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Stalls going uphill and acceleration


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92 Subaru Legacy AWD 2.2L Auto Trans 250,000km

I have been having problem with it dying on heavy acceleration and going uphill.

On flat and cruising the car is fine. It idles nice and will accelerate nice and smooth for short distance. Going uphill the car is under load, it will start to missfire and then will start to loss power and then die. I then pull over ,let it sit for 1-2 min and it starts, it also idles smooth. But the next hill the same thing. I was getting a lot of detonation from the engine before it would die ,but I changed the plugs. I put in plugs that where one step colder. One other thing is that when the car is cold ,it seams to run better.

Other thing I have done.

 

-Sea foam

-Water injected into engine

-Plug wire

-TKO injector cleaner( not the cheap junk)

-Fuel pump

-Knock sensor New

I am thinking MAF. sensor, I will pick up one from the wrecker.

 

Help Please any ideas.

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I am not getting any codes.

I have just done a compression check

1,2,3, are 175, and 4 is 190

Also have tried 91 octane but still the same thing.

I will try the coolant sensor.

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Hi Brama,

this is a fairly well known "feature" of the 1990-1995 liberty 2.2 litre Liberty/Legacy models.

 

There are quite a few threads on USMB (and other Suby support sites) regarding this problem - these are the most recent on USMB, I think.

 

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=19616&highlight=gremlins

 

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=22907&highlight=leggy+trouble

 

If you read these threads you'll see that I have fixed this problem with my Liberty and was trying to develop a kit to allow other Subyholics to also fix this problem. The current status is that I have just shipped two of my new design fix-kits to two guys who are having this problem - they are my fix-kit test pilots. One lives in Australia (93 Liberty auto AWD wagon - non-turbo) and the other lives in New Zealand (1990 Legacy 2000 GT turbo). Nobody from the US responded to my requests for volunteers. I'm waiting for my testers to confirm that they've received their fix kits. Then they have to install the kits and do some testing. I'm hoping that they will get back to me in about 2 weeks (hopefully less).

 

Brama, stop throwing money at the car for a while - the MAF is expensive and, whilst a dodgy MAF could cause your problem, I don't think it is your problem (the MAF sensor seems to be pretty darn tough).

 

One thing though, I'm starting to believe that the pinging you describe is another part of the problem. This could explain why these cars don't seem to show the symptoms until they get about 150,000 Kms on the clock. RichieRich has definitely fixed cars by using Moto-Vac (see posts from T.J.) which I think possibly works for some cars as it probably reduces the engine pinging under load. My kit also reduces the pinging on my car when going up hills (but it does not entirely eliminate it - my engine has 205,000Km on it). Therefore I think that continuing to use fuel treatments that remove valve and combustion chamber deposits can help reduce the problem, but again, it isn't the whole story.

 

Cheers,

PacMan

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  • 5 months later...

Fixed it finally.

Front Cat was bad. Pieces of the cat were breaking inside, so under light thorttle they would sit on the bottom. But when going uphill and heavy thottle they would plug the screen. I did test the exshaust system with a vacume gauge before and it seemed fine. But someone told me that it may test fine with a gauge because you cann't duplicate driving.

So if you have this problem. don't rule out the cat. ( there are 2 of them).

I was lucky to get a parts care with a good cat. Because they are expensive.

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Brama you beat me to my post......my bro the pro mechanic says exactly the same. It might be pieces of your cat breaking up then plugging the exhaust, choking your engine with its own backpressure fumes. My 2001 Forester (85k miles) lost power up hill, so I replaced the plugs and tightened down the valve cover bolts (cuz I found oil around sp plug boots) and haven't had a problem since.

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