Just found this site today, Wow, lots of info. I have been chasing a power problem in my 87 GL Carb 4x4 wagon non-turbo. I just finished putting a motor from a wrecked car in my car (I had a big chip out of the intake valve on cylinder#1.) I put 2 remanufactured heads on. Prior to this I bought a rebuilt carb and installed it with no effect as well. The problem is power form about 1/3 throttle to 3/4 throttle. It hesitates badly in that range. As soon as I get past 3\4 throttle, it suddenly regains the power I'd expect. Wires, cap, rotor, plugs, are all new. Air filter is new. The problem was unaffected by the lower end swap. I still have parts from the other car, distributer, coil, carb and intake manifold. It's a car from California, so it has all the emmision stuff. I'd be greatful for any direction.

One of the 1st things I learned about our Subarus is how picky they are about their fuel filters. Replace it right away just to be sure.

It really sounds like an ignition timing issue to me, though. Give it as much advance as it'll take without pinging under load.

Oh, yeah.

Welcome to the board!

Yeah, play with the timing some...thats the first place id start after seeing what you've replaced so far.

Thanks for the reply. The filter is new, I should have listed that as well. I put the car on a timing light last night and reved the motor, and it wasn't a very smooth increase in timing on the flywheel. It jumped around abit as I slowely reved the motor. It also didn't always come down to the same spot on idle. Do most stick with the 8 degrees BTDC, or fiddle with it abit? So just for fun I left the vacume line off and went for a drive. It seemed to run a little better. I have a distributer off a 85 gl. It looks abit different. One distributers wiring connects with a plug, the older one looks like it just hooks to the pos and neg leads on the coil. I'm starting to suspect the distributer. Thanks again for the reply. Sorry I'm so long winded. The car is in great shape, and It's so functional, I really want to get it going good.

Sounds like the vac advance unit is going a little nutty. Id take it out and inspect it for anything out of place....and still try bumping the timing up to aobut 12-14 deg.

I'll try to advance it tonight. Thanks.

Yeah - might want to remove the disty, and dissasemble it for inspection. Could have some corrosion on the mechanical advance too. Also - when using the timing light, disconnect the disty vac advance, and plug the port for it.

 

GD

Thanks again. I'll go ahead and pull the distributer and check it out. I'll let you know what I find. Appreciate the help.

pop off the cap and see if the rotor wiggles. If the shaft wiggles around you probaly have bad bushings which will cause all sorts of fun problems. Another thing you can do is attach a vacuum pump (or a piece of vacuum hose and use your God-given vacuum pump) to the vacuum advance canister and suck on it (or use pump) and see if the mechanism inside moves. If it doesn't, or it won't hold vacuum, the canister is bad and will need replacing. My 85 has a bad vac. advance, and it gets 18MPG and is GUTLESS as all hell!

I did suck on the vacume tube, but really didn't want to admit to it. Luckily it was dark out and I doubt anyone saw. I had visions of the hood falling down on me. I didn't think to keep the suction on to see if it held. It did move but it wasn't smooth. Guess I'll do it again. Thanks for the help.

Well, I think I found the problem. The vacume advance attaches to this plate that rotates with bearings. The bearings are sticky and don't advance smoothly, so I pulled it out, clearned it and relubed it. Put it back in a drove it, but it was still abit sticky, better though. A new plate costs $72. Not cheap. Thanks for the help again.

Get a disty from the JY if you can, and either use the plate from it, or have it rebuilt.

 

GD