legacycentral bbs

so, since I bought this car about 2 years ago it has not run that great. i mean it is reliable, and does run well but it has always had hesitation and terrible gas milage. So my starter was not disengaging and I figured I'd take advantage of the 55° weather to replace it. I had already picked one up this week from the dealer. I picked up a new O2 sensor as well because I read that could be a cause for poor gas milage. When I took apart the hokey saab ic setup I found that 90° elbow that goes from the resonator box to the turbo inlet to be cracked. now is a good time to point out that there is also a vf-?? from some wrx in this car with some rubber 90° elbow on the inlet of that. the two elbows were connected with a same diameter exhaust pipe piece but the turbo elbow was slightly larger diameter than the factory elbow piece and they had split the factory piece to try and get it to fit. well there was a huge gaping hole and I was excited to see what I thought to be the problem with the car running shitty. So, I replaced the starter, the O2 sensor, the water temp sensor, and fixed and put hose clamps on all the vacume lines and all the plumbing for the ic. I was excited and reset the ecu and started the car and ran it for about 20 mins at idle. I then drove the car and did not feel any difference at all. so now I'm wondering what else could be wrong. I was able to feel some shaft play with the turbo but it does make boost so I didn't know if a turbo could be bad but still make boost. I'm thinking I should look at the igniter and coil pack next. those should be easy swaps from my other wagon.

Any thoughts?

Have you changed the spark plugs and plug wires since getting the car?

yeah, thats the first thing I do when I get a car. spark plugs, wires, oil change, fuel filter and a K&N. Drove the car on the highway tonight, seems to be a little better but hard to tell with the butt dyno. That turbo is making some fluttering noises. I think the turbo is a piece of shit quite frankly.

mikec wrote:Have you changed the spark plugs and plug wires since getting the car?

These make a BIG difference on my SS! I can feel a difference in how my car behaves (starts knocking softly) and I slowly turn down my boost. About the time I'm running as low as 12-13 psi I replace plugs and I can run 16 psi again no problem. Plugs last me about 6 months, and they look completely fine when I change them. I'd like to upgrade my whole ignition system soon.

Mike,

I got some fluttering type noises on my vf-11, and get something similar with my TD05 as well. It's mainly around 0 psi or somewhere in that ballpark.

I have my suspicions it's from the stock bypass valve.

hey Josh,
this is a fluttering at full boost. it sounds like the turbo is struggling to make boost if I had to describe the sound in my mechanical intuition. the boost gauge does not move when its making this sound. I did feel some shaft play when I had it all apart this weekend but the turbo sounds fine normally. the shaft play was concentric, I could not grab the nut to pull it in and out to check endplay.
P.S. The 2 hour drive each way to my sisters killed my alternator. Started the car this morning and the batt light was on. checked with a volt meter and had 10 ish volts at the alt. piece of shit. took my core back to the dealer and put the 50 towards a new rebuilt from subaru. 275 for an alt. oh well, it will be worth it if we ever get and damn snow out here. 60° in december WTF!

Yeah....that doesn't sound too normal. However I don't know if worn bearings is going to cause that, or if it's a combination of issues.

My battery/brake lights flickered on & off on my trip to San Antonio. I'm pretty sure the issue is a bad connection on the sense & light leads from the alternator. The plug for the HO alternator I have is not sealed where the wires go in. So I need to clean them up, and seal the damn connector.

Yeah, I purchased a can of dielectric grease last weekend and a can of high pressure electrical contact cleaner. every sensor I touch from now on had gotten a blast of cleaner and a squirt of grease on the contacts before going back together. Also put some on the battery terminals.

weak coil could cause bad performance and bad gas mileage.

I'm going to do aome research on the msd setup. dont we still use the factory coilpack and the msd substitutes for the igniter?

All the stock components stay put for the MSD Dis-2 setup. You just interupt the signal from the ignitor to the coil and wire in the MSD.

+1 on the MSD.

A good ground mod might in order too. These things are 13+ years old and the grounds do weaken somewhat.

Legacy777 wrote:All the stock components stay put for the MSD Dis-2 setup. You just interupt the signal from the ignitor to the coil and wire in the MSD.

awesome, sounds easy. hummm all I need to do is stuff the msd somewhere in the engine bay lol.

as far as the grouding mod goes, I dont believe in it. I tihnk its a bandiade for the bad ground and I'll be going through all the factory grounding points and cleaning those.