91 RHD postal wagon.... at my wits end!! ( failed engine+ tranny swap)

[Alaskan__Wolf]

hi all, new to the forum, and to Subarus in general, but ive been working on my wife's right hand drive 91 legacy l postal wagon... and I'm about to set it on fire and call it a loss, unless someone on here can help me.

 

I'll try to be brief and to the point, but there has been a lot of troubleshooting done already so the list of things i've done is long. This all started with the transmission eating up the drivers side short shaft and destroying the internals necessitating a tranny swap, and since the engine was nearing the end of its service life, we decided to get both a the local pull and save. What follows is the poop show since i started this. Also, all parts have been sourced at a pull and save junkyard unless otherwise noted.

Bottom line:car won't run if given gas, and occasionally will idle fine until throttle is applied, and now just won't stay idling 

 

 

--  Missed the cam shaft position sensor clip in the disassembly stage and ripped it off during removal. replaced with known good part from a friends donor car.

--  Wired the cam position sensor wrong and fried the ECU. Corrected/Replaced.

--  Suspected a bad sensor somewhere, so picked up a power probe tek Maestro series tool and verified that BOTH cam and crank position sensors had failed. replaced with tested (passing) sensors

--  Spark plugs were checked for good spark, all passed

-- Compression was tested on all cylinders. cylinders 1 and 3 had odd readings, first test they maxed out below 90psi. then all subsequent tests held steady at 120. cylinders 2 and 4 held steady at 120 from test #1. No leak down test performed

--  tested injector failure by pulling the wire harness plugs one at at time, results inconclusive.

--  Suspected bad engine internals, pulled engine. discovered that the valves were sticking on the left hand side, and the head had etching on it causing it to leak into the cylinder. Got "new" engine from previously said friends car. This car has a KNOWN running and functional engine.

at this point the car would try and start but JUST wouldn't catch and maintain idle. Also experienced massive backfires up into the manifold. So timing was checked, found to be one tooth off. corrected this. At this point, as per all the troubleshooting above, it was determined that it was the engine we purchased that was bad.

--  Installed "new" engine, remounted RHD manifold and all other components. Car ran at idle!!! sounded healthy. But upon giving it throttle, it would INSTANTLY die.

--  Replaced PCV valve, old one suspected to be faulty. No change

--  Replaced RHD manifold with manifold previously attached to current engine (LHD). noticed some porting location differences for the vacuum system between the two manifolds. Car will not start without throttle, but will die withing seconds of releasing the key from the start position.

--  noticed starter seems to "hit" at a certain point in starting the car...this is new behavior.. like there's something resisting and causing the starter to hesitate. Best way I could describe it

 

What am I missing? Is it some electrical issue? or more likely something with the vacuum system? Fuel delivery? I'm so confused as to what this could be... I've gone over each system and tried to rule out all the variables as sequentially as possible... but it still is baffling me. We NEED this car running as its a postal vehicle.

 

If you have read this far, thank you... I've tried to be as concise as possible, but as detailed too.

[lmdew]

Make sure the 1" hose going from the air box to the IAC is on the airbox!

Often overlooked!

[el_freddo]

What Imdew said. 

Also investigate your fuel pump if that IACV hose is properly connected. 

Cheers 

Bennie

[Rampage]

MAF sensor plugged in? Do you have one you can swap?

Is the Knock Sensor plugged in? Remove it and see if the plastic is cracked. OE has it pointed towards "your" steering wheel. Some of the earlier blocks have a raised portion that will push up on the sensor and crack the plastic. I put ours in pointed the other direction.

Fuel lines connected properly at the intake? The top one is supply from the fuel filter. Fuel filter ok?

I would check fuel pressure connected between filter and engine. Ours is around 28 PSI. Does it drop when you open the throttle? If you momentarily pinch the return fuel line, it should jump up to around 80-90 PSI if the pump is good.

When you swap intakes, you are also swapping Idle Air Control valve, Throttle Position sensor, Fuel injectors, fuel pressure regulator and ignition coil, unless you are swapping those parts.

We have a 95 and 97 RHD Legacy Wagons. My wife is a Rural Carrier. All three are going to retire shortly. Rust is taking it's toll on the cars.