87 RX sputters

[sparkyboy]

My 85 xt had some goofy problems with stumbling under high boost, right at 4,500 or 5000 rpm.

It was highly intermittent, maybe one out of every 25 full throttle blasts she would hit a total wall and I just about flew through the windshield. 

Let me ask you this, when the goofiness occured could you pedal through it? I.e. pump the gas to get her revving again? If I kept the pedal steady it was sputter and bucking city for me but a few half throttle to full pumping had her good.

Part throttle was never an issue. 

Once or twice I gave her such a hard time she went into limp mode.

I checked a few things, I suspected the knock sensor. The reason was because l absent mindedly put cheap gas in the tank and it seemed to get worse...I checked the tps, basic tune up and no love.

Anyway my problem was that my turbo was worn out, so oil was getting past the seal and getting pushed into the engine until the a/f ratio made good combustion impossible and trigger the knock. I never used a resistor to bypass the knock sensor thank god, I would have likely broken my ea82!

The previous owner told me that there was low compression, so either cracked head or bad hg. I took her word for it and was going for the epic swan song assplosion cause I have an ej22 standing by, but plieades has other plans. If I would have taken 10 minutes to do a compression check (all good!!!) I would be driving her right now, but I was punished for my insolence in the form of stripping the last nut to remove the turbo. Well now I will finally drop that exhaust and look for cracks.

Also my priorities were (still are) substantially backwards, stereo first, wheels next, then the health of the engine. Plus I bought into the hype that the ea82t sucks because of the "low" levels of hp, but if treated more like a torquey inline six you get treated right back.  Max torque is quite low in the powerband (181 ft/lbs at 2,800 rpm). Good times man.

On Tuesday, August 21, 2007 at 10:47 PM, rllywgn said:

Hey if you havent got the tune-up done yet.. you can swing by and ill help you do it. 

I'll be at the meet thursday if you can make it..

btw.. no one stocks ea82 fuel filters here in town.. usually have to be ordered..

let me know if i can help

^^ This is why vintage sube guys are the coolest around. 

It's funny, I can't find it now but I typed ea82t into youtube and a few dudes were chasing the same issue. It's like 25 minutes long and was taped on an old camcorder. Nice enough seeming guys, but the dude taping was easily distracted and went outside to get footage of some other old school subes. At the end it seems like you will get an answer, but no love. I left a snotty comment haha!

@2K4 STI is that the engine going in? 2 door or 4? Let's see some pics!

Cheers on the easy fix!

[carfreak85]

I haven't really driven the car enough to determine how frequent it is.  Discovered another hemorrhaging coolant hose on the last test drive, so waiting for a slew of NOS parts to tackle the PCV and turbo coolant/oil hoses before I drive her again.

Also picked up 12 ft. of vacuum hose to replace all the boost reference hoses.

Discovered that the center diff lock isn't interested in playing, even sitting still with the engine on.  Hmmmmmm...

[el_freddo]

Diff lock might not lock while idling if the dog gears aren’t aligned. Jack up a wheel, idle the car (properly chocked), flick the diff lock switch to locked, rotate lifted wheel until the centre diff is locked - or until it’s obvious there’s an issue with the diff lock actuation system.

If you’ve got vacuum to the solenoids and they click as they should, the next thing to check is the diaphragm actuator. You could do this by disconnecting the diff lock arm on the RHS of the gearbox, then use the switch with the engine idling to see if the cable moves. 

It’s a pretty simple system really! 

Cheers 

Bennie