I bought a wrecked one owner 96 legacy 2.2 (sohc) 159,000 mi. and a 99 legacy outback for a parts car. The right (passenger) cam pulley was bent so i replaced it with the one off of the 2.5 DOHC. They appear to be the same (except the 2.5 pulley is plastic), and the part numbers are the same except the 2.5 pulley has an "A" at the end of the part number. MY ISSUE is poor performance and gas mileage (19 - 21 mpg - 70% hwy). when first fired up in the am, it misses BAD for 5 seconds, then smooths out. I swapped coils, no difference. I noticed It has a slight miss sitting at red lights... sometimes more noticeable than others. Are the reluctors(?) on the pulleys slightly different? There are NO Codes and I did a Proper tune up / fluids before I drove it, and the timing belt was replaced 15,000 miles ago. I've read of similar issues where the timing belt is 1 tooth off. I hate to throw parts at it or tear it down un-necessarily. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

i wouldn't swap those cam pulleys. the timing marks are on the drivers side so it won't be the reluctors, but given the different belt geometry and sprocket structure i'd go with a proper metal 2.2 SOHC pulley. i've never heard of interchanging those pulleys before so i'm unsure but your issues sound like classic timing problems...but it's a 15+ year old vehicle so there's plenty of ground for other issues...i'm really helping narrow it down aren't I? :-\

 

two tests:

 

1. first is definitely to simply pull the p/s timing cover and look at the timing mark. is it lined up perfectly when the crank mark is lined up? it's only 3 10mm bolts to remove the timing cover....or none if you leave the covers off like some of us.

 

2. might be able to pull the plugs (if they're relatively new) and compare sides, if the passengers side is notable different than the drivers side then that may suggest compromised timing due to the sprocket change.

 

in the end those timing belts are actually not that hard to do - i can do that in about 45 minutes, and they generally come apart easy if they were just done, but i've done a bunch.

If the pulleys were drastically different I think the timing would be so far off it wouldn't run at all. Perhaps you are just a tooth off, or perhaps it needs some other love. Do you have a scanner that can read live data?

 

Have you tried cleaning the MAF sensor? Checked for vacuum leaks? How old is the gas in the tank?

Edited February 8, 201313 yr by Fairtax4me

Hey - Thanks for the input guys... Just to put this topic to bed - it ended up being a burnt valve... compression was 70 lbs lower in no.1 cyl. plus a little oil ... intermittent miss. 30k miles later, still running on the 2.5 timing pully

nice, good follow up! 

 

did you repair the burnt valve?
What ended up happening - did it get worse or...?

 

i wonder if the wreck slightly bent the valve and "caused" the valve to burn?

if the wreck was hard enough to bend the pulley then maybe the timing was affected.

 

generally 1996 are non-interference engines, but there have been cases of 1996's seemingly verified to be the original engines - that incurred valve damage.  there's one documented well on subaruoutback.org.