Corpy

Waiting on a compression tester from my local parts store. Should have it today. Praying it's not the valves.

Texan, I did a shot of ether and it didn't change. I had already ordered a knock sensor from Rock Auto before it crapped the bed this weekend. It should get here this afternoon. Reading up on the dropped valve guides and it sounds (unfortunately) like a prime candidate. I've had a bit of oil consumption since I bought the car (about a quart every 3k). The previous owner was a near-mentally handicapped woman who I wouldn't be surprised went 10k between oil changes. How would I do a test to confirm the valve guide issue? Any way I could snake an inspection camera into the head to take a look?

I'm getting good spark at the plugs. When I pulled the old plugs yesterday, they looked perfect. No pitting, no corrosion - good color. I doubt it's the wires. But can't hurt; I'll try to swap those this evening and see what difference it might make.

I’ve got an ’05 Forester X with the EJ253 SOHC, non-turbo engine. It’s got about 140k miles on it now and is an auto. I’ve had on-again, off-again problems with misfires for the last 20k miles. These may or may not be relevant to the problem I have now. Starting about 20k miles ago, I had intermittent stumbling/rough running and would occasionally get the blinking cruise control light problem. It was worse in wet weather and, sure enough, I popped the hood at night and saw arcing from a plug wire to the intake. Once or twice I would get the CEL and checking the OBD codes got P0304 – misfire on #4. I replaced the wires and, because I had a new one on hand, the coil pack. That solved that problem. I’d had no ignition problems since then, until now. About four weeks ago I was on the freeway to work and the Forester got a case of the shakes. It literally felt like I was on a rough patch of road. I got a CEL and pulled to side of the road. When I plugged in my Scangauge, the OBD code I got was P0000. No idea what that’s supposed to mean. The engine felt like at least one cylinder wasn’t firing at all. When I got out and opened the hood, the engine was vibrating wildly. I killed the engine, tried starting. It would start but kept running roughly. After about 10 minutes of fiddling with the plug boots, to make sure they hadn’t come loose, I tried her again and though she cranked for about 5 seconds without effect the engine sputtered to life and then ran great – no hesitation, no vibration. It was like nothing had happened at all. This happened two more times, unpredictably, over the last weeks. Finally, I was driving home yesterday and it happened again. This time, though, she didn’t self correct and I haven’t been able to get the engine to start again. Here’s what I’ve done: - Replaced Crank position sensor - Replaced Cam position sensor - Replaced all spark plugs - Tried a new coil; no change I had a shop change the timing belt, tensioners and water pump at about 115k. My first thought when this began was that the timing belt had jumped a few teeth, but I can’t imagine a timing belt could “jump back” and correct itself, so I discarded that theory. Another possibly relevant symptom is engine ping. This Forester had always had a bit of ping since I bought it (115k) but it got much worse over the last couple of months. I normally run 87 octane regular. When I ran 93 octane premium, the knock went away. I was thinking a bad knock sensor might be part of the problem, but I don’t think it would stop the engine from running at all if it failed, right? Any ideas? Bad ECU’s my next thought. I was also thinking it may just be a wiring harness problem to the crank or cam position sensors, but I’m intimidated by the thought of cutting up my wiring harness to try and find a bad wire. Plus, all the connection seem to be in great shape. Could it be a stuck exhaust/intake valve?