StkmltS

It runs the same as usual. The misfire is still present, but it otherwise drives fine as long as the LVs stay where they shouldn't be... should be... whatever. It's been sitting in my garage for about a week now with a halfway completed oil change while I've been waiting for my local dealership to call me back saying I can come pick up my new valve cover bolt. Once that shows up I'll recheck the valve clearances, fix the broken bolt, finish the oil change, and change the TB + goodies. Several weeks ago I replaced all of the 4mm & 6mm OEM vacuum hoses with new silicone ones. I've also replaced the broken grounding strap.

I bought an oil analysis from WIX (on Amazon) and mailed it off this past Monday. In the sadistic "a Subaru owns me" kind of way I'm hoping it comes back with abnormally high aluminum content. Next month I'll put a line in the budget to have TIC look at the car.

Turn in Concepts ("FU Cam Bolts" anyone?) is only about 30 minutes away... but I'm too afraid of what I think they'll say

My leaky OCV has been fixed for a while now, but even with that leaking and smoking for several weeks my oil level hasn't dropped. I'm getting close to my next oil change, which means my oil consumption between OCIs (3k) is still as close to zero as can be measured via the dipstick. For the love of spending money on this car I'm probably going to get an oil analysis done to see if it tells me anything new. I noticed the color of my coolant is a little murky so I may send some of that to get checked too. At this point I'd be pretty excited to find out I need a new head gasket.

I reset my ECU on the way home and within a couple minutes IAM went back up to 1. Now I just have to fight the rough idle and stalling until the LVs get back up to where they should be... shouldn't be... my car hates me.

It was still at .625 for my drive to work this morning so if it doesn't go back up to 1 on my drive home I'll reset the ECU and see if that does any good.

I guess the ECU could have been reset somehow, but how often do ECU's spontaneous reset themselves? I didn't tell it to reset and the battery didn't get disconnected. My wife can't drive a manual so I know she didn't do anything. When my ECU resets the IAM does go to .5, but I've never seen it at anywhere between .5 or 1.0. After a reset it usually stays at .5 for about ten to twenty minutes of driving and then it goes right to 1.0. Last night my wife said "You aren't going to like this, but maybe you should think about selling the wagon".... ahhhhh!

Something strange is afoot... I haven't done anything to the motor since I last chimed in. *** See attached pic The car is idling rough like it usually does while re-learning the values. What's going on with my timing correction today? Is it possible that turning on my AC influenced this? I looked in my engine bay when I got home and everything seems to be as it should be. I had to get a new tire on 8/28. Obviously the tire shop reset my ECU, my guess is because they probably stalled it a time or two and the CEL turned on. I'm going to replace the broken grounding strap tonight and I'll drive it around for a while to see if I can get the timing to correct itself.

The first post in my misfire thread is a long read but it may give you ideas on things to try.

Next time you're going up there let me know and I'll try to come up and watch. A guy I work with races an old Ford wagon (9-sec 1/4s) and I've been meaning to make the trip up anyways. I won't deny that the design of mufflers and exhaust systems vary between brands, but with pipes I think paying for a name brand is a waste of money unless there's something special about that brand's design. I'm not saying the cheapest knock-off on ebay is the best decision, but unless there are performance advantages of one brand over another (eg. Perrin turbo inlet vs. generic) then go with something modestly priced and spend the savings elsewhere.

Thanks dudes. Looks like I need to dig through my bucket-o-bolts tonight.

Where is this grounding strap supposed to connect to the engine? It's the one near the front driver side wheel. http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/08/18/2b36c8cbd37e82d9a5a8073f29401d36.jpg Sent from inner space.

South of Cincinnati / Northern Kentucky Today around 6pm I saw an RBP GT wagon at the 71/75 & 275 exchange. Female driver, tinted windows, small "Subaru Tecnica International STI" decals on the sides. Anyone? I was driving my DD beater otherwise I would have stalked

If your '08 3.0R is like the '05's it looks like you have a chain instead of a belt. For the '05 2.5L turbo it's in the FSM on page ME(H4DOTC)-46. "Align the alignment mark on the timing belt with marks on the sprockets in the alphabetical order shown. While aligning marks, position the timing belt properly."

For that 90 seconds the average AFR (lambda) was 0.9715. After resetting the ECU it idles like crap until it learns it's way back up to 15%. At that point my rough idle becomes smooth, but the misfires still remain. Aw, but where's the fun in that? I wasn't aware of how much it affects things so I'll work on being gentle with the throttle when logging. Will do. Will do. I logged my entire last couple of drives to/from work/home so I'll play around with the data during my down time. Thanks for the help!

LV's haven't improved. Are there better parameters that I should be looking at? I'm really in the dark here and almost arbitrarily picking things to graph.

No dice, my butt-o-meter detects no change in the idle.

Is it 5-axis?

My car doesn't know any other LGTs or OBXTs, but one of my neighbor's friends has a blobeye STI that may be willing to help out. Last night I went to a small Subaru gathering at a Sonic drive-in and there was an OBXT there. I guess I should have offered to buy them a milkshake as a trade for 5 minutes with their MAF sensor. But then again they ordered expensive shakes... My new vacuum hoses arrived and my wife+kids aren't going to be home until late tonight

Kroger brand hot sauce I don't like bragging, but I'm somewhat of a local legend for turning simple projects into DIY nightmares just to save a buck. But when it comes to messing with expensive-to-replace things (eg. MAF sensor), I'm a large financial supporter of the "right tool for the right job" club. So yes, I used CRC MAF sensor cleaner.

Sounds like a ton of fun (AKA $$$$$). Why can't they make fun cars affordable and last forever? I cleaned my filthy MAF sensor on my lunch break and I'm holding my breath...

That's good info, I'll def look in to it. I fell like we could be good friends because we've gone through all of the same crap haha. It's a frustrating process isn't it. When is your new head gasket(s) happening? Are you going to get your valves cleaned up at while they're in there?

The 50 seconds of idle is on CR's stg0 tune but the pull is on the OEM tune. I'll do a pull tonight on my new tune. I haven't touched the O2 sensor, and I've only cleaned the connectors inside the MAF sensor harness.

I figured out why my plot showing boost vs boost target was so funky. It had two different pulls overlapped and it was connecting data points that weren't adjacent.