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'96 obw, 2.2L 5MT

 

Friday night I drove about 150 miles from Knoxville, TN, to Manchester, TN. Going up a long, steady slope, I started to lose acceleration under heavy load. And if I were in 3rd gear, for example, the engine would rev very high (4k+), but if I shifted up into 4th, it would drop down to less that 2k and almost stall. When I finally got off an exit and pulled up to a red light, it did stall. I finally got it started and limped it into a gas station. When it was idling, the engine was shaking back and forth like crazy.

 

It took a while, but I finally got it started again. I had 15 more miles to go to get to my hotel. Luckily, that part of the highway was going down the other side of this incline, so it was smooth sailing. Once I got to my hotel and stopped, it stalled again. The next morning, it wouldn't even start.

 

A shadetree mechanic took a look at it and said it could be the plugs. Misfiring and such. He replaced the plugs, but still no start. He said that the two on the passenger side of the engine were wet. Not oily, but wet.

 

Checked to be sure no water was in the oil and no oil in the coolant. There was none in either case. (Does that rule out head gasket?) It will crank, but just won't start. Shadetree suggested maybe the coil pack.

 

Thing is, I'm pretty much getting a new car, anyway. But if I could get this thing running again, maybe I could sell it.

 

Any suggestions?

Edited by hawksoob
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I had this happen to me once on my 92 turbo legacy, it was the "igniter module" not sure what to call it. Small black box in the center of the firewall with a 4 wire flat canon plug attached to it. The car would only run on 2 cylinders, it ran but ran like ************ .... and i got stranded in the middle of nowhere (30km out a fire road in the Cape Breton highlands)....so after some trouble shooting (removing plug wires while at idle, figured out coil was only firing on 2 cylinders) i removed the small box, cracked it open with a pocket knife and found two of the hair thin wires inside had broken. The 4 uninsulated wires inside are suspended in a clear goo, and the broken wires had burnt the goo a smokey brown. Gently removed/ scraped the goo away from the problem wires and twisted/ attached the two suspect wires back together. Reinstalled the box and the car ran like a top, drove home and filled the box with silicone......then drove to scrap yard and bought new box for $5.

Hopefully some one will chime in with the actual part name can't seem to find it in the service manual.

 

Here's apic from my 95 2.2

 

DSC00120.jpg

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I had this happen to me once on my 92 turbo legacy, it was the "igniter module" not sure what to call it. Small black box in the center of the firewall with a 4 wire flat canon plug attached to it. The car would only run on 2 cylinders, it ran but ran like ************ .... and i got stranded in the middle of nowhere (30km out a fire road in the Cape Breton highlands)....so after some trouble shooting (removing plug wires while at idle, figured out coil was only firing on 2 cylinders) i removed the small box, cracked it open with a pocket knife and found two of the hair thin wires inside had broken. The 4 uninsulated wires inside are suspended in a clear goo, and the broken wires had burnt the goo a smokey brown. Gently removed/ scraped the goo away from the problem wires and twisted/ attached the two suspect wires back together. Reinstalled the box and the car ran like a top, drove home and filled the box with silicone......then drove to scrap yard and bought new box for $5.

Hopefully some one will chime in with the actual part name can't seem to find it in the service manual.

 

Here's apic from my 95 2.2

 

DSC00120.jpg

 

Thanks. While I was looking at that, I found this:

 

wire.jpg

 

A wire connected to the engine compartment that looks like it should have a connector on the other end, but the connector is no longer there. I suppose that's a ground wire. Where does it go? Could that be relevant?

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Looks like a ground to me. My car has nothing attached there, although most my grounds were junk so i made all new ones. My extra(engine block to body) ground is from the block to the rad support. Proper grounding is relevant to the running/ operation of the engine. Just crimp/squish another lead on the end and attach it to the engine block, The main engine ground is from just above/forward of the starter on the block to the neg post on the battery, it was probably run from that same bolt/post to the part of the fire wall as shown in your pic.

 

 

 

DSC00122.jpg

 

 

 

Check the main wire (blk/yellow stripe) from the post in the pic above to the neg post of the battery, the one you show was probably an extra....can never have to many grounds.

Edited by EastCoastEJ22T
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The ground wire in the front is connected just fine. I actually had to reconnect that one when I was having weird electrical problems in the past (sudden stops or rapid deceleration would cause all electrical to go out - fixed by reconnecting that ground wire that had corroded away.)

 

I'll see if hooking this one up helps anything. Shot in the dark, sure. We'll see. :-\

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