Hello everyone i am in need of some help, im new to the subaru world and i just picked up a 84 4wd gl wagon, and the guy told me that it needed just a fuel pump , well i changed the fuel pump out, stupid of me for now follow my own diag steps, anyways wasnt the fuel pump turned out to be the timing well the guy aka one of my inlaws that i bought it from said he knew what the problem was  since it wasnt the fuel pump, well he rotated the engine over til tdc and picked up the distributor  and rotated and set it back in, it took a couple of tries to find the sweet spot but in the end he got it started and driving, now on my adventure home which was an hour away, the car ran great on level roads but AS SOON AS an incline showed up i lost all engine power to where i had to slowly drop gears to keep the rpms up so it could make it up a hill at one point i was going up a decent hill on the highway and i could only go about 10mph in first gear up the hill, , if i left it in drive it would just back fire like crazy,am i looking at pulling the engine and doing a timing job or is it something much more simple, Im sorry for being so scattered , if i need to give any more info just let me know

I'm really confused....

 

Is the timing set correctly now? (I don't know the procedure for an EA81 off the top of my head...).

 

Considering it's unknown history, I think I would throw some new spark plugs (NGK V-power) in it, and do a compression test while at it. That'll give you an idea of the condition of the bottom end. Maybe wires, cap, and rotor.

 

Then start looking for vacuum leaks. These late carbureted cars were choked with vacuum operated solenoids and such, so there are a ton of vacuum lines that could be leaking.

 

If the ignition is in good shape, and it's got good compression, there's a reasonable chance it's carb-related.

get a timing light on it.  set it to specs which I believe is 8 btdc.

 

no reason to pull engine.

Sounds like fuel filter to me. there is one in the back at the pump, and one under the hood behind the master cylinder. 

 

When you set your timing, you must first unplug the vacuum advance hose from the distributor and plug the hose.

Not saying this is all of it, but these engines are also pretty dang gutless when it comes to hills, I have an EA81 as well and hills are hard for them.  That aside the back firing and such does to me sound like its just choking on fuel, when timing is off it does not have that affect(as far as I know).

...it took a couple of tries to find the sweet spot but in the end he got it started and driving

 

You're going to have to go through all the timing aspects...and set it right.

I'm really confused....

 

Is the timing set correctly now? (I don't know the procedure for an EA81 off the top of my head...).

 

Considering it's unknown history, I think I would throw some new spark plugs (NGK V-power) in it, and do a compression test while at it. That'll give you an idea of the condition of the bottom end. Maybe wires, cap, and rotor.

 

Then start looking for vacuum leaks. These late carbureted cars were choked with vacuum operated solenoids and such, so there are a ton of vacuum lines that could be leaking.

 

If the ignition is in good shape, and it's got good compression, there's a reasonable chance it's carb-related.

 

It has a new cap and rotor put on it, i think the timing is correct because when we were orginally messing with it we undid he dist bolt and slowly moved it around as much as we could then it fired that is how we were under the assumption the timing was messed up. 

What would be the correct procedure to set time correct , just incase we did mess it up?

Not saying this is all of it, but these engines are also pretty dang gutless when it comes to hills, I have an EA81 as well and hills are hard for them.  That aside the back firing and such does to me sound like its just choking on fuel, when timing is off it does not have that affect(as far as I know).

I get that these are not very powerfull engines but  and by hills im only talking "MAYBE" 5-15  degree slopes, i cant fathom that i would can only go 10mph up it when i got traffic going 60+

what is the average idle rpm for these , because in park and neutral its about 800-100 then as soon as i put it in drive the rpms drop to bout 1-300

My guess is the current timing is too far advanced. You need a timing light to correctly time the distributor. 

Your timing is way off if engine rpms drop below 700. Get a timing light and time it. Disconnect vacuum to distributor and move until it reads 8° btdc.

Ummm.... You picked up the dizzy? As in removed it to reset it to the proper position? How did it get in the wrong position to begin with? Was it removed prior? If it wasn't removed or messed with prior and you had to pull it to set it, I'd say the pin holding the gear to the shaft has sheared and the gear is slipping.

Ummm.... You picked up the dizzy? As in removed it to reset it to the proper position? How did it get in the wrong position to begin with? Was it removed prior? If it wasn't removed or messed with prior and you had to pull it to set it, I'd say the pin holding the gear to the shaft has sheared and the gear is slipping.

that's the part I didn't understand either because he said that nobody has touched it and it just died on him leave his house he pulled it back to his yard for over a year and that's where it sat until 3 days ago and I thought that it was weird when he just picked up the distributor just enough to rotate the rotor back towards #1

So I will borrow a timing light to see what it says in the next couple days and I'll let everyone know