OB99W

Assuming you're not experiencing any problems yet, I'd suggest thay you just remove the excess oil. If you're concerned about liability for a problem related to this (unlikely, but...) that may show up in the future, inform the dealer of what you found first.

Unless the scope is isolated from the car's chassis ground (which it wouldn't be, if the other channel was connected to an injector and ground, as we previously discussed), I wouldn't connect a probe between terminals 1 and 2 (or 3 and 2), but rather 1 (or 3) and chassis ground. The igniter should pull pin 1 (3) low, then the pin should go high again. The period during which it's low is the dwell, similar to when points are closed in the Kettering ignition system. Like that older system, the coil fires at the end of the dwell period. If looking at two traces on a scope, the voltage at pin 1 (3) relative to ground should rise (indicating end of dwell, and firing of plug) just about at the end of the injector pulse. No, that doesn't sound "right", but using a meter to measure pulses is difficult/misleading at best. Yes, charge the battery. Even if the engine cranks, too low a speed impedes starting, and below a certain voltage, the ECU can't operate correctly. Perhaps my comments about battery charge, etc., got lost in the length of this thread; see the last paragraph of my post #66. If you aren't getting even an occassional "cough" while trying to start, then weak spark is high on the list of suspects. Sure, the coil, igniter, etc., could cause a weak spark, but low battery voltage is a more common cause. Try to get enough charge on it so that during cranking it's at least 10V, preferably higher. Crank with the accelerator floored to clear excess fuel; that may seem counterintuitive, but there's an "unloader" function that's actuated that way.

Only if you think the remaining cylinders would be likely to go on strike, protesting preferential treatment of the others.

If the igniter was dead, you wouldn't have any spark at all, so I don't think the igniter deserves our attention right now. The igniter pulses the coil the same way the ECU pulses the injectors. That is, battery voltage is applied to the "high" end (common pin 2) of the primary, and the "low" end (pin 1 or 3) is switched to ground by the igniter. Therefore, if you are looking at pins 1 or 3 with the coil primary unplugged and no resistor connected from 1 (or 3) to 2, there'll be no voltage at those pins. I'd suggest connecting the coil, and back-probing pins 1 or 3, or use a resistor as you did with the injector. If you're already doing what I just suggested and have no pulsing voltage at the "low" pins, then we're moving into the "bizarre" area.

I believe that's correct, but I understand your discomfort with assumption.

Welcome to the forum. The "white paste" is an oil/water emulsion, kind of like mayonnaise. Hopefully, it's just from moisture condensation due to the weather conditions. Sometimes this is PCV system related. Occasionally, it's the symptom of the beginnings of an internal head gasket leak, but usually there will be other signs at the same time if that's the cause.

Or both eyes, if necessary. The car can wait a bit, I assume.

The spark should occur just after the "dip" (or "pulse", when the injector is open), assuming you're looking at the spark and injector pulse for the same cylinder in each case -- it certainly shouldn't be before it! But it might be hard to determine the relationship by visualizing the timing light flash. Since you've got a dual-trace scope, can you look at an injector on one channel, and at a corresponding igniter (coil primary) lead on the other. You should expect to see an injector pulse followed by a coil one, alternating with a coil pulse that has no preceding injector pulse (due to the wasted spark ignition).

I doubt anyone here really thinks that.

I've had them rot through from road salt. It starts out with very slow seepage. However, the garage floor did not remain dry.

Assuming the loss was actually due to a leak (three pints is a lot to lose without any obvious external sign), consider that the leak may occur only under pressure, and with the engine turned off in your garage it might not happen. Or, it may be that a shaft seal only leaks when under certain operating condition stresses. Have you checked your other fluid levels; front diff, for example? The radiator has a transmission cooler mounted inside it, and a small hole in that could cause some ATF to mix with the coolant. However, three pints would normally cause a noticeable increase in the coolant reservoir level (as well as obvious "gunk"), so that's not very likely, and in addition some coolant usually winds up in the ATF. Do you always do your own engine oil changes, or occasionally go to one of the "quick-change" places? Sometimes the guys at those places yank the wrong drain plug. If they realize it, they might put the plug back rapidly and ignore the loss of ATF, or underfill it even if trying to correct the mistake.

It shouldn't be a problem -- although an inductor will slow the initial current rise, it gets to be a fairly high value due to the low DC resistance of the coil (we're applying switched DC, not a higher-frequency AC signal where the impedance might be more of a factor); an inductor also produces a "kick-back" voltage on turn-off from which the ECU has to have protection. A 1,000 ohm resistor will only draw 13 milliamps max (assuming a fully charged battery), lower than the injector itself would draw, and produces no (discernable) kick at turn-off. I'm not particularly fond of doing that, because sometimes one or more wire strands get broken, and sometimes people don't properly seal the "breech". Still, if the other approach isn't easily accomplished, that will certainly work.

Good, and we can probably safely assume that #4 will also read the same. Do you have any resistors easily available? I'd like to load one of the injector connections (#2?) with a "dummy" (disconnect the injector); in order to keep the heat dissipation reasonable (in case switching to the off state isn't occuring), it should be about 1,000 ohms or so, 1/4 watt or higher dissipation. It could get somewhat warm, so keep it away from anything heat-sensitive. Measure the voltage from the resistor lead on the non-yellow injector wire to ground; on a scope, while cranking you should see a voltage of a bit less than 12 volts, dipping to under 1 volt every 500 milliseconds (1/2 second) or so for a bit less than 100 milliseconds duration. With a meter, the readings can be hard to interpret, as I mentioned previously. If you can do this and get usable info, repeat it at #1 (I'm particularly interested in the result at that location). If no resistor is available, the injectors could remain attached and the connectors back-probed. I'm not suggesting that as the first choice because the connectors don't lend themselves to doing that easily. This is admittedly "the long way around", but since simple things seem to check out, I'm trying to cover the less-simple (perhaps bordering on bizarre ).

Skip is basically correct; the yellow wire to each injector is fed with battery voltage via the main relay. Each remaining wire is pulled to ground by the ECU when appropriate. Therefore, by connecting a voltmeter across an injector connector with it disconnected from the injector, you'd likely see only a low averaged reading on an analog meter; with a DMM, the characteristics of the particular meter would determine what it might read. This is a reason why some people use "noid lights" to troubleshoot injector problems. I'd suggest verifying the presence of about 12 volts with respect to ground at each of the injector connectors' yellow wires with ignition on. You can do that by pulling each connector in turn, no need to backprobe for that check. Let us know what you find, and we can progress from there.

At cranking speed, you should see the leading edge of the injector pulse occur somewhat less than 100 milliseconds before the spark; its trailing edge should normally be just before the spark.

Not easily; even at cranking speed, these things happen more rapidly than you'd be likely to discern. Hopefully ! The injector should open during the intake stroke; the spark should occur just a bit after the end of the injector pulse.

Not an idiot, just human. You're very welcome. Congratulations . Thanks for getting back to us with the result. Now I can :banana: !

Yes, it's all relative; as long as all the cam and crank marks are in the right places, the belt marks being consistently one tooth off is meaningless. The mathematical relationship between the number of teeth on the belt versus those on the sprockets results in many engine revolutions being needed before the belt comes back to the exact alignment with the sprocket marks, but that has no effect on timing. Good, that's one less thing to consider. Not opening the throttle might result in slightly lower compression readings, that's all. After checking that fuel and spark are properly synced, there are a couple of simple things to try. First, make sure the battery is fully charged; if voltage during cranking is lower than about 10 volts (11 would be better), a start becomes less likely. Secondly, if the plugs get fuel-wetted, holding the accelerator to the floor while cranking will help clear things.

I did a bit of research. According to Subaru, the basic ignition timing at start should be 10 degrees. See http://endwrench.com/images/pdfs/Fuel.pdf , top of page 12.

Just so we're clear on this, I personally suggest sticking with the OEM filter, even given the ridiculously high price.

Isn't that the spec at 700 rpm, not at cranking? Most modern cars run about 10 degrees of basic timing advance, which at cranking speeds puts the peak cylinder pressure about at TDC; 20-30 degrees of advance during cranking would typically make starting hard. Please let us know what you find, if you feel motivated. By the way, my original suggestion to use a timing light to check ignition was just to verify the spark voltage was sufficient to trigger the light, not necessarily to check ignition timing. The basic timing should be determined by the position of the crank sensor relative to the crank sprocket reluctors, and is therefore fixed under normal circumstances. The ECU can modify the timing, but during cranking no further advance is normally added. Speaking of timing -- it's certainly possible to have both spark and fuel (and other necessities as air and compression), but obviously to ignite the mixture they have to occur with the correct relationship. Yes, wet plugs would indicate the injectors are operating, but it doesn't confirm that they're doing so during the proper engine cycle. After all the previous discussion, I'll assume that cam sprocket (and therefore reluctor) positioning isn't an issue. So, is there any possibility that the injector connections for cylinders #2 and #4 accidentally got reversed? (I think it's hard to do that on #1 and #3, due to the wiring length.)

See: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=56478

No more so than holding the key in the start position after the engine has started. The starter itself is protected from "overrunning", if it isn't for a prolonged period.

Really? I'll admit to not having had a reason to check that on a Subaru, but it's not what's commonly done. During cranking, the usual goal is to get the engine to fire closely to when the piston is at top dead center (TDC), or even just a bit past that point (after top dead center, ATDC). Firing significantly in advance (before top dead center, BTDC) will fight the starter's effort because each power stroke will try to turn the engine in the wrong direction. It's only at idle and higher engine speeds that progressively advanced timing is advantageous, for reasons (charge mixture/flame front travel rate/timing of maximum pressure) that I won't go into detail about now.

I've previously given my opinion on this topic, but here is some discussion of various related issues: http://www.subaruforester.org/vbulletin/archive/index.php?t-1334.html