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Is your car cutting out on Hard Right Corners?

Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 8:35 am
by syphon
Replace your fuel pump!

This has been said a few times, but I wanted to create a central thread to make searches a bit easier (it took me a while to find an answer to this probem).

My '93 Turbo Legacy Sedan had this problem... After a really hard RIGHT corner, the car would suddenly just cut out... then start going again. It was explained to me that this was caused by fuel sloshing away from the pump inside the gas tank, so the car would temporarily run out of fuel on the corner.

I read that someone had fixed this problem with their N/A wagon by getting a new fuel pump, so I did the same thing. I went on Ebay and bought a Walbro 255lph pump. I bought the model number GSS341 and everything was absolutely plug&play with my '93 Turbo Leggy. The fuel pump bolted right in, the wire harness matched up, it was an easy job!

Just remove your back-seat... Then unplug the fuel pump harness (it's one of the plugs) and then start your car. Let it run until it dies (this gets the pressure out of the fuel system). Then, pull the carpet up from the trunk. You'll see an oval shaped access port. Pull that up, then disconnect the hoses and pull the nuts and you can pull the whole Fuel Pump assembly out. After that, it's cake getting the new pump onto the assembly.

Now... if only this cured my hesitation problem :-\

Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 8:42 am
by BAC5.2
Could be the Jet pump on the drivers side too. If that goes out, fuel will slosh over into that well of the tank, and no longer be able to get over to the right side unless you swerve left to slosh it back over.

That's just another consideration.

Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 7:30 pm
by Legacy777
The jet pump has no moving parts, and works like a syphon, by using suction from the main fuel pump.

So unless something is cut, or what not, the jet pump should work fine as long as the main pump is working fine.

Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 10:36 pm
by mhrallyteam
I just replaced my fuel pump with a 2004 STI unit, and it still cuts under hard right cornering. Really HARD cornering..... so i don't put this problem too high on my list :wink:

Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 6:48 pm
by isotopeman
What about cutting out coming to a quick, complete stop - particularly with the noise pointing downhill. It acts as if the auto transmission isn't letting go where we would push the clutch in on a standard to keep it from killing the engine. Could that also be the fuel pump?

Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 11:15 pm
by syphon
Hmmm, honestly, it SOUNDS like a tranny issue to me, but I have no basis for that theory.

Does this happen to you regardless of fuel level? With my fuel pump problem, it'd only happen when I was at a half tank or less.

Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 12:17 am
by isotopeman
Fuel level doesn't change anything. how would acceleration in one particular direction -forward, backward (braking), left, right, etc- have an effect with the fuel pump? Is it how it's oriented in the car? I know it would cost more, but it seems baffles in the fuel tank would help keep the fuel (and center of gravity if you have enough of it in tank) where it should be under hard cornering, braking, all that stuff that makes the cars fun. Kind of like how some fire trucks have baffles in the water tank to keep from tipping over if they're full and turning.

Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 12:52 am
by syphon
In theory, the baffles should do this. I don't know exactly why i had this problem with the fuel pump, but I know replacing it fixed the problem :)

The fuel pump is oriented on the passenger side of the tank, so it makes sense that on a hard right turn, the gas would flow away from the pump (if the baffles somehow weren't doing their job).

Also, a thing to add... my problem was that my car had a sudden cut-out at high RPM, the engine never actually died. Your problem sounds like a tranny problem to me.