yes they are EXPENSIVE! My son paid for them so I put em in

I myself have never torqued a spark plug but it really is wise, I would think the settings would be different for a used plug when compared to the new as the gasket would be compressed already on the used. My son bought the plugs and he ain't a cheap skate like me, he bought the Pulstar Iridiums so considering there is 200k miles on this engine the plugs will never be taken out for a change, I will take them out to reuse when I junk the car (which I hope is a ways down the road). My little low profile ratchet/wrench came out ok and is .7" tall, the standard ratchet is 1.20" talll. I love these Subarus!

Did the plugs on my Legacy again, went all right, I use an assortment of sockets and extensions and my handy flex hose. On cylinder 4 I've decided to make my own low profile thin ratchet using a ratchet wrench with a nut welded to a 3/8" square drive. This is definitely a job you cannot do with a standard ratchet, extension, and 5/8" spark plug socket, any thoughts?

Cougar, ya, all this work, HG job, front axles, calipers and more has worked to "bond" me to these rigs, I love driving them, maybe the opposed four has some sort of "feel" that agrees with me, here in VT there are quite a few and they come up for sale, some pretty affordable, I think these are just the neatest cars, luv em! This forum made a big difference and all you guys helping was a real blessing!

I'm with you on the NGK, very nice spark, used them back in the sixties on my Triumph motorcycle, but my son thinks the more you spend the better, he went and ordered Denso Iridium plugs behind my back, his dime, he is not a mechanic and falls for every pitch out there. My experience is the small electrode area on the Iridiums make them prone to foul easier, the spark is no hotter, possibly they may last over 100 k miles, I don't know and have never had a reason to use anything but an NGK standard plug, one thing I do know about NGK is the lower number is hotter, opposite from Champion where the higher number is the hotter plug. I appreciate your help, I'm a Subaru driver now for life, once you get familiar with these things you're hooked, such a neat car, love em both, I wanna do a 2.2, there was one for sale up the road, don't need it but I want it, $500 was the asking price, needs HG job, these things are addicting!

Dave, just got in from the garage, basically did as you said, this time in a more patient and methodical way, I put battery voltage on the coil and made a "point" setup for coil and plug testing purposes and did get spark finally on plugs 1 and 2 (possibly with the hot spark I was making it may have cleaned a gap on a fouled plug), anyway I got spark, I took out the computer and put it back in reseating all the connections, so now to see if it starts, and it did!

Dave, my original problem though I did not know at first was both cylinders 1 and 2 were not firing, a new ignitor solved that. The coils test continuity good from the middle pin (voltage supply) to the two outside pins (primary windings), I tried new plug wires and hooked them up to new plugs and grounded the plugs without actually putting them in, I turned it over and get one spark across the electrodes then nothing. It's looking like the ECM/ECU. It's something I did, because the Forester was running fine before I removed the ignitor and put it back, here's another kicker, the Legacy ignitor which was only firing on 3 and 4 (original problem) is now firing on all four!

I pulled the ignitor out of my running Forester and put it in the Legacy because that one went bad, when I got the used replacement for the Legacy I put it in and then put the Forester ignitor back in the Forester, now it won't start, the timing light indicates spark on cylinders 3 and 4, but nothing on cylinders 1 and 2. The ignitor tests good and runs in the Legacy, the coils have been swapped and still no spark on 1 and 2. The coil has no opens and all voltage and continuity checks are good. One thing I did do was accidently left the key on with no ignitor hooked up, possibly this may have burnt out a driver transistor in the main ECU (you can see the component diagram/schematic in my other post "No spark Legacy". My best guess is the ECU is at fault, I took it out and am checking for a part number, any help appreciated.

Cougar, yep, real hot double spark on my test setup, you were right on, makes sense, but now for the kicker, I got the Legacy running with the ignitor from the Forester, got a used ignitor for fifteen bucks right here in town so I just put it on the Forester, it won't start......hmmm, no changes except the ignitor, coil has voltage, both wires to ignitor have voltage, so I figure the ignitor I got must be bad, I put it on the Legacy and it starts right up! Now I'm flippin out, what gives, the Forester will not start with it's original ignitor, when I turn the key to start it I get one spark from the coil on cylinders 1 and 2, (using a timing light, also a test plug on the end of the plug wire grounded) then no spark as it cranks, the plugs for cylinders 3 and 4 look ok and are sparking, but apparently not enough to keep it running, it seems like the ignitor isn't receiving pulses from the ECU, I'm baffled!

no, I only did one plug at a time, it was grounded, just for my curiosity I'm gonna do two plugs, the newer coils like in the Subaru have their secondary coil completely isolated, as shown in the pic, the older singular Bosch, Lucas type coils you get ohmage (9 Kohms) from the primary to the secondary

Cougar, I did some measurements, as you look at the great schematic you would expect a voltage on pins 1 and 2 provided the transistors in the ECU are off, and that's what I got, but only once, after that no voltage on those pins, even turning off and on again, oh well, so I moved on, pins 5 and 6 naturally had nearly battery voltage because the coils are good and are receiving good voltage on pin 2 of the coil pack, so all is well there. Here I took the ignitor and found that I had about 65 kohms from pins 2 to 3 so my base to collector is good on the lower transistor in the ignitor, and those were my two running cylinders, 3 and 4, now to move on and check resistance from pin 1 to pin 3, the upper transistor responsible for cylinders 1 and 2, my non firing duo, that's where I found an open between the base and collector, even turning my leads around, there is I assume a burnt out diode in the base to collector junction. I took the ignitor from my 98 Forester and put it in and it runs on all four now. I am still puzzled though because I don't know what makes the coils fire, with 12 volts supplied to the primary I grounded the secondary and opened it rapidly, no spark! Not even a hint, I do this with an old conventional coil used for points and I will get bright blue spark on the plug (using a condensor aka capacitor). So I don't know how common ignitor failures are, but mark me down for one, I absolutely could not have fixed it without this forum!

In looking at the schematic it seems to me you would lose not one but two cylinders, in my case the red wire from the ignitor to the coil made no difference in the skipping engine when I disconnected it, that left the blue wire only, so am I correct in guessing that I was running on cylinders 3 and 4 only! my poor baby, I did 45 miles of interstate driving in that condition today, I think I'll treat her to an oil change with Royal Purple!

I think I found it, under the big air collector, (actually right where your pic shows...duh) hidden by the air horn on the collector there, about the size of a pack of matches, maybe a little bigger, I was looking for something larger, I'm out there with a flashlight so I can get it in the morning, do you think one off a 98 Forester is the same for testing and temporary usage

hmmm, not in the same place on a 97, looked around and nothing yet, they didn't move it to in the drivers area, did they? I'll keep lookin, really appreciate all your help

porcupine, that was the wiring diagram I was looking for, do you know the location of the ignitor, thanks again

thanks for that, cannot find a wiring diagram after extracting the folders, should it be there?

there is no spark on the coil for cylinder 2, a different coil and still no spark, I found that with the red wire to the coil (engine harness side) disconnected there is no change in the spark situation, appearing to me that the red wire is dead to where it gets its voltage or pulse. On my Forester with the same engine (2.5 DOHC) the three wires from the harness to the coil pack, the yellow wire is 12 volts, and the blue wire and red wire are about 9 volts each, on the Legacy there is no voltage on the blue or red wire. Anyone have a clue on this or a wiring diagram? Really appreciate any help...thanks

no alarm on this old rig, I did as John said and it was fixed, simple as that, my Forester has a reset switch (which broke and fell off, so I just touch the two bare wires together) under the dash to the right of the steering column but could not find that on this, anyway he is happy and at least one person thinks I know something

thanks, he has no key fob so I will turn key on, disconnect and reconnect the battery, sounds like I can handle that, thanks again

my neighbors 98 OB has this constant clicking with the directional/flashers all going after a dead battery, I've cleared this on my Forester with the reset switch (two brownish wires under the left side just to the left of the steering console, you hear the locks all go on together to confirm the reset), should the OB have the same as my 98 Forester?

well I did consider and the things I took into account were, OEM gaskets do fail as evidenced by the large number of engines untouched that have OEM in them from the factory that fail, I read that the Felpro is packaging gaskets from the same source as OEM (I agree there is no definite truth, but it is common throughout to have one manufacturer who supplies OEM and aftermarket), a good mechanic up here swears by them (the new blue ones with the rivet), I reasoned that after over ten years of this being a problem that in an age where technology is just astounding someone can't make an improvement on a known fault and correct it. I've been wrong enough times in the past and this could be another, but what's done is done and we will see. I did notice on Ebay that there were HG were made of a graphite material, they were inexpensive, wonder what's up with those??? I would like to see the new OEM and these new Felpro side by side, the ones that came out were four layer, these are three

I ended up going with the latest revision of HG, a three layer instead of 4 layer MLS, I saw both HG side by side, pre revision and after revision, the latest was three layer and colored blue because of the Viton coating, they were made in Japan and packaged by Felpro. The local Subaru master has done over eighty HG jobs and has had no trouble/failures with these gaskets, I think possibly these had some markings on them similar as OEM gaskets, the cost was about $40 per gasket

good stuff to know, my EJ25 did overheat so we will see, my son did an oil change prior and used Royal Purple synthetic, so perhaps I'm ok, so far the engine with the new gaskets and heads planed sounds good, no knock. I would prefer a non interference 2.2 with SOHC if there is an issue with the EJ25 now in it, so doing a search I see the "6th digit" on the VIN, my 2.5 is a "6", does that mean a 2.2 with a "6" will work, my transmission is manual and the year 98 (Forester). $375 for a good engine sounds good. Here in Vermont every other car on the road seems to be a Subaru so finding an engine should be not to hard.

let me jump in here for a minute to ask a few questions, I just did my 2.5 dohc headgasket and heads planed and all seems well so far, but have noticed quite a few swap out in favor for the 2.2, is it a matter of reliabilty and fuel mileage, less chance of a head gasket issue?

thanks, but the switch on the column seems to be working, it appears to be the ECM unit down inside the driver left kick panel, I do have the PN for it, but I would want to try it first or if someone had the same unit in their car take some voltage readings. It's that pin ( blue/yellow wire that seems to be the problem, still some confusion because the test procedure says I should have 12 volts with the clutch pedal up, driving, engaged, well with my clutch switch the switch is in the closed position with the pedal up and applies ground to pin 9, so there is a conflict, still pin 9 has no voltage even with the switch removed