Backstory: Since about 7 months ago, my idle on my 05 Legacy GT has been unnecessarily rough. Although it feels like a vacuum leak, the boost gauge shows full vacuum at idle and a leak test was done at a shop near my college with no problems. The car also seems to have a ghost knock, sometimes at idle but most times just cruising somewhere between 40-60 on partial vacuum. The car almost never pulls timing for this, but does pull timing and boost (as well as the advance multiplier) all the way down as far as it can seemingly at random. The car also has some wild hesitations when accelerating or even sometimes at a constant speed. The thing is, it all goes away sometimes and the car is AMAZING to drive. Other times it runs like crap and will have no power. I kept pace with a 911 and later that day got owned by an accord. It's disheartening at best. Scott at SOG looked at the logs i had and even rode to lunch with me but saw nothing out of the ordinary (of course the car acts nice when he is around). Nothing i can see is out of the ordinary like AFR, timing, etc. The car hits full boost of about 18psi. The car has no coolant in the oil and burns virtually no oil. I have been smelling something sweet and musty at times that is coming from my car but i would almost swear it's a trany fluid smell. The VVT and TGV seem to be the same on both banks of the car as they should. We have already tried the following: Swap out MAF Swap out injectors with tested/cleaned ones New Spark Plugs (one step colder) New Knock Sensor Grounding Kit (WJM style!) New ECU Other possible causes that i have not explored as of yet: Swapping the Coilpacks (it usually misfires at high speed though, with ok idle) Sparkplug wires Idle Air Control (IAC) acting up low cylinder compression bad alternator broken valve or valve spring, (do hear more valve noise then i think i should but everyone tells me it's ok for a subaru) intake camshaft position sensor ( several folks with my car have had this issue, dunno why it fails but usually the VVT on one side sits at one level, which mine does not). I am also including some logs of me driving around town, idle, pulls, etc. logs are at: http://atlwill.com/wrxatl/wills_logs.zip Any suggestions on what to try would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Ya'll Will
when its acting up, are there any indications on the dash? Sometimes when my LGT is feeling weak i'll get a blinking cruise and CEL. how many miles?
38000 miles on the car, and on the dash it looks fine. no boost spikes and no fuel pressure drops. AFR looks great too. There are not even any codes or roughness logged in the datalogs. strange huh?
Did you anger the jdm gods recently? Oh, and Ive got a blitz bov for you, not sure if its recirc (as I cannot read kanji).
cool, i'll have to wait until i get the car/jdm gods happy again before i stick it on. No need to add something new the equation. Hopefully soon though.
well i logged today and the VVT seems off sometimes, even to almost 10 in some cases. is this normal? (insert attachment) roughness sensors work well when i turn only them on.
hehe this is turning into a blog of sorts but oh well. Talked to a subaru tech who said it was most likely a clot of oil that was causing the issue with with the VVT. Since when i run the car very hard the VVT on left and right banks match and follow each other, his suggestion was to flush the oil several times or use a detergent in the oil. Does anyone have any oil cleaners that won't hurt the turbo and cause more problems for me? the thought of doing 4 or 5 oil changes rapidly in a row does not really appeal.