Stage 2 hell

I dont want to get too long winded, but I am now still up at 7am after begining work on my Legacy at 8am Friday (vacation day).

 

Basically I made a tuning appointment and took a vacation day 1 month in advance. UPS lost my first down pipe, then damaged the second. That brings us to wednesday of this week, I then had to next day air one so I would have it to work on the car Friday/today/yesterday.. whichever it currently is. I would have installed the parts weeks in advance if I had them, I've had a back up vehicle for the past 3 weeks while my parents were out of town.

 

Anyways, I by no means made it a rush job, but did have a deadline. Got the uppipe/downpipe/ all new gaskets installed and started car to check for exhaust leaks. Everything seemed sealed up fine. After the car ran okay, I decided to put a fresh set of plugs in before the tune, as the shop tuning the car suggested. These are a "6" level plug which I was told is slightly colder than the factory plug. Plugs were installed carefully by myself, upon reassembly the car ran terrible. Threw P0301, P0303. ECU reset had these same codes still come up so I switched the plugs from cylinder 1 to 2 and cylinder 3-4. Drove the car, seemed to idle much better, but still not as smooth as normal. Flashing CEL (P0303 only) would occur only during revs over about 2600, and then would nearly die everytime the gas was let off.

 

Took it back home and pulled the plug to the #3 coil, and the motor did not idle any differently. I then swapped the #3 coil for a different one and it does the same. At this point I assumed I must have got a bad plug, so I switched ALL plugs back to the original ones. Still P0303 is thrown, coil works fine on any cylinder it is swapped with except #3. I have no reason to think it may be a bad injector, they were untouched, the vehicle gets injector cleaner every oil change, and the plug was gas soaked. The wiring looks fine running to the plug, and the pins look okay on the plug.

 

My tuner suggested it is more likely a vaccum issue causing a false misfire code. Checked every line I could see, gently tugged on some I couldnt (by feel) and also checked the blue T connector that has popped off before.

 

Any advise would be appreciated.. looks as though I will not be making that appointment today.. I don't think I'll be safe to drive even if I do figure it out.

I don't see any mention of Cobb AP. I think you need to load the stage 2 map. Or get it to the Tuner so they can plug in the laptop and set things up for what you've done.

 

I'm know expert but that's what I can come up with.

 

There are a few guy's on here that will be able to help you. When I had my catless UP/DP installed the shop flashed the car to stage 2 but I drove it an hour with a CEL to my Tuner where he plugged in his Laptop and tuned the car.

I have no idea what the CEL was, I called him and he said it was ok to drive it to him.

 

BTW he had put the colder plugs in my car months before.

 

On the Street tune, one of the hoses did pop off. He said the zip tie them when I got home.

1) You don't need colder plugs. All they do is foul more easily. You can make power just fine with stock plugs. I've actually spoken to an engineer at a plug company about this. The change in heat range is marginal, and not enough to provide any benefit for the increased risk of fouling. If you were using Nitrous, he said, then it might be something to consider. Otherwise, not worth the bother.

 

2) You HAVE to have a stage-2 map on the car, or it's going to run like butt.

 

If I were in your shoes, I'd hop over to Advanced Auto or the dealer and grab a set of new OEM plugs. Install them, flash the stage-2 map, and then get it over to the tuner to get tuned.

 

I bet your problem goes away when you get rid of those plugs.

Sounds like the OP has the original plugs back in the engine, so I don't 'think' it would be a plug problem. Wouldn't hurt to double check the gap if you are unsure though.

 

Check to make sure your MAF sensor is plugged back in. I've seen that cause a mis-fire code before. Also, check to make sure your O2 sensor is plugged in. If it's off, it can also cause a rich condition that would show up as a missfire.

Given your original mis-fires were on cylinders 1 & 3 (same side of engine), I would also check to make sure you didn't swap coil pack locations. The wires are long enough to reach both locations.

Without a log of your car running you will be working in circles to solve. Romraider a cable and laptop is your best friend.

Thanks for the replies.

 

Finally got a few hours sleep, back playing with it. Put a set of OEM Densos (autozone was out of stock on the NGKs) in it, no improvement. Same code. The misfire is only cylinder 3, so I dont think it is the wires being switched.

 

I do not have an accessport, I was advised that I could bolt up the downpipe/uppipe, and drive it straight to have the ECU flashed easily and have no issues, especially with a misfire. Tripple checked all o2 sensors, and the EGT sensor that I had to move into the new uppipe, all are snug with no messed up pins.

 

Is this something that may go away with the tune? Im really afraid to cause damage by driving it 2 hours with it misfiring.

 

Please advise.

This has nothing to do with the uppipe/downpipe. Car should run fine (enough) with them without a reflash. The one step colder plugs shouldn't cause an idle problem either. You have real physical problem with something related to cylinder 3. It won't go away with the tune, and don't drive it 2 hours.

 

If you're in there swapping plugs again, it couldn't hurt to do a compression test just to rule that out.

 

Does the plug for #3 go in smooth and straight? Is the crush washer on the plug compressed?

 

Took it back home and pulled the plug to the #3 coil, and the motor did not idle any differently.

 

Oh yeah, to me, this is huge - you should not be able to do that at all, lol. You have no spark. If that plug/cyl is also flooded with gas, you clearly aren't getting spark there. Definitely do some research and detailed troubleshoot on the ignition system on that plug.

Thank you. I wish it was the injectors on the other side haha. Plug threads nicely and the crush washer on the old/new set haha (the colder plugs bought then removed in 8 hours to switch to OEM) appeared crushed, cannot see this plug obviously but I'm confident it is snug. It is just so strange that this occured during what I think of as a completely unrelated install. I will look into the compression test if injectors get me no where I suppose.

See my edit, I think it's something that was "disturbed" in the #3 ignition system during your plug install, especially if it idled fine with the up/down before you touched the plugs. I would pull up the "vacation pics" troubleshoot guide for the ignition, and do other research - do a full troubleshoot of that before you mess with the fuel system.

I absolutely agree with you turbodog. I felt the same, however before Maxcapacity was kind enough to provide the manual link (which I will flip through tonight/ tomorrow morning) I did a little testing of my own. The plug gets power rythmically (seemed normal, as when it should be firing) and the coil does spark when held against the valve cover and cranked. It was both audible and visible so it seemed like a strong enough spark to me. I can't wait for this to be something painfully simple I disturbed. Thanks for the insight.

Make sure the coil pack is well seated. Did it slip right on or did you have to really press it in to bolt it on?

 

I don't mean to sound condescending with that, just covering the "stupid stuff". It took me like 15 minutes to get the #3 on . It should glide right on.

I absolutely agree with you turbodog. I felt the same, however before Maxcapacity was kind enough to provide the manual link (which I will flip through tonight/ tomorrow morning) I did a little testing of my own. The plug gets power rythmically (seemed normal, as when it should be firing) and the coil does spark when held against the valve cover and cranked. It was both audible and visible so it seemed like a strong enough spark to me. I can't wait for this to be something painfully simple I disturbed. Thanks for the insight.

 

I'm not an expert on the finer points of ignition, but it's possible you are getting a weak spark for some reason...? I would follow the troubleshooting process or try to get a measurement on it.

when i went stage 2 my car ran like butt until tuned. i even got it to go into limp mode because im an idiot and had to drive it hard without a map. get tuned and see what happens plus tuner will be able to log everything and work out a solution for you.

Sorry I kinda skim read this but if its happening on cylinder three and give changed the plugs and its still cylinder three did you try just switching the coil packs? I had this on my dads ford where we changed all plugs and it ended up being the one coil pac that was bad ... hope this helps

Sometimes the connector clips that plug into the coil pack can come loose or ajar, unplug coil pack 3 and check for a solid clip-in connection. You're gunna get CEL's with stage 2 hardware and no tune, and yet it is safe to drive to the tuner like this- try to keep the rpm's below 3000 and stay out of boost if at all possible. Fix the misfire then get to the tuner asap.

 

And like Mike said above, swap coil pack 3 with another cylinder's, start it, unplug the suspected bad coil and note any changes in the idle. If there's no change in idle then it's a bad coil pack. If there's an even rougher idle when unplugging it, the pack is fine, but there's something funky going on with cyl 3 compression. I bet it's either a bad connection to the cp or a bad cp completely.

This should be a lesson to EVERYONE considering modification.

 

If you are going to modify your car, make sure it is in good mechanical order before doing so.

Why would they come loose though I thought they had rubber grommets to keep em in nice and tight and a side not I thought the accessport was all you needed to tune .. so you need the accessport and a professional tune to be stage two with supporting mods .. I.e. dp

Why would they come loose though I thought they had rubber grommets to keep em in nice and tight and a side not I thought the accessport was all you needed to tune .. so you need the accessport and a professional tune to be stage two with supporting mods .. I.e. dp

 

The coil pack harness plug, not the spark plug to coil pack connection. They have been known to have a bad connection, especially after mucking with them with a spark plug change. I've seen it happen from time to time. This case is more than likely a bad CP. And no, you don't NEED a tune once you go AP stage 2. (FYI stage 2 AP maps are all intended to be used with a stock air intake). However, an open source tune is far superior to a cookie-cutter AP map.

IMO accessports are a waste. opensource is cheaper and does the same thing, just cant switch between maps (get a cheap net book for $300 spend $200 on tune compared to $500 for AP and $150-$200 for custom tune)

Ok I got a netbook lol so who's software would be good to put on here ... or could I just get a professional to street tune it and it'll be the same instead of me trying to dick around with it?

PM Infamous on this forum. There's plenty of info about him in this Tuning forum. Just buy the appropriate cable and download the instructed software, or, again, look in this forum for instructions how to do everything

Yes hahahahah im just debating esther its worth it to do it myself or pay a tuner to do it ... I live near andrew up in gaithersburg my brother took his cars up to him to get tuned

If you don't know what you're doing, pay a tuner.

K =] haha its funny I don't even own one of these and im soakin in all the info I can and reading everything about anything to make sure I get the right one

pay a tuner but with your net book get a tactrix? cable and romraider.com will have the software you need to log if you etune w/ infamous1. but dont f with inputs and variables, thatll lead to a no-more-car problem