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2003 Subaru WRX acceleration problems plz read


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Agitor_
New User

Feb 26, 2010, 11:57 PM

Post #1 of 4 (4086 views)
2003 Subaru WRX acceleration problems plz read Sign In

Heres the story.
2003
Subaru
Impreza WRX
Manual Transmission
2.0T (EJ20T)
50-60k miles

I drove home from work and the car was just fine. I went to pull into my garage in reverse my friends car was in the way so i had to steer around it. I did and ended up in the garage a little crooked so I went to correct and put it into first pulled forward put it back in reverse to cut a little more and when i hit the gas and pulled out the clutch it died. I just figured I stalled it so I started it up again put it in first then reverse and it died again. I just figured I was having a bad driving day maybe, but the car was in spot. So later on that night I go to leave the house Put the car in first and go to drive when i hit the gas it stuttered a little bit like the engine wouldnt rev but then it kicked in and was fine. so I get down the road make a couple turns, and on a major street I pulled on to put the car in first and was accelerating around the turn when I let off the clutch it dies and doesnt accelerate. So I put the car in neutral restart the car rev the engine a bit and it revs just fine, put it into first try to accelerate out of first and it dies again, restart and try the same thing two more times, when I realize that it is only happening when I hit the gas while the clutch is in. So i slowly release the clutch with no gas and let it engage in gear and it does so fine, i let it run idle in gear for a min and then slowly stepped on the gas and it stuttered for a min but then started to accelerate so I backed off the gas for a min and with to accelerate again to see if anything would happen and it died again. by this time I turned around and started heading back for the house. So I started it up again put it in first slowly let out the clutch let it idle in gear for a min the slowly acclelerated and then it was running fine in gear and I switched to second and when I put the clutch in and hit the gas to accelerate it stuttered real bad so i let off the gas and the engine caught its idle and just sat at idle and didnt stall so then i slowly put on the gas again and once it got past 2k rpm it was fine and would hold just fine in gear so I went home in first gear at like 3.5-4k rpm. I noticed when I stepped on the gas when the clutch was in or it was in gear the rpms wouldnt jump up except for the few times where it let me accelerate. Now I have an check engine light blinking and it is acting very funny as you have read. Any advice would be much appreciated, I plan on getting a friend to run my codes tomorrow, just for now I'm trying to get any advice I can on what to do. Thanks for taking time to read and hopefully offer a solution.


Tom Greenleaf
Ultimate Carjunky / Moderator
Tom Greenleaf profile image

Feb 27, 2010, 6:23 AM

Post #2 of 4 (4081 views)
Re: 2003 Subaru WRX acceleration problems plz read Sign In

Get the code read - it has info waiting for you,

T



Agitor_
New User

Feb 28, 2010, 9:00 AM

Post #3 of 4 (4067 views)
Re: 2003 Subaru WRX acceleration problems plz read Sign In

Here are the Codes that came up:

1. P1301 - Manufacture COntrol Ignition or misfire
2. P0545 - Exhaust Temp ( I run catless exhaust so this always comes up) came up x2
3. p1544 - Manufacture Control Veh. Spd. Idle Speed Control Aux Inputs


When a friend and I looked at it he decided to reset the ECU to see if something had gotten messed up so when we went to disconnect the battery we noticed there was a rediculous amount of Corrosion on the positive terminal enough to cause alot of resistance so for about an hour we just cleaned off the battery and leads using coke and a wire brush and water to clean off the sticky residue. After we hooked everything back up when the battery was spotless and erased all the codes. Started up the car and went for a test drive to see if that fixed everything and after that I didnt have any problems so I dont know if what I had was just an intermittent problem or if we really fixed it by cleaning the terminals, any suggestions?


Tom Greenleaf
Ultimate Carjunky / Moderator
Tom Greenleaf profile image

Feb 28, 2010, 12:59 PM

Post #4 of 4 (4063 views)
Re: 2003 Subaru WRX acceleration problems plz read Sign In

How long has it run without converter(s)? It's so heavily engineered into the operation that one issue of exhaust temp is causing maxed out overcompensation of other adjustments and could be the grace period is up.

Good battery and connections have always been important so that may be enough or not. Can't say because of the model year and now no cats?

Converters first came out for production use in most but not all vehicles in MY - 1975. They screwed up badly at first with folks purposely or unwittingly using the leaded regular which was cheaper and more octane than "unleaded" needed for use of converters. Even the gas stations were cheating - tanks in the ground (here) didn't know what they were getting.

Guilty as charged, we were putting "Y" or "H" pipes on popular cars from MY 1974 - many fit exactly solving clogged up converters early on at a fraction of the costs. Never did notice real performance difference from a good vehicle with or without converters as the engines themselves were so de-tuned for emissions they were almost all lousy for power vs much older stuff. At the time and earlier the way to higher HP was compression, displacement, screwing around with intakes and exhaust near all of which had to go to meet emissions for the time.

IDK - there may be heat and back pressure issues causing a problem??

T







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