A couple of weeks ago my 98obw started running horribly and when I looked underneath the cats and pipe were glowing red. I went ahead and ordered a front cat from rockauto and put it in. 2 days later the same problem. I figured it was that I changed the wrong cat so I ordered the rear cat and put it in yesterday. Ran fine for 20 miles and now I'm glowing red again all the from the front cat to the resonator.

I just put the middle pipe in a couple of months ago so figure it can't be the resonator but now I'm wondering if it could be.

I'm not sure what to try next and willing to entertain any ideas.

Thanks

Joe

Timing is off.

 

the only time i ever had a car that got the exhaust cherry red was a white 92SS i bought that the previous owner couldnt get running. It had the T belt off quite a few marks, and althoug it would run with a miss, the longer it ran the worse it got and cherry red exhaust. set timing right, never had a problem and after 25k miles, sold the car/

Edited November 17, 201114 yr by bheinen74

Huh, I hadn't thought of it being an issue from the other end. That could definitely be an issue. I was planning to do a timing belt on it anyway this winter, I can just bump the schedule up a bit and see if it helps.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Joe

Like BH said, raw fuel in the exhaust because of a misfire. Check spark plugs, wires, timing belt. Vacuum, PCV, and breather hoses all tight, connected where they should be.

Check that timing belt ASAP, if it breaks that 2.5 will bend valves and you'll be doing major engine work rather than regular PM.

Edited November 18, 201114 yr by Fairtax4me

I took BH's advice and did the timing belt and water pump yesterday. The car ran incredibly smoother, I'm not sure how off the belt was but enough to make a difference on performance. Prior to the belt change passengers would question why the car shook so much at idle and now it's silky smooth.

 

This morning though I jumped in the car and started it to drive away and it immediately threw a CEL and ran horribly. On reading the code it indicated that cylinders 1&2 were misfiring. I checked the coil and sure enough 1&2 were not sparking. After some headscratching, disassembly and reassembly everything was running fine. Not liking that for an answer I pursued a little further and found that one of the electrical wires connecting to the coil pack could be gently wiggled and cause 1&2 to misfire. Took that apart and pushed the wire fully into the clip and now it runs well all the time.

I'm wondering if the original cat problem may have been due to that wire and the misfires were being masked by the faulty timing belt.

Nonetheless, all the repairs were beneficial and the car is running well again.

Thanks,

Joe

sounds like you got something other than OEM plug wires on that car.

 

If I was you, I would go ahead and buy some OEM plug wires and get them on the car soon, or you will be dealing with misfire every so often when the plug wire comes off the coil pack. OEM wires don't do that,

 

You can get a good deal on oem plug wires at several online subaru dealers, including fredbeansparts.com

BH,

I've got NGK wires on it and they work well. The problem wasn't with the plug wires but with the electrical connection to the coil, the 3 wire connector with (I believe) red, yellow and blue wire. The yellow carries the 12v and the red and blue are for the current to the front pair (1&2) and rear pair (3&4) spark plugs.

The red wire was not properly seated in the connector and by wiggling the connector in the coil I could interrupt the spark to the 1&2 wires.

After dissasembly and adjustment I put it back together and can no longer recreate the problem.

Have about 150 miles on it so far and it's been going great. Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction.

Joe

A perfect example of why you should do real troubleshooting/diagnosis before replacing parts.

 

Thanks for posting what fixed it!