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EA82 Idle Issue (Cyclic Idle)


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OK, starting to smack of something, but don't let me lead you astray. I haven't got my spfi leftovers anymore to look at to compare so going to ask if the spfi has a separate faster idle circuit like the mpfi has on the throttle body. The mpfi throttle body non spider has a solenoid unit of about 19mm hex bar, an earth wire and a power wire.It has a rubber tip on the plunger and diverts air past the throttle blade when the power wire is energised and the speed is increased only 100 or 150 rpm. It might be for AC on load only but is on all my mpfi non spider throttle bodies.

I can imagine I'd get a hunting idle speed effect if it it had constant on/off power supply due to broken/bad connection ....but can't imagine it would keep it up so consistently as your problem.

 

What could give this consistency would be if it was a dicky relay acting a bit like an old basic alarm bell I made as a kid with a hacksaw blade acting as part of the switching circuit, a donger on one end of the blade to hit the bell. A magnetic coil winding would be powerwed up and conatct broken everytime the blade was attracted to the magnet - perpetual motion to ring a bell until main power disconnected ....just to explain where some of my random, cryptic thoughts may be coming from :)

 

I should have suggested plug off the inlet manifold when you pull the vacuum booster hose and every other one as you are trying to isolate the problem, not create a new one.

 

Oh, your PCV valve screwed in the manifold, wrist tight is enough, we all see extra thread on outside

 

Got an extra earth strap between block and body just for good measure ?

 

My thinking here is that if something is starving for a decent earth, it may have an earth but not good enough...and thinking here is when a rear brake/tail light bulbs blows, filament falls across the other circuit - one circuit is earth switched - tail, and brake circuit is power switched you get odd things, or if an earth is not good for one circuit so sucks it from a nearby source but needs to share you see funny cyclic things happen with lights esp in the blink circuit

 

Another thing, we had a guy with an EA82T in a wagon here in Oz, with an impossible to find problem at speed I think his was. I think it went a few thousand miles by truck or train to an expert to be sorted....things went quiet....vehicle sold on, sold on.

 

I ended up with a pair of heads from the troubled guy , and do not know if they were off his troubled beast but...inside, one valve was wearing unevenly into the side of the valve guide, think it could get stuck, not closed sealing properly. I had some new guides or Klines installed and running them now in my Mizpah'd EA82Mongrel

Edited by jono
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OK, starting to smack of something, but don't let me lead you astray. I haven't got my spfi leftovers anymore to look at to compare so going to ask if the spfi has a separate faster idle circuit like the mpfi has on the throttle body. The mpfi throttle body non spider has a solenoid unit of about 19mm hex bar, an earth wire and a power wire.It has a rubber tip on the plunger and diverts air past the throttle blade when the power wire is energised and the speed is increased only 100 or 150 rpm. It might be for AC on load only but is on all my mpfi non spider throttle bodies.

I can imagine I'd get a hunting idle speed effect if it it had constant on/off power supply due to broken/bad connection ....but can't imagine it would keep it up so consistently as your problem.

 

What could give this consistency would be if it was a dicky relay acting a bit like an old basic alarm bell I made as a kid with a hacksaw blade acting as part of the switching circuit, a donger on one end of the blade to hit the bell. A magnetic coil winding would be powerwed up and conatct broken everytime the blade was attracted to the magnet - perpetual motion to ring a bell until main power disconnected ....just to explain where some of my random, cryptic thoughts may be coming from :)

 

I should have suggested plug off the inlet manifold when you pull the vacuum booster hose and every other one as you are trying to isolate the problem, not create a new one.

 

Oh, your PCV valve screwed in the manifold, wrist tight is enough, we all see extra thread on outside

 

Got an extra earth strap between block and body just for good measure ?

 

Another thing, we had a guy with an EA82T in a wagon here in Oz, with an impossible to find problem at speed I think his was. I think it went a few thousand miles by truck or train to an expert to be sorted....things went quiet....vehicle sold on, sold on.

 

I ended up with a pair of heads from the troubled guy , and do not know if they were off his troubled beast but...inside, one valve was wearing unevenly into the side of the valve guide, think it could get stuck, not closed sealing properly. I had some new guides or Klines installed and running them now in my Mizpah'd EA82Mongrel

You could be on to something. Looked at the wiring diagram in Haynes last night and it shows a kickdown solenoid in the iac circuit.

Edited by MR_Loyale
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Yes, I have a manual transmission. I'm pretty sure that kickdown solenoid is only on autos. I believe it says this in my Chilton. Unless it's under the dash somewhere, I haven't seen a relay for it.

 

I understand what you're saying about maybe a bad ground (earth) or something. My only question about that is: if the IACV connection/wiring had a bad ground, wouldn't other systems be affected? The wiring harness to the IACV has the TPS, CTS, purge and EGR solenoids, and whatever else. If that whole harness isn't grounded very well, wouldn't those other components be affected as well?

 

I do have a wire grounding my engine to the body, I believe. I'll have to take a look at it, but again, if that was bad, wouldn't other stuff be affected?

 

Today, driving to work, it made it the whole drive idling fine. It idled a bit high, but it wasn't trying to die nor was it giving a CEL. What was different about today? It was sunny and warm outside. I had my eye on the temp gauge, and it stayed between 1/4 and 1/3 of the way up, like it normally does.

 

I don't know if it's related, but I popped the hood when it was idling fine. I wanted to see if the cooling fan (the electric one) kicked on, as maybe it had to do something with that. But nope, my cooling fan wasn't running. Thinking about it, I have NEVER seen or heard my cooling fan turn on. Either my engine never gets hot enough, or the fan doesn't work. I mean, it doesn't really matter since it never overheats (I think deleting the A/C condenser allows a lot more airflow to the radiator). But I wanted to see if it had something to do with it, but it doesn't. My cooling fan doesn't turn on, whether it's idling or not.

 

Coming home from work, it was colder out and it idled poorly the entire drive home. Really, outside air temperature is the only thing I have noticed that affects it. Could my MAF be an issue here, since it's getting readings off of the outside air?

 

Also, if it's idling fine, it'll stay like that until I run at, say, 2500+ RPM for at least a minute or so. Then, if it wants to, it'll idle poorly and I'll notice next time I come to a stop. On the contrary, if it's idling poorly, sometimes it'll fix itself even when I'm idling.

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I do not have SPFI, but I am following this thread.  

The water pump thing is crazy.  For an EA82, you should have a ground(earthing) wire attaching to the engine at the 'water pipe' bracket !!!!!!! Take all your ground(earthing) wires off and wire brush the lugs and the contact points where they attach. Make shiny.  You need to verify that you still have a separate ground(earthing) wire attached to your manual transmission. As JONO previously posted, an extra ground(earthing) wire or three is not a bad idea.  Wire continuity means nothing if you have bad/dirty connections.

Poor grounding(earthing) leads to "stealing grounds" and happens to all types of equipment.

 

I had to throw in the 'metric' conversion thing:   'ground( insert metric thingy term here)'. 

 

Add half a bottle of Marvel Mystery Oil to gas tank at each fill up. Might help your valves and won't hurt anything. A full bottle of MMO in the tank will just give the vehicle behind you 'second-hand Marvel Mystery Oil'.  True.

 

( And you do not have a toilet bowl gasket under the TB ????? )

Edited by silverback
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My first encounter with the very first of my EA82T ownership was not good.I bought a tragic overheated sedan, bought a replacement engine, tore its heads off to inspect for cracks before warranty ran out, before I even fitted it, found cracks that warranty issuer decided I'd voided warranty by tearing heads off to look for them in the first place/ A 400 mile round trip prepared to tear his head off resulted in financed repair of EA82T head.

 

Funny how face to face can resolve things when distance creates some bravery :)

 

Anyway, heads welded and serviced by large company scoping work nationwide it would seem. On with new gaskets, the rest carefully assembled then installed. Engine develops a funny miss affecting the idle speed. Checked compression 130 psi all four, new plugs, new leads, next new cap and rotor, checked,cleaned and swapped injectors ....checked everything possible...even new fuel pump !

 

Would start real nice. As soon as tap the accelerator or increase revs by cable it would come back to idle on three cylinders - always #2

 

A forum member on ausubaru swore it would be a weak valve spring as the springs get heat affected from turbo at #3. Head reco crowd insisted all springs are checked to be within spec ( a clue here, no max an min limits from Subaru ) and that it could be/would be a dodgy HVLA.

 

So, new HVLA done in car on all fresh assembled engine - hate doing something twice :( . All back together and the miss is worse - stronger

 

I found that to get in and drive it would sort the miss out and only on sharp decel would it realy return, other than first start, oh, and at high revs as the self shifter went from 1 to 2nd, 2nd to third and would carry on a bit until settled again and I could race on normally. Bad thing was fuel is propane and ignited propane of #2 would flash back to help ignite stuff in intake manifold, turbo etc and blow off my ducting and clamps all over the road, disabling me from an overtake manouvre to the roadside.

 

Drove like this for 20,000km until I had time and money to fit new factory valve springs with engine out. Dissemble a second time due to some a holes inability to do a good job ! As I am swapping springs on head with crank locked, air fed in to push against valves - I have #4 fitted up and compare new to "within spec" springs with complex measuring device, fancy digital piece of equipment every good machine shop employee should have most of - the human finger....the springs on offending cyl 2 were as soft as a bloody marshmallow!

 

Seeing this I was confident the remote diagnosis would be correct. Turned my PITA into a great little flyer, smooth and quiet power delivered, the boost gauge did not quiver anymore, and I could pass slower stuff and not have to pull over soon after to collect belongings off the road - and I had a 5 speed to replace the auto :)

 

So many things can go wrong ......

Edited by jono
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jj421, I missed the obvious in the 1st post. The video. Look at the oil pressure gage. If the gage is accurate, your oil pressure is poor. The HLAs, and the rest of the engine, do not have enough oil (especially when cold) to function half way decent.

Quick questions:

How old is the oil pump? 

Oil pump re-sealed and new shaft seal(probably sucking air)?

Gage accurate?

Sump level correct?

Clogged oil filter?  

Oil filter brand?

Oil viscosity?

What is the highest oil pressure that you have seen on the gage?

 

The oil pressure ranges for an EA82 at normal operating temp. :  2,000 rpm ---- 14--> 26 psi.,  4,000 rpm ---- 34--> 46 psi.( FSM values ).

My EA82 idles at 20psi and on the highway is 60psi.  ( DELO 400  15--40wt)

The HLAs of cylinders #1 & #4 are the last units to get oil on the oil gallery circuit.  I would guess that your sparkplugs for #1 & #4 do not look good. Worth a look. Valves may be ugly too.

Easiest next steps: oil change with quality filter, higher viscosity oil ( it will tick on start up until the oil gets warm ).

The cam towers have an oil tube with an oil relief feature. The fast and dirty way to try to keep more oil in the HLAs is to stretch the spring in the oil tube relief valve if you are not able to get replacement springs quickly.

 

 

Checking the grounds is still important.

I spray 'Corrosion Block' into connectors and bulb sockets when I have them apart.

 

Where did the engine come from?

 

Another area to think about for minor hunting/searching is the distributor--cam shaft.  Same distributor that was on the previous engine?  Did you check the cam shaft float of the new engine? Measured, it is a max. of 0.010". On the engine, grab the timing belt pulley and pull--push. You should feel very little / no  movement. The distributor has an axial float limit of 0.006--> 0.020".  With excessive axial float, the distributor gear 'climbs' a small amount on the camshaft distributor drive gear. With excessive float of the cam and distributor, your rpms will change a small amount. You may not have this problem but it it something to check. Yank on the pulley.

 

Put 12 volts to your radiator fan.  Clean the connector. They get slimed with all the water coming past the radiator.  When you are out in the woods, moving with high rpm and low vehicle speed, you have a low volume of air going through the radiator. Make sure your fan works. If you do this a lot, perhaps a secondary fan that is switched manually will prevent a toasted EA82. I assume that you have a double row radiator.

 

Well, I think that your weekend is taken care of.  Good luck.

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I thought I said it somewhere, but I guess not. My oil pressure gauge doesn't do a full sweep. When I bought the car, the oil pressure gauge read below zero. I kinda opened up the instrument cluster, stuck a screwdriver in there, and moved it to about 45 psi, then back down to zero. From what I read (afterwards), you're supposed to move the needle all the way up to 85, then back down to zero in order to get an accurate reading. At least, that's what I believe to be true. I believe it had the same readings on my old engine as well. Highest I've seen it go is 45 psi, and it usually gets up that high when I start the car in the morning when temperatures are low.

 

I don't know how old the oil pump is or anything. I received the long block when it had 116K miles on it. Could be original, but the timing belts have been changed at some point, so maybe they did the oil pump too.

 

I use 10w-30 oil. I've been experimenting with various brands--O'Reilly brand, Chevron, Penzoil--trying to find the one it likes best. So far, Chevron is its favorite. I always change the oil and filter every 3000 miles. So far, I've been using nothing but Bosch filters. Next oil change (in 140 miles), I'm trying Castrol GTX high mileage 10w-30 with a K&N oil filter. The other cars in my family like GTX, so I'm gonna see how my Subaru likes it.

 

When I do oil changes, the oil looks perfectly normal. Like at the end of the 3000 miles, it's slightly darker than new. Normal "wear & tear" for oil. I've never seen foamy oil, or anything abnormal about the oil.

 

I was planning on pulling the engine and doing a new oil pump and new timing belts. But I have to get the money to do it, and I gotta spend quite a bit on exhaust work to pass emission in August.

 

The other night, I checked all my grounds. I have the ground near the thermostat, the ground on the lower radiator hose bracket, and the ground on the transmission. All seem fine. I played with every single wire in the engine bay, and nothing changed.

 

The engine came from another forum member on here, Subruise, who pulled it from a '90 Loyale RS. That's pretty much all I know about it.

 

It is indeed the same distributor from the old engine. I've also been told something about the distributor, as he said my misfire sounds like a dead miss. I can't remember exactly what he said the problem could be.

 

I just went out and tried yanking on the camshaft pulleys. A little tight down there, but I couldn't feel any play whatsoever.

 

I'll play with the cooling fan tomorrow. I just installed a Nissan Maxima alternator today, so I'm done working on my car for today, haha. Even offroading, the coolant temp gauge has never gone above 1/3. The only time it's ever gotten hotter was when upper radiator hose ruptured a while ago, but even then it never read hotter than 1/2 way up on the gauge.

 

I don't think it's an issue with the heads, valves, oil pump, camshafts, or any components listed as part of the long block to be the culprit for anything. Again, I swapped the long block and found no change with my idle issue. The only thing that I noticed that affected it was the water pump, which I don't see how that could affect it. The oil pressure gauge read the same on the old engine. I suspect the distributor for my misfire, but I don't think that's the culprit for the idle. While I believe I should replace the oil pump and rebuild the engine, I don't think that's the problem. And I don't even know if I'll rebuild the engine. I'll probably buy a Legacy with a blown transmission for $500 or something and swap in an EJ22.

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I had this nearly exact same problem, only mine would die on lift-off throttle, hard start in the morning, ect.

 

Threw the IACV code from the ECU, tested the valve, had good 12V at the plug, good ground at the ECU, ect.

 

Came down to testing the harness and it turned out I had a poor/intermittent connection at the IACV plug. The harness side had a bad ground (to ECU) inside the plug. Repaired the harness, no problems.

 

Also, make sure the fuse is still removed from the A/C circuit (the little holder near the HVAC vacuum canister). Otherwise it will try to idle up whenever the defrost is on.

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I'm not sure on the thermostat. Don't think I've ever pulled/tested it before.

 

Wonder, how can I test the harness to find that? Are you talking about the plug to the IACV, or the plug at the ECU? I suspect my harness could be the reason for the issue. I haven't done much testing on the harness, but what I have done insists that the wiring is fine.

 

And yup, that fuse is still pulled, haha.

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So I went out and took a closer look at the IACV plug. It looked like the wires for the plug were stressed a little, so I looked and found this:

 

P1110654_zpsa6589689.jpg

 

How could I not have noticed this before????? I feel so stupid. facepalm.gif Oh well, at least I'm 90% sure that's why the IACV doesn't function properly. I did a continuity test between the plug and exposed wire, and they're not making a contact. It looks even worse in person. I guess because of the wire's position, it got slowly pulled out of the plug socket over time. Kinda half-tempted to cut off the connectors and splice the wires together, but I'll just pick up a new harness next junkyard run. I tried jiggling the wires around, but it's been pulled so far out of the connector that it didn't make a difference.

 

Also, I'll be picking up a cooling fan switch. I don't think that'll fix my idle issue, but that's most likely the reason why my cooling fan doesn't turn on. I applied 12 volts to the cooling fan, and it turned on. Unplugged the switch for it and bridged the contacts, and it turned on.

Edited by jj421
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Let me throw this out there. My car, 89 GL, would do the same thing as yours, but only in the winter months. So I thought what was different from winter and summer with respect to the way I was using the car? The heater. So next time it happened I turned the heater off and the idle went to normal and after a few seconds the CEL went off. WTF. Then I remembered I had unpluged the A/C compressor because when climbing a hill in third gear and the A/C would cycle, it would hit so hard as to squeel the belts and slow the car. So I pluged the A/C back in and the idle problem went away. My thinking here is that when the heater or defrost is on and the ECU calls for the A/C compressor to cycle, it expects to see a drop in RPMs so it opens the IACV to compensate for this drop. But without the compressor pluged in, the RPMs go too high and the ECU closes the IACV droping the RPMs, now too low and reopens the IACV. And it just keeps bouncing the RPMs up and down. I may be way off on this, and your problem may be different, but this is what I found on my car to be the cause of the idle problem and the IACV code.

 

Mark

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My hunting idle does it regardless of the heat setting. All my idle issues happen regardless of having the defog on, heat on, or nothing on. Plus, pulling the fuse on the passenger firewall disables that circuit.

 

It's a good thought, but I don't think that's my problem. That might help someone a year or two from now who reads this thread though. :rolleyes:

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So I went out and took a closer look at the IACV plug. It looked like the wires for the plug were stressed a little, so I looked and found this:

 

P1110654_zpsa6589689.jpg

 

How could I not have noticed this before????? I feel so stupid. facepalm.gif Oh well, at least I'm 90% sure that's why the IACV doesn't function properly. I did a continuity test between the plug and exposed wire, and they're not making a contact. It looks even worse in person. I guess because of the wire's position, it got slowly pulled out of the plug socket over time. Kinda half-tempted to cut off the connectors and splice the wires together, but I'll just pick up a new harness next junkyard run. I tried jiggling the wires around, but it's been pulled so far out of the connector that it didn't make a difference.

 

Also, I'll be picking up a cooling fan switch. I don't think that'll fix my idle issue, but that's most likely the reason why my cooling fan doesn't turn on. I applied 12 volts to the cooling fan, and it turned on. Unplugged the switch for it and bridged the contacts, and it turned on.

 

DING DING DING. This is exactly what happened to mine. I saw the angle at which mine was plugged in (nearly perpendicular to the main harness) and I could see it was only a matter of time.

 

You can back-out the the wire-ends from the connector and wiggle out the plug so you can repair the wire. I added about 2" to both so I could route it better and relieve the stress. If you wiggle it back and forth (lightly), you can get the CEL to come on and off and the valve to work.

 

And I did the same thing. It took me several days to find that sucker.

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I'm going to the junkyard on Tuesday, where I'll be picking up a new harness. I hope with every fiber of my being that this is the solution. If I replace the harness with a good one and it doesn't fix the problem, I'm throwing my hands up in the air and giving up, again. For like the fifth time. I'm eventually doing an EJ swap, so f*** this motor and it's idle problem, haha.

 

But, I think a new harness with fix it. I can't wait to be idling normally again. And I really hope this thread will help future readers that have a similar problem. Save themselves hours of testing and hundreds of dollars on random parts. Check your IACV plug to make sure the wires haven't been pulled out. It's a free check, and can save yourself a lot of time if that's the problem. I, personally, have been dealing with this issue for upwards of a year now. Maybe more.

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I only scanned what has been posted, I seen no mention of checking the TPS

 

About 75% of all the fool infected cars that I've worked on tended to be the case, misalignment (them Hondas do it on purpose I find it GAAYYY) or just bad as in the case of a 00 imprezza

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I did mention it. I'm on my phone and don't have the specific post numbers, but I mentioned it in the bulleted list in post #15. I have previously checked the TPS and it checked out fine as per the FSM tolerances.

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Today, I went to the junkyard. There were quite a few EA82s in the yard. Three carbs, one turbo, and three SPFI. I decided to take a wiring harness from a 1993 Loyale, SPFI. The harness itself was pretty clean, all connections looked good, and most importantly the IACV plug was not stressed/stretched at an awkward angle. Was a bit tricky to remove with the A/C compressor in the way, but I got it out. Picked up some other things and headed home.

 

Once I got home, I decided to install everything. Got the wiring harness installed, and went to go start the engine. Turned the key and...

 

MY CAR STARTED IMMEDIATELY WITHOUT MY FOOT ON THE GAS PEDAL AND IT IDLED NORMALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No check engine light and it was idling great! Still misfiring, but that's another issue. As far as I can tell, the new wiring harness has completely fixed any idle issues that I've had. I went for a short drive (but long enough that I would notice any issues), and it idled fine the entire trip. It was so freaking nice not to have to rev it to keep it from dying. I can actually come to a stop without hitting the gas. I can slam on the brakes and not have to worry about my car dying. Words cannot describe how nice it is to have a working car again.

 

Here's a picture of my old wiring harness. This POS has plagued my car for at least a year. It has driven me insane and was the only thing I hated about my car. I want to set this f****** on fire and watch it burn to a pile of ashes, that I will then run over with a lawn mower. I want to see this thing destroyed, as it is not worthy to be in existence anymore. :mad: :mad: :mad:

 

Anyways, where was I? :rolleyes: Oh right, pictures. Haha, can you tell how much this part has annoyed me? I've never had such animosity towards a singe part before.

 

P1110660_zps49e3513e.jpg

 

P1110661_zps5359f623.jpg

 

P1110662_zpsee2d1250.jpg

 

So yeah. The wire harness had cost me all of $15 at the junkyard. Didn't take much time to replace, since I don't have A/C or power steering, so the harness just came right out. I owe a big thanks to everyone who helped on this thread, even if what you suggested didn't lead to the solution. Anything and everything helped me, and hopefully future readers. I am so glad to finally have gotten rid of this problem. I can hopefully enjoy my car this summer now. :)

 

I'll post again tomorrow, to make sure it's not a fluke. Hopefully my car will start and idle normally in the morning, after it has been sitting overnight. But I'm pretty sure the problem has been fixed. Again, thanks to everyone that posted. :) :) :):banana::headbang::clap::bouncy::burnout:

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