I found this post on another forum. It describes exactly the same problem our car has only our's is a 1995.

have a 1992 Legacy sedan. I have had this problem twice now once about a month ago and just today. It acts like its starving for fuel sputter and then dies. Wont start and when you take the fuellines off the filter no fuel is coming out while you crank. First time I replaced the filter and added dry gas. Also took the fuel pump out of the tank and checked it . That was operating fine. I should mention when i took the fuel line off the filter it was under a lot of pressure. Ok back to the problem . I put the pump back in and tried it by cranking the enigine with the fuel line off it pumped. out line back on and the car ran fine. Today it did the same thing. I pulled the lines took the pump out again and it ran fine after it was put back in. Any help on this would be appreciated.

Also don't know if it is related but the tank has to be filled really slowly it keeps shutting off the pump. Seems like a venting problem.

Thank-you for any help. We live in a small town and the best mechanic in town has me replacing the fuel pumps saying water in the tank is the problem. I think there is another problem.

Maybe your fuel pump relay is flaky. I think some ECU's from that era but maybe earlier the transistor driving the fuel pump relay got cold solder joints and needed reflowing.

thank's for the response. I replaced the relay already to rule that out.

Perhaps the trouble is with the fuel pressure regulator.

I had a similar issue with my wife's 90 Legacy. Car would be running fine, she would stop at the gas station and fill it up, and the car would not start. Sometimes it would sit overnight and restart the next day, sometimes it wouldn't.

 

Replaced the fuel pump and no further problems. I do not know what the mechanism of failure was, but the fix has been solid.

Anyway to check the fuel pressure regulator without the vehicle running? I have replaced the fuel pumps twice, the second time with less than 100 miles. The mechanic is telling me water in the tank is destroying them. When the car quit running this last time I checked the filter and there was no water and the fuel was clean.

Not sure if I had this same issue since after replacing my T-belt everything was fine..

 

but I came up to a stop sign which was on a little incline with a 1/2 tank and the car just died.. I tried to start it and nothing.. so I put the car in Neutral and back up.

 

From that I got the car started but it was rough.. I got it back in first gear and took off without it stalling.. that was about 2 months ago and never had any issues since then.. but then again I found a hose from the valve cover that was disconnected as well.