ppyrgic

Hi,

93 wrx turbo import

I have various electrical problems which i perosnally believe are all down to one thing. No idea what though.....

A garage replaced my heater matrix. After that the car had the following problems

1) Bad idle - all over the place
2) Air con compressor coming on and off at will.
3) Turbo actuator clicking before engine even turned on
4) Slow clicking noise coming from behind dash, sounds like to the right of the steering wheel ( slow, meaning about a 4 sec interval between clicks ) Lights on dash seem to dim during this time.
5) Car runs like horribly. Very rich, as you put your foot down the revs will drop before coming back up.


The garage that caused the problem doesn;t know how to fix it and i've now got the car back. I'm personally suspecting bad earth somewhere, but where? where should i start looking?

A problem which appeared at the same time which i'm sceptical is related is that the check engine light is coming on with error code 33. THe reason i'm skeptical is that at some point they garage seemed to make all the first problems go away, but teh check engine light still flashed. When i took it back in to get the check engine light sorted they killed the lot again and i'm back to square one.

help please!

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

firstly, make sure the diagnostics wires aren't connected under the dash. Sounds like they have been joined.
If not then its a pain of a job, but check the wires under the dash (lots of them I know) make sure they arent shorting etc. The earths are allegedly weak so check your main ones (that go to the block etc, maybe remove clean and replace).

I would also do an ecu reset as well and then test drive it to see if the cel does come back on

ppyrgic

Well, i suspect the diag wires are connected too, but i intend on leaving them that way until the check engine light flashes OK instead of a fault.
I've reset the ecu several times with no real joy.

Where are these major earths? I'm a bit ignorant as to which colour they are, where at the block they connect etc,

THanks

Gary C

Sounds like an earth fault to me too.

Large diameter black sheathed or copper weave cable from block to chassis. Look for black cables under the dash joining to studs bolted to the chassis (often several black wires will be connected to a single bolt).

As they have moved the heater matrix, look for earth studs around this area. Dont just tighten them, removed them and check all crimps are firmly connected and are clean/bright, check the chassis point is clean/bright then re-tighten them. Electrical grease is usefull for external earth connections to prevent corrosion.

They may have cross connected something, but with keyed plugs this is unlikely. Check plugs in the area of work, disconnect them and check they have not been forced in back to front.

[Davey]

Worth checking your car isnt in diagnostics mode, that will cause the clicking of the solinoid and could cause a rough idle.

When they put the dash back in after the heater matrix they might have spotted the green and black diag connectors and thought they un-plugged them..

Does your "Check Engine" light still illuminate?

ppyrgic

So, the current state is this. I found the diag cables and they were connected. I disconnected them and still had a flashing engine light. All the other symptoms disappeared.

I took it for a test drive and up around 6K revs the engine light came on permanently. After this the car seemed rev limited to around 5K revs.

I reconnected the diag cables and got error code 24 and 33.

I tried to reset but it wouldn't work, kept giving the same error code.

Engine light is on permanently when diag cables disconnected.

So, obvioulsy i have 1, maybe 2 sensor faults, and i assume the ECU is in some kind of limp home mode.

2 questions, Is there anyway of getting rid of this limp home mode? Plus, if not, is the car safe to drive as ling as i keep the revs below 4K and right off the boost?

Thanks