If you are confident that the cam timing is correct & you have a rough idle, you may possibly have a fouled plug / dodgy coil pack?

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Cheers,

Simon.

pulled the pin?

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[I]Personal chef[/I]

That is good to know. It makes infinite sense when I think about it. Good to see someone was thinking when they conceived the little makers.

No, I did not touch the throttle body or fuel filter (* minus knocking one hose off it by accident - the one without the clamp).

I really don't like coincidences. It seems likely that something is amiss with the stuff I touched or inadvertently touched. I knocked one of the hoses off the fuel filter (one of the hoses without a clamp). I must have done this when ripping at the radiator hoses. Putting it back on achieved next to zero from what I could tell.

On the tensioner: Yes. On fixing the issue: No.

Given the amount of time I have spent on this already I know each nut and bolt (on the stuff I touched) like the back of my hand. I am thinking I might rip out the radiator fans again, drop the alternator and A/C belts, pop the crank pulley, pull the covers and check the timing once again. I know in my own mind it can't be out as I took photos. But who knows now the belt has stretched a bit it could conceivably be off ever so slightly.

The only other thing is that I never drive my car down to the low fuel level. Given it was out of action, when I started the job it was down under 1/4 and I neglected to fill it up. Running it and pissing about I sucked a bit of fuel. I might have sucked a bit of bad fuel/dirt from the bottom of my tank. I guess I could always change out the filter and see if that makes any difference.

With that all said, I really want to reset the ECU. It will not reset and the "Check Engine" light just stays on when I connect the black/black, green/green connectors. Any ideas why this might be so?

Upon second thoughts, maybe the idle is bad given that the battery was disconnected for a few days. When I disconnect the battery I get a siren for a minute or two. I used the brakes to roll the car back, so I assume that would have reset the ECU after the power was all drained from the system?

If the CEL is on/flashing, you should be able to get the code from it.

I have attached the guide for reading the codes. I am fairly sure this is the GC8 one, though I also have a liberty one so here's hoping they aren't mixed up or something.

Once you plug the read connectors (black) together, the CEL should flash, short and long flashes in a sequence. If you read the guide it should determine what code/problem it is detecting.

You shouldn't be using the green connectors unless you want to clear codes completely.

Attached Files

How to Read Trouble Codes From the ECU.doc (61.0 KB, 12 views)

Given these idle issues never seem to get resolved, I thought I should post the outcome.

As mentioned previously, I went ahead and pulled the crank pulley and checked the timing. The timing looked OK, but not perfect. It seemed like it was close, but possibly out 1/2 a tooth if I squinted hard enough. On that basis I ended up pulling the belt and setting the timing so that the mark on the pulley (passenger side / or US drivers!) was before the mark on the cover, not slightly after. This made the timing look not as correct as it is meant to, but it made the car run like a dream. The idle is now perfect. No misses or hesitations, it is running better than it ever has. On to boost, off boost, it just purrs and is rather sprightly. Red lining the puppy and it is alive! It is so quiet at idle, although the Dayco belt makes a lot more noise than the OEM belt. With this change, there is no miss like there was before I did the belt.

So the moral to the story is, if you do a belt, and it idles poorly, then you have to pull the covers and play with it. Retarding it ever so slightly may well fix the issue for you.. I spent about 8 hours fiddling (after initially changing the belt) to get it perfect.. I would hate to do that for my day job!

Good news is that no cam or crank seal leaks (replaced them all) and the water pump and thermostat are all flawless. Now I can go back to enjoying my WRX'y

make sure you have sufficient clearance to belt guides too

I was a bit anal on the clearance. I had the dayco "clearance plastic" slipping in between the guide and belt nicely.

Bumping an old thread...

Recently swapped my near new (3,000km) EJ257 for a forged bottom end EJ257.

Only thing that changed was the internals but now I have a really rough idle and it tries to stall when coming to a stop, and hunts really bad when unloading yhe AC compressor.

I pulled the motor and checked over everything and played with the timing change discussed here, but didnt test it out on the car running.

I took some photos and just wanted to see if Ive lined it up correctly as per the above (1 tooth counterclockwise) and if this might be a solution to my problems?

Not a vac leak, tried new plugs, etc etc. Been there done that for all the usual so resorting to new things

1 tooth retarded



After rotating the crank a few times