Alright mates, I'll explain the background a bit so you understand the whole story better.
Cliff notes: My only car had a bad engine when I bought it, so I decided to swap it, and 6 months later found out the ECU is bad. (see questions at end of post)
February of '07: I bought my car (1999 Subaru Impreza RS) for quite cheap. It had a small number of scrapes along the drivers side door / rear quarter panel and one large dent. I managed to scrub (not scrape) alot of the paint off of it (from the other car, not my paint, lol) and it looks ALOT better. I even managed to bang out the dent somewhat so its not as noticeable. Anyway, when I bought it, the previous owners told me the car burned a 1/2 quart every 1000 miles. Right.
Fast forward 3 months to April '07: The engine burned about a liter every 250
miles. Yes, I said it, 250
miles. Needless to say, I was shocked, and pissed. Not as pissed since I had intended on swapping the car anyway. Then, one
brilliant day, I decided to put in Seafoam (the stuff that cleans the carbon build up in your engine on the various moving parts). Well, the engine actually liked it, and it ran better for about 2 days, then it happened. I had horrible rod knock.
Badass Rodknock
So that was it, I said screw it, and started to look for an engine.
Mistake number one: I found a sweet deal for one in Mass, talked to the guy and then picked it up in Conn.(he went down halfway, I went up halfway) I thought great! The day we came back, was the day I started to tear the car apart. We didn't get real far, but the by the end of the next day, the engine was out.
Fast forward to August '07: Engine was in, drivetrain stuff, etc etc.
Now for mistake number two: I tried to start the car, no go. Then I tried it again, and my dad said; "Umm Ian, your starter just sparked and is now glowing" Turns out, due to the fact when I had some friends over to help, I didn't get the opportunity to see which wires went where for the starter and basically switched ground and power I think. So the starter was blown. I had a bad feeling after that.
A month later, September '07; I said **** it, and decided to give Ryan a call. We finally got a good date set, and I had the car towed up there (goddamed no name street!!!) in the middle of October, so he could get it running.
Fast forward again to Decemeber '07: We both determined (Ryan and I) that the harness I merged, was really already merged for a 96L. It basically went like this:
96L + JDM = the harness I got with the engine.
I tried to put JDM + RS harness to run in my car.
What I really did was JDM/L + RS harness = no worky.
So I decided to send the harness' up to a buisness in Mass (ironically the SAME one the guy worked at from whom I bought the engine) and they had it for about a month, and recently sent it down (couple of weeks ago). So Ryan tried to get this working, and low and behold, the same problem arises: The fuel pump does NOT FREAKEN PRIME. In order for it to come on, you have to manually (to keep it simple) apply power to it. Ryan did that, and wow! The car ran, but you need to start the car right away else it will never stop priming and thus the car could go boom. So, I told ECS (the buisness which fixed and merged the harness') and they said it could be one of two problems:
My Ecu is
B A D
I have an immobilizer ECU - which, by the way, I have no idea what that means.
So, after all my rambling here is the question - what should I do? I have several options:
- Scrap the engine basically, buy another engine set (USDM, screw JDM) and re-do this whole process
- Buy an aftermarket ECU (If my car was running 100%, I had planned on doing that anyway) specifically an Apexi PowerFC for the EJ20k. They range from like 850 non-commander to 1100 with commander.
- Look for another EJ20k stock ECU (would be quite hard to find, and personally I don't trust many sellers anymore)
- Sell the car as a project car (NOT a parts car, that takes way to damn long)
I am leaning towards two options at this time: Take a chance, buy an apexi and put it in. If the car still doesn't work, then its something with the wiring or the Fuel pump. The other option is just scrapping this, buying another car, and essentially re-do this whole process in a year after I have the damn money. (remember, I am a college student, I have not had a car for... 9 months now, and its getting pretty old. I only take a couple of night classes at montco, but come next semester, I will be taking another couple of classes).
So what do you think?
Update 3-3-08: Well, I bought a PFC from a local shop, had it shipped from Cali, got to area1320 in like 5 days or so. So Ryan put the PFC in today, after doing the crap you need to do to get the car to idle right, it actually runs! There is alot of stumbling around 3k, Ryan is pretty sure that it is getting too much fuel.
However, I still do NOT have an 02 sensor hooked up for the car, because I don't have the correct 02 sensor. I will get pictures up as soon as possible.
The 02 sensor plug is just like this:
00
00
4 pins basically, with three wires coming out and going to the ECU.
Now this is a long shot, since most of the real JDM techys are on RS25 for my engine, but... I'll ask anyway. Is the EJ20k, Version 3, 02 sensor a 4 plug, 3 wire 02 sensor?
Here is pretty much the only place that I could find that has those 02 sensor (special order, I'm sure)
http://www.rallispec.com/new%20catalog_gc8JDM.pdf