I recently purchased an 04 wrx through an auction. The car is completely stock and has 60,000 miles. The engine is missfiring very badly. At idle the engine shakes side to side on the mount, wont rev past 4500, and has very little power. The turbo sounds like its spooling just fine, but i dont have a boost guage so i dont really know. After running a diagnostic i found that all 4 cylinders are missfiring. The mechanic that ran the diagnostic told me that i need to replace all the coils and spark plugs.
I ask this, does it seem likely that all the coils would be bad? What are the chances that they would all of them would fail at the same time? Has anyone ever had an issue like tis before? I have heard of one or two cylinder misfires but all 4?
Also, after inspecting the engine i noticed there is a thin metal braided wire that is routed underneath the intake and ends somewhere near the turbo. It is unplugged and i cant seem to figure out where it is supposed to be plugged into. Any ideas?
I would really appreciate any tips. I dont want to spend $400 on parts i really dont need. Thanks
I personally have no experience with a Subaru yet, but have you checked the spark plugs, spark plug wires, and distributor to see they are all still good? Check for moisture on the spark plug wires where they contact the spark plugs, that can lead to a misfire, or maybe the distributor is bad, idk that's all i can say... Hope someone else can give you more insight
Hmmm... definitely weird for all 4 to go off at same time. Was the engine misfiring since you bought it?
Theres a way you can test if the coilpacks are good by touching them to metal, and the spark plugs are inexpensive to change out. Not a bad idea to do it anyway since you dont know how old they are.
If you can send any pics of that wire, it may help.
The engine has been misfiring since i bought it. I havent had a chance to check the plugs, but even so it would seem odd that all the plugs are bad at the same time as well. One thing i did do was remove the wire on the coil (on cylinder 2 and then cylinder 1) while it was running with hope to target a bad coil or plug. Unpluging these cylinders seemed to have zero affect on the engine.
I was under the impression that the EJ20 does not have a distributor since it uses coils. So is the ignition controlled directly from the ECU? Could the ECU be faulty?
I would like to know the answer to this as well, because I'm am suddenly having a similar issue.
81000 miles and I had my first CEL 2 days ago. for misfire on #4, so i cleared it. I drove it for like 100 miles on the freeway and it was running fine. On my way to work today, at a red light, it started running very shitty , and the CEl was blinking at me. When I got to work I checked the code and it was a misfire #3. so I removed coils 1 and 3 and swapped them to try to isolate the bad coil. While the coils where out I checked the plugs and they looked good. got it all back together, cleared the codes, took it for a drive and it seems fine now. so I guess I'll wait and see if it happens again.
What is the life expectancy for a coil pack? When they fail do they have the intermittent problems people experience, or do they just suddenly stop working?
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Dom Tuned 2003 WRX Wagon
251.3 WHP
235.8 WTQ
I personally have no experience with a Subaru yet, but have you checked the spark plugs, spark plug wires, and distributor to see they are all still good?
Nagy that is good question about the coils though. In my experience with both my Audi and Subaru there was no warning and no real symptoms just crapped out. On our Audi though when one crapped out I asked the dealer to change the others since it was under warranty. They declined and two days later another one crapped out and they still wouldn't change them all. We got rid of the car after the second one. My Subaru has only had one crap out and I would like to know of any symptoms to look for before it happens again. DUMDUM would be the one to ask!
Last edited by suddenthomas; 05-23-2008 at 10:42 PM.
Reason: forgot the other link
This misfire shit is starting to piss me off. I must have read 100 threads for misfires, and there is a bout 40 different things that can cause them. now I'm even more worried. I think its my modded stock injectors being stuck open that's causing the misfires. I am doing a compression check today, and if it turns out low, I'm seriously considering trading the OL' beast in.
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Dom Tuned 2003 WRX Wagon
251.3 WHP
235.8 WTQ
the compression test came back fine, I have no CEL and its running perfect. One thing I noticed when I took my plugs out to do the test is that the wire connector that goes to the #3 coilpack was a little loose, and the clip was not entirely clipped into position. Since I have no cel's I think it may have been that connection was not soild and the vibration would cause it to connect and lose connection randomly. at least I hope that's all it was. I really dont wwant to get rid of her.
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Dom Tuned 2003 WRX Wagon
251.3 WHP
235.8 WTQ
the compression test came back fine, I have no CEL and its running perfect. One thing I noticed when I took my plugs out to do the test is that the wire connector that goes to the #3 coilpack was a little loose, and the clip was not entirely clipped into position. Since I have no cel's I think it may have been that connection was not soild and the vibration would cause it to connect and lose connection randomly. at least I hope that's all it was. I really dont wwant to get rid of her.
The coil packs are grounded via the screw that holds them in place.That can be one cause if they are loose.Also if that doesn't work next step is switching the injectors around (like the coil packs) to see if the code changes cylinders with the moved injectors.My injectors are numbered.Also make sure you never remove both coil packs at the same time on a side and cross the harness wires.It will fire the wrong coil.You cannot do a resistance test on the coil pack according to the manual because of the intergrated ignitor.
Also the fuel filter is supposed to be changed every 15K miles.Some people forget and put 60K on a fuel filter and can't figure out why they are missfiring untill they finally change the clogged fuel filter (at someones suggestion usually) and waa-la.Missfires gone.If you have a lightned flywheel it will cause missfire problems (phantom missfires).Also try cleaning the crank and cam sensors.They are basicly magnetic pickups.
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Homebrewed tuned with Opensource!
Here are some pics of that wire i was talking about, i have looked all over to see where it plugs into but i cant figure it out. What do you guys think?
i could be way off, as i'm not familiar with subies yet, but could your timing be out? i had an srt-4 for a while, and timing was sometimes an issue. sorry if i'm way off, just thowing out a suggestion :S
the only way for your timing to be out is either by you messing with it on a laptop or your timing belt jumped a tooth and i really dont think that will happen
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