Feels like a spark cut-off, or maybe fuel cut-off... i dunno

[TheSubaruJunkie]

Yesterday morning i woke up, and drove my car home from a friends house. Its a 30mile drive, and the car drove great. No problems. Mind you, it was raining and its one of our 1st rainfalls here in California.

 

I get home and park it, then I go out later in the afternoon to head to my parents house. As soon as I pull out of the driveway and head down the street I feel the car bucking and backfire, so i lay off the gas and it goes back to normal. No stalling. So I drive off, and feather the throttle.

 

Im able to drive the car just fine, as long as Im feathering the throttle. If i give it too much gas it cuts out and bucks, backfires and doesnt want to drive. Seems to only do it if the engine is under load, or hard acceleration. At a stand still I can rev the engine to 6k no problem. If Im in gear and lightly accelerate it will go to 6k no problem, but heaven forbid if I want to actaully get up and go... any hard acceleration and the car just cuts out on me.

 

I spoke with Ryan and he suggested my fuel filter. Once i thought about it, it made sence so I bought a new filter. The car drove better for about 1/4 mile on its test drive, but the problem came back. As soon as I got home I swapped the Diamond coilpack for the stock one to see if it was the coilpack. On that test drive the car was able to accelerate from 1st to 2nd to 3rd no problem... but as soon as I shifted to 4th the problem re-appeared and now its back no matter what.

 

Im kinda stumped. Hardy and Scott say to check the plugs (i havent yet) but they're new, no more than 2000miles.

 

I find it odd that this problem would appear out of the blue, and wonder if maybe its related to the weather.

 

Anyone have anything like this happen before?

 

-Brian

[Dazed Dreamer]

Yesterday morning i woke up....................

-Brian

 

I think I am having a similiar problem I have posted about this a couple times but havent gotten any thing yet the only difference is I dont seem t obe backfiring and I got a 93 impreza......but I notice it runs fine with the engine is cool but once it reaches its normal running temp thats when I start having problems similiar to that

[TheSubaruJunkie]

Doesnt matter if my engine is warm or cold.

 

Its a EJ22T for anyone who doesnt know.

 

-Brian

[Dazed Dreamer]

I fixxed my problem for some reason I had anti freeze in spark plug 1 wich scared me at first cause I know thats a sign of something broken but there was no antifreeze in spark plug 3 which is right next to it and some reason when the engine heated it it caused that cylander not to fire im sure and i am hoping that the reason the antifreeze got there is because when I first brought the car home we put an older cap on the radiator which wasnt a tight fit and it sprayed coolent all over so Im guessing it got down inside that one but I pulled it and cleaned it out so if it returns then I know I got a bigger problem

[Gnuman]

Head Gasket? At least that is what it sounds like to me. . .

 

Sure it was antifreeze? perhaps some water got in there from the rain? How does your air filter look? have you pulled the rest of the plugs yet? Hey, I'm only in Antioch (well Oakley, but still just at the other end of 160), Perhaps I could wander out that way and lend a hand?

[NV Zeno]

Brian, I've had those symptoms on a couple of cars over the years, and it turned out each time to be a bad (or loose) spark plug wire. Couldn't hurt to throw a new set on, Autolite lifetime guarantee wires at Kragens are only about 25 clams or so.

 

My 2 bucks