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Shift Up!


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I Remember that Summer of 1985... My Dad took us to the First Trip in our Freshly New '85 Subaru GL Wagon... the One that today Became my Everyday Warrior, The Weberized EA82.

That time, when we First Saw the "Shift Up" Light came On, we Didn't Knew anything about That and my Dad even Pulled out from the Road once to Check the Engine...

Now, after 280,000 Miles of Non Stop Use, the Shift Up Light Start to Show up at Lower RPM's than ever... I Remember it Only came On at over 4,000 RPM's but Now it Does Come On at 2,500 RPM's

Same Behaviour but Lower RPM's ... Why? ... is this a Warning of Somethin' Going Wrong with the ECU?

Any Advice will be Very Welcome!

Kind Regards.

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On my first car, a subaru, it was a 85 wagon 2wd, that was a constant issue and it had only 145,000 before the rats ate it. It sat with the tick of death and the rats made a home destroying the interior completely and turned into a parts car. It came on sometimes at 1500rpm. If that was a problem I wouldnt have heard it over the engine.:lol: Otherwise that thing was a race car with the way it shifted and had tonnes of power for what it was. Quite fun.

 

Speed sensor?

Edited by Yo'J
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  • 9 months later...

We don't even have those lights here. Nice fuel saver is all I can speculate.

 

I highly doubt its anything more than a vac line or an electrical gremlin. Is there a "boost sensor" mounted on the strut tower? I half wonder if they were using the engine vac signal like a turbo would have to let the driver know the pressure range has been exceeded.

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The "Shift Up" Yellow Light on the Dashboard ...

TablerodelSubarudo.jpg?t=1283442982

... is Located up, above the Right Headlight's Sign, but in this Picture Doesn't Sees

(it only Shows while Runnin' )

My EA82 Wagon came to my Country Runnin' from the Dealer in Los Angeles, California USA (Can't imagine a Better Way to Break New any Engine) so maybe that's a Feature Only for that State due to their Enviromental Regulations. (Back in the 1980's Decade was Cheaper to Buy a New Car from USA and Drive it here across Mexico and Guatemala was Safe... )

Let me Tell you that it had the Boost Sensor in the Right Strut Tower, but along All the Enviromental Stuff, it Had to be Removed by the Local Subaru Dealer in March of the Year 1993; Because the System was "Poisoned" with Lead, (as the Dealer's Garage Said) due to No Unleaded Fuel Availability here untill 1994 and it Ran with Leaded Fuel for its first eight Years...

I Remember that Before Removin' all that Stuff... (The Cathalitic Converter, the Filter inside the "Y" Pipe, the Carbon Canister, All the Sensors and its Hoses... even the EGR Stuff, etc) ...My Family and I Couldn't take the Subie for a Ride Without come Off the Car with Bloody Red Eyes, Head Ache and other Weird Symptoms, Beside the Horrible "Rotten Eggs" Odor comin' from the Exhaust... People Looked at Us as if we were Using Drugs! ... :eek: ... Also the Subie was Easily Overheating and Felt Very UnderPowered, Weak as if it was Runnin only with alcohol instead of Gasoline... :drunk:Such a Nightmare!

After that Stuff were Removed, the car felt like if two tons of weight was taken off the Car... (well, seeing all that Stuff in a Huge Box looked so Heavyweighted) ...the Subie Ran Cooler with Easily Revving engine, it Sounded Louder! :brow: also the Engine Bay Looked Cleaner.

The Only Vacuum lines (Hoses) That the Dealer leaved, were:

  1. The secondary Stage for the Craptachi Carb (Now Weberized, so it was Closed in 2006)
  2. The A/C Vacuum for the inside System and its Return to the Accelerator's Actuator, next to the Carb.
  3. The Vacuum Advance at the Distribuitor was Changed from the Two Port Version, to the Single Port Version, so there is another Hose.

The "Shift Up" Light continued to Display Normally around above the 4,000 RPM's (Depending, of Fast Accelerations it came earlier) for all these Years, without any Signal Sending Unit, So I Was Wondering about How the ECU Obtains the Signal to Display that Light on the Dashboard...

The Answer, I Believe; Could be Found on the Tachometer itself... I Believe it is Something done at the Dashboard.

Does Anybody else here has a "Shift Up" Light on their Subies? ... I'll Like to see if Anybody had Faced this Problem and any other information will be Very Welcome.

Kind Regards.

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Many of the 80's Ford Escorts had the "shift up" light as you described, worked the same way as your car. This was purely a fuel-saving device to prompt drivers into shifting when maximum fuel efficiency can be achieved. Any attempt at using any more than minimum power to move the car (like going up hills or entering a freeway) would illuminate the light.

 

Our solution: ignore it.

 

Hope this helps.

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OK, I know and Understand that... I ignored it the First 24 Years of Owning that Subie (Well... First was my Dad's) but when it Became First to Come On at Half of the Usual Rpm's (2,000) and Now it Blinks During Acceleration...

 

I am Afraid that it could be a Sign of an ECU Failure... That is why I'm Asking' here: Maybe there's Somethin' to Fix to Prevent an ECU Failure.

 

Kind Regards.

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:).

 

OK, I'm just guessing here...if there is no loss of performance, it could be a throttle position sensor or possibly a fuel flow sensor of some kind that's wearing out, sending an incorrect reading to the ECU.

 

I just re-read your posts.

 

There's lots of things that have been removed, and the ECU expects those things to all be there.. it's confused. The parts that are still remaining are very old and wearing out, confusing the ECU more.

 

You mentioned something inside the tachometer may be not operating right. That is also a possibility.

 

Hope this helps, I'm just thinking of some more possibilities. :)

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Its been a number of years since I had that 2wd 85 wagon with its craptachi, but it died with the shift up light coming on at just over 1500 rpms IIRC. I always laughed at it knowing it was wrong....obviously. I was my first car and might have been a Cali car, I just dont remember. It never did run right, but, it would run like a bat out of hell( for what it was) once it was moving. Came close but the carb just always came into play on startup and really low rpm driving. That was way before I found this place. Had I only known back then.....:rolleyes:

 

Might be an '85 only thing?

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Okay......stopme if I'm missing something.......but if the car is running a weber, wouldn't any ECU it may have ever had be irrelavant and not doing anything?

 

 

Take the friggin bulb out.

 

IF the car has an ECU anymore, it certainly isn't needed to run the Weber.

 

On the Original hitachi you can simply disconnect the ECU and the car still runs fine.

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Thank you for your Kind Answers.

 

... no loss of performance...

 

No, There's No Performance Loss at All.

 

... it would run like a bat out of hell...

 

Yes' date=' I Know that :)[/color']

 

...Might be an '85 only thing?

 

Well...

 

...if the car is running a weber' date=' wouldn't any ECU it may have ever had be irrelavant and not doing anything? ...[/quote']

 

Yes, is Runnin' Great with the Weber, but I Believe that the ECU has Somethin' to Do with the Engine's Start, also with the Tachometer's RPM Needle... maybe I Miss somethin' else.

 

So, (Please correct me if I'm Wrong) I Believe that if the ECU Fails, the car Won't Start... isn't it?

 

That is the Reason of this Thread.

 

Kind Regards.

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With no EGR system, no Catalytic converter, no oxygen sensor, and a weber carb, there's really nothing the ECU is doing any more other than turning on the fuel pump. The shift up light was operated by the boost sensor reading (really just a MAP sensor on a non-turbo), and engine rpms. High rpms, but high vacuum, meant low load on the engine that was being revved higher than needed, so it would tell you to shift up.

 

Take the cluster surround off (there's 2 screws under the top and bottom HVAC buttons) and pull the bulb out.

 

The ECU was meant to run the air bleed solenoids and mixture control solenoid on the feedback hitachi carb, based on readings from the MAP coolant temp, and O2 sensor. Since you have a webber, there's nothing for the ECU to control except the pump, and that's easy enoght to run with either a non-feedback equipped cars pump controller or a relay.

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With no EGR system, no Catalytic converter, no oxygen sensor, and a weber carb, there's really nothing the ECU is doing any more other than turning on the fuel pump.

 

The feedback ECU's don't run the fuel pump.

 

That is still done by a "rev Sensor" or FPCU. Same as the Non-feedback.

 

Trust me.....you can unplug the computer and run the car all day. If you got a weber now, chuck the old ECU.....it's dead weight.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you for your Kind Answers :)

 

 

OK, OK ... So I Can Grab the ECU and Remove it from the Subie without any Problem... I Was 98% Sure of That except for the Ignition Start Control, 'cos a Friend of Mine Told me that the Subie Won't Start without the ECU...

 

...is that True?

...How is the Engine Start Related to the ECU?

 

 

Kind Regards.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just unplug the connectors from the ECU, it's attached to the bottom of the steering column right above your shins. If it starts and the tach still works, it's fine.

 

The feedback computer did nothing with the ignition as far as I know. It only diddled with the hitachi carb.

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Just unplug the connectors from the ECU, it's attached to the bottom of the steering column right above your shins. If it starts and the tach still works, it's fine.

 

The feedback computer did nothing with the ignition as far as I know. It only diddled with the hitachi carb.

 

+1

 

If it works, yay, if not, just plug it back in... No harm no foul.

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  • 6 months later...

Fixed! :banana:

 

Last Weekend I Had to Remove one of the Batterie's Terminals in order to do Basic Battery Maintenance (You know: Check its Fluid, Clean the Contacts... ) and when I Replaced the Terminal, the "Shift-Up" Light Returned Magically to its Normal Behaviour, like when the Subie was New: Just Comin' On only at Sustained High RMP's in Lower-than 5th Gears.

It was just like "Reset" a CPU... Somehow... I Think.

Kind Regards.

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