DrKrazy

Well starting to think you guys may be on to something with the bad tank of gas. Ran perfect yesterday to and from work....started bucking a bit on my way to work this morning. So instead of turning around to get the lifted rig I kept it running and headed to the closest gas station. Was down to around a 1/3rd of a tank left, so filled it up with my regular 91 octane (highest we get out here, and always what I put in the RX). Did some surging/bucking the next two miles to work but they weren't as hard as before..will see how my drive home goes (crossing fingers)...

Hey Scooby you do realize that this is the Colorado run right? Cool if you come down from the PNW just to go on a snow run with us Rocky Mountain guys...hell after all Subaru_dude came out here from TN just for a barb-a-que

Ding Ding Round 3.... Checked the TPS, working fine Checked MAS, fine too Starting to get pissed.... Notice my check engine light is burned out, so went ahead and replaced that. Swapped the ECU out just for the hell of it (Running out of ideas if you can't tell)...no change Re-checked and swapped the CTS just cause...no change Spend hours checking wires, cleaning connections, notta... Getting real pissed now almost to the point of throwing tools Okay take a few mins and go calm down, read through the FSM a bit more and head back out. Swapped the knock sensor and the tranistor for the coil...take it out again hmmm running fine again, so keep driving and no signs of it. Finally turn around and head home, showed no signs of the problem. My guess lies on the knock sensor, but of course not sure it's totally fixed yet (crossing fingers). Time will tell I guess....my pulled and tested parts pile is getting rather large now, and if it starts doing it again I'll be at a total loss.

Well several months ago, the CTS started acting up on me and was throwing a code. It was pretty bad then, so I spent awhile cleaning it up and used Gary's method of fixing it so the actual sensor is now soldered and filled with RTV. So it's just the connector that's been moved and it's super shiny and clean. I did pull, checked and cleaned the connector for the disty when I swapped it, was pretty clean and tight. Did try shaking with the car running and no changes. I ended up taking the highway home last night (thinking quicker I drive, closer I'll make it to home if it completely dies on me, which it hasn't, always been able to get it to restart) and was bucking/surging a tad until I hit the highway and it ran fine the whole way home from there so maybe it is the TPS freaking out...will get a few more cups of coffee in my system and will start checking things out this morning. I did promise the car I was going to park it for the winter (except nice days) and haven't yet so maybe it's just pissed at me for breaking my promise

Replied to your PM Jeff..and yes I do have one, just did that swap myself on the lifted sedan.

Should still be in, like I said before don't need a tree but will go snow-wheeling with the group. And of course date/time pending..

Well damn, 10 days later and it's back again....doubting the disty went bad again. If so what the heck could cause a distributor to go bad? Going to pull out the FSM's and start checking everything with a volt meter in the morning after I limp it home from work tonight, maybe TPS is going...still no codes. If everything checks out okay guess I'll swap in my spare ECU if needed. Anyone else got ideas?

Without going out to my RX and looking...I'm thinking that one goes to my round Cruise Control unit on the bottom/front side of the passenger strut tower...though mine is an 88 so not sure it would be the same.

Yep swap it to 4wd..lift it...big tires....remember this Subaru_dude: Just a reminder on what a sedan can be!

Round 2! And DrKrazy comes out ahead! (I'm pretty sure) Check the CTS was as clean as I left it a month ago during my "winter" inspection, cleaning, fluid changes on all the cars. Tested out fine too.. Back to my first thought and Mike's too obviously the distributor... Swapped in one of my spares, kept my cap and rotor since they are like brand new and warmed it up for about 15 mins (wanted to see if it would die or stumble before I even bothered taking it out for a test drive) then got in and took off for a drive. Well my drive got longer and longer..running perfect. Boosted it hard several times, along with lugging it hard trying to make it do it..nope ran perfect So with that said my rebuilt disty with about 10k on it, is screwy :-\ . Now the RX has a disty with who knows how many miles on it and is running fine, it PAYS to have a fairly large stash of parts and a parts car for these types of situations. Pretty happy though, driving the lifted rig in traffic commuting for the last few days was growing old.

Looks like a nice car, would never pay that kinda cash around here (too bad if you could've forseen the future you coulda picked up another wagon while you were out here in CO). Nevertheless in your part of the states that may be a slightly high price but they are hard to find out there. Oh and don't be afraid to use kbb.com or nada.com to get a rough estimate.

Ok left for work this morning and a few miles down the road I get this random but violent surging and then it goes away, does it again and the car actually dies. Get it restarted and turn back to go home and grab the lifted sedan to drive to work. Does it several more times on the way back too...well once I got home tonight I dove right in to try and get it fixed. Don't get me wrong I love driving the lifted rig but not as my commuter car. Never threw a check engine and no codes stored :-\ Checked, Rechecked, and checked again all my hoses and connections. Figured it was the fuel pump, swapped from my parts RX...nope Okay maybe the coil is giving up on me, swap it....nope Notice the alt is getting pretty hot on a short drive, swap it for the heck of it..nope After the last test drive I pulled into the driveway and it ran for a sec then all a sudden died...this time it let off a bad smell, pretty sure it was unburnt fuel. All tune-up componets have about 10k on them, got too dark to do anymore investigating. So turning to you guys after all my searching (turns out most people replaced what I already have) to see what everyone else thinks for tomorrow night's 2nd round battle with the RX. Disty going bad? Runs fine except for when it decides to surge/stumble or even die. This marks the first break-down (though I could still drive just don't want to risk it) for my RX since I bought it and redid the motor and everything else with it 2 years ago...guess it had to happen sometime

Yea they don't use salt out here but they do use magcholoride (or however you spell it) which no matter what they say it eats cars just as bad as salt if not worse. Doesn't look too horrible I would get under there and clean it up as good as possible and then put some sort of protection on it (por15, bed liner, or just some rust-olem paint). If it's real bad, you can always cut it out and weld in some better pieces from the JY. The parking garage at my work pours tons of mag on the ramps etc, made a noticeable difference in the rust growth on my RX over last winter. Made sure I sprayed it off at least once a week and still ate at my car quite a bit.

that's pretty good, and pretty impressive...you should add that to the "You know you're a soob owner if....." thread.

Lesson learned this morning: Don't lift a legacy tranny by yourself out of the back of an RX, you gotta do most of the lifting with your arms (if your short like me) to get it over back lip of the RX. Wrenched my shoulder so bad I'm headed to the doctor

Picked up my parts RX yesterday and was going over it a tad once I got it home and something jumped out at me right away. Notice anything interesting in this pic (and no it's not the XT seats): Someone put in 3 point seat-belts in the back! Never seen that before, and I know no RX coupes came with them. Kinda interesting... few other pics of my parts RX (runs and drives, but has the worst cracked head syndrome I've ever seen). The nice one is seeing 2 88' RX's sitting in my driveway

EEK! My trailer won't be down here until 4pm! I might just cruise up there, give him the cash and pull the RX out someplace around there and come back and get it then....

I'll see what I can do, not going to pick any up if they are too much above JY prices, but after talking to the guy yesterday I think he'll let them go for cheap. Going to pick up the RX this afternoon and will bring extra cash with me and see what I can find.

Yea Shawn are you good on parts? Sounds like this guy I'm grabbing the RX from probably has everything you need sitting there too. Going to grab the RX on Friday and could pick up a legacy tranny or two if the guy has them pulled. Off topic a tad, yep parts RX...going to be used for help in the full (modified)restore of my daily driver RX and donate some parts to the lifted rig I don't need (rear discs, LSD) Haven't seen it in person yet but Eric got some good pictures of it. Pretty rusty but has alot of salavageable parts on it. Oh and it does run and drive, just typical massive over-heating problems..and 240k+ on it lol.

Good work Eric on finding the RX and getting the magic mixture outta of the builder of your car so we at least have something to go off of. Oh notice that Eric didn't say he bought the RX for him and in total it's $350 since I wanted it as complete as possible, (without towing, though we might try and just drive it back, working that out over the next few days) Trans from it will go to Eric if the other deal falls through and I get my parts car I've been looking for! Eric - actually just got off the phone with my brother-in-law and he is coming down to denver this week and can bring his trailer and go get the car for us more than likely. Going to call me back tomorrow and let me know when/if can do it.

Haha, now if only Jerry had actually put in some rear axles with that fresh 3.9 LSD he had in the back doing NOTHING! J/K Jerry...

You know I'm super interested in making this happen. I know nothing about these transmissions to really help but I can stand around and watch!

Hell of a job E, looks real nice and extremely well laid out. About time you got the "story" of your machine out. Not to mention all those pics from the storms everywhere. -K

Full throttle or no throttle! Like everyone said my screen name matches how I drive. (Won't mention any names but I know at least one person who rode with me and thought about screaming ) (hehe was kinda hoping someone got a vid of one of the several times I stopped in the mud pit and dropped the clutch at 5k, that was the real fun!)

Tom's clip was great, nothing like tearing it up in a historic brat! I think we all would agree that seeing Tom crank it up was one of the best parts of that little play time.... Curious what did your daughter say when you came home with the Brat covered in mud Tom?