Hi I'm not a subaru owner yet but have been offered a 1999 wrx at a very good price the thing is it's got so many electrical faults it's almost stupid, I know my electrics pretty well but before I invest my time in to it I need to know if anyone has had a similar problem.

The car has defi gauges and evertime I flick on the headlights the defi gauges and interior light go out, the revs also drop and prop ably the mph needle but not sure as I haven't driven it yet, starts up and revs fine tho.

I immediately thought grounding or relay issues so had a look at the ecu, it has an aftermarket apexi power fc fitted and the wiring harness has been heavily spliced into, it has a blanked connector spliced into the ecu with a crap load of wires connected to multiple wires on the ecu harness, one of the wires spliced is connected to the ecu location nut and after a few minutes it started getting very hot, I removed it and it sparks on contact leaving me to think it most definetly is a grounding issue.

Does anyone know why the previous owner has connected a blanked plug to the ecu harness?

The guy that owns it now bought the car like this so bit of a pain to figure out it's history.

Any input would be really appreciated

 

That's the wire that's shorting out, was connected to the nut

 

That's the blanked connector and the grey wires that are spliced into the ecu

 

 

Anyone???

 

Jeez, that's a right mess! My car has a blank plug too, it's actually a junction for the incoming wires to join to eachother. I thought it was strange too but then I seen it in the wiring diagrams. Have you checked out the Ken Gilbert website for diagrams? Could be very useful for you.

 

Thanks for the reply mate, I've had a look but can't seem to find the ecu diagram, do you know where I can get an ecu diagram for a type ra

 

There'll be a pinout somewhere on here, have a good dig. I'm looking now too.

 

There's ECU diagrams shown in here, fair enough not an actual ECU pinout but you could find the stuff you're after easily enough:

http://ken-gilbert.com/wrx/mans/99-0...%20Diagram.pdf

 

Thank you I've had a look but I can't find it for my car, can't figure out which one refers to my ecu, some of the pins are different

 

I've had a bit of time to have a look at the wiring behind the cluster and centre console, I'm getting clicking sounds from 2 different locations, I've traced one to what looks like an alarm module, why would that be clicking?? It's a metal box just above the airbag bag module, the 2nd clicking sound needs a bit more investigation but I'm pretty sure it's behind the dash, possibly the flasher relay. Will have a look tomorrow after work

 

Check this out:

http://www.jollygreenmonster.com/pinouts.htm

As for the clicking, I couldnt say. My flasher relay is behind where the radio goes, mine is a pre-facelift though.