I need some help here...

1999 Subaru Forester
186k (+/-)
Manual

It has never given me any major issues. Most recently I replaced the knock sensor and the 02 sensor. Basic maintenance is all I have done with this vehicle.

On Thursday the Wife left for work as normal. She got about a mile down the road and stopped at a light. She put it in first to take off and it just sputtered and died.

I put 2 gallons of gas in it just in case the gauge was off.

I’ve replaced the battery and the terminals. Mainly because it needed it and thought it couldn’t hurt.

It will turn over till the cows come home or the battery dies. (That caused me to replace it.)

If you hold the gas to the floor, it will start. You have to keep pumping the throttle. It runs EXTREMELY rough. There IS fuel and pressure out of the fuel filter. I can’t find a schrader valve on either fuel rail.

All fluids are where they need to be. The MAF “looks” clean. The timing belt looks brand new. It’s tight, not frayed or marred. And I am getting spark at plugs 1 and 3 because those are the easiest to get to and haven’t checked the other ones.

No CEL. No clue why. I used a little bluetooth scanner, and it comes up with nothing.

Without a code, I have no clue what to do. This is unfortunately our only vehicle. We have always had 2, but we got rid of one when I got my company vehicle.

If anyone else knows of something or has ideas, I would be grateful to hear them.

Big vacuum leak. Fuel pressure regulator

From what I can see, all vacuum lines look “good”. I will look into the fuel pressure regulator.

Is there a way to test the vacuum system? I have always wondered this.

So I took a look at the fuel pressure regulator. Various tests talk about trying to start and or starting the vehicle and waiting for fuel to come out through the vacuum line. This would indicate a punctured diaphragm. Collapsed just wouldn’t work at all. So thinking this I just tried starting fluid. Nothing changed.

Anyone have a thought it could be a Throttle Position Sensor? The idea that it won’t start unless it’s WOT makes me think this. But the CEL makes me wonder…

The tps was unplugged in my girlfriends car and it still ran so i have my doubts. I think these subarus are known for headgasket though…

Is this a 2.5 or a 2.2?

Unplug the TPS and see if it runs better with it unplugged.

If Adam (Boxersix) sees this he may have a good idea of what it could be.

It’s a 2.5, and I can’t imagine a blown headgasket would cause it to just do this out of the blue? I will try the TPS thing now…

Ok, disconnecting the TPS made no change what so ever.

Sounds like its to rich and that’s y it’s a hard start and ya need to floor it to make it run . That being said I would unplug maf and see what it does

I will try this after dinner or possibly tomorrow.

Looking into finding how to test power to the ECM. I’ve read that no CEL and no starting means no power to ECM.

The cel don’t even come on when ya just turn the key on ? It wouldn’t start at all if u had no power going to PCM

It comes on at key turn on. Goes off during starting. If you get it to run and let it die, it comes on after the motor dies.

Pretty sure that isn’t the pcm them. When you get it running how does it sound?

Extremely rough. Sounds like one of the main factors to make a motor run properly are missing lol.

Skipped timing?

Your description is identical to my Miata when it was off timing

See I was kind of thinking that. But when I took the service cover off of the timing belt and looked at it, it looked fine. It was tight, not frayed, or marred in any way. I bumped the ignition a few times to inspect it as it passed through.

My Father just showed up with his fancy computer reader. So lets see if we find anything.

I skipped time with no indicators. Just saying.

If you have a bad CPS or CAS the PCM will trip a code no doubt. If there’s no cel present then it’s not a hard fault(aka dead sensor, short, etc). Anything else and the car would still run. MAF can be bad but will go to a default map if the connector is unplugged. Will run like shit but it will run.

You need to check fuel pressure by using an inline adapter at the hard lines on the drivers side of the motor, 2 bar min or the car won’t even fire. Should be about 3.5bar if all is good.

Jumping time will cause this and when it happened it usually happens at the crank where you cannot tell without pulling the belts and covers and setting the crank to tdc1 and then checking the cam sprokect marks. 186k is a lot of mileage and the belt technically should be the third one in the car at this point along with all new idles and tensioner, etc

If you get stuck feel free to get ahold of me

Well my Father came with his computer and he got nothing. He checked compression and cylinders 1 and 3 have nothing. We took the valve cover off and the pistons and valves are moving.

He put it to TDC and said the valve clearance is way off. Like absurdly off. He explained it as he is adjusting them to a loose 6 and the are probably a 1/16th of an inch now. According to the info under the hood, it should be between 6 - 10 thousandths of an inch.

But it makes no sense that this would just happen.

Jumped timing