95 Legacy eating plug wires

Shift518 Automotive
1

I’m curious as to what would cause a EJ22 1995 obd1 Subaru Legacy to run through a set of plug wires every 3-5000 miles or so. The car has been driven for 20,000-30,000 miles since august of last year and its gone through 5 sets of spark plug wires. Each time I get a Flashing CEL and hesitation above 50 mph change the plug wires car is back to normal.

I have tried all different brands of OEM and aftermarket standard replacement wires

Is it just junk wires or is there maybe a short in the car that is burning them up cause I have had the same junky set of wires on my EJ18 in my Impreza forever now

2

are they near a heat source like a header?

3

not a a subaru motor. They run over the intake manifold in into the top of the valve cover on each side of the motor. The exhaust exits from the underside of the motor.

I was just working on the engine bay the other day and the plug wires looked mint. The little red boots aren’t even dirty or discolored

4

Coil/pack, disty cap? The fresh wires may be masking a different problem. close up the spark plug gap a little and see if that helps… Also make sure the wires dont run too close to each other causing arc over. Sometimes you can see little gray marks on wires where arc over has been happening. Don’t zip tie them together! ask me how I know.

It seems odd that the wires are going bad that fast. I have the stock GM wires on both my cars. one with 92k and the other with 151k. both are near heat sources as well. The wires cant be that cheap. there isn’t that much to a plug wire.

5

Car has a coil pack mounted dead in the center of the top of the motor. Plugs are fairly new and were pre gapped

6

Get a set of n.a.p.a beldon wires there a blue jacketed wire and there good . Lifetime warr as well . Run n.g.k plugs and ya should be ok

7

its NGK plugs and Napa wires in there right now. So should I just take the wires back to napa and be like what gives

8

I’m not too sure on the 2.2 coilpacks, but the 2.5 coilpacks used to just drop dead at some pre-determined interval. Do you have access to another coilpack you can test/try?

9

I’ll have to check the compatibility between my 1.8 coilpack and the 2.2

10

If changing wires works I don’t see it being a coil pack issue , yeah just bring wires back and get new ones .

11

Mice under the hood? Cars don’t eat, they drink.

12

I think I still have an OEM set of wires off my EJ22 if you want to give them a shot, they are used but worked fine when I had them on the car, I just wanted to upgrade the wires.

13

just checked on lunch. 3 out of 4 plugs were fouled with a ton of carbon. The wires seemed to be sparking just fine. Swapped plug got no results. Going to have to try and pull codes at advance when i get off work

14

ok I have a po302 cylinder 2 misfire code current and pending. Not plugs, not wires i lost car is barely running. plugs in 1,2,3 are carboning up something fierce. There is an exhaust leak behind the cat at the flange. car absolutely dies between 3-4000 rpms .

I unplugged the maf and it stalled immediately so i don’t think its maf. O2 sensor seems to be working as i unplugged that and it immediately threw a code for malfunctioning o2 po133 or something like that

15

lol ar is gonna stall if ya unplug maf with it running . ya should unplug it and then start it

16

Clogged up cat?

17

No rotten egg smell and there is a strong exhaust pulse from the leak behind the cat

18

My guess would be a bad CTS or o2 sensor causing the car to “NOT” go into closed loop and you are burning through plugs.

19

coolant temp controls closed loop operation

20

LOL I know, thats what I meant, had an early morning brain fart while typing!