OEM INjectors on MY05 Liberty GT?

[leigh]

Hi all,

I have the painful rough idle and low engine speed miss when driving issue on my MY05 Liberty GT. I took it to All Drive Subaroo and they found it was running lean and compensating continually hence the feeling of a miss. They suggested starting at the fuel filter. I did that and it made a huge difference. The idle improved a little, the low speed miss (below about 2500rpm) was gone except when the car is cold. Before I couldn't take off and be confident the car would actually go, I now can which makes driving a lot safer trying to pull out in to traffic. When the car is cold unfortunately is does still miss and hesitate to take off below 2500rpm, but this soon goes away with about 1km of driving. The rough idle remains sporadically.

So the next step was to have the injectors removed, cleaned and refitted. It made the car run perfectly for about 3 days, it was like it was brand new......then slowly it started to go back to it's old habits. I have noticed that the colder it is when the car first starts, the worse the low rpm miss is.

So I am now looking at replacing the injectors. I would rather stick with the OEM size as then I do not need a tune. But finding them aftermarket is a little hard.

Does anyone have the OEM injector part numbers?

Or failing that my other path is a different size and a tune, does anyone recommend injectors and what he part numbers are?

Thanks in advance.

[leigh]

Very quiet in here....

[KiDo_Tuning]

Hi all,

I have the painful rough idle and low engine speed miss when driving issue on my MY05 Liberty GT. I took it to All Drive Subaroo and they found it was running lean and compensating continually hence the feeling of a miss. They suggested starting at the fuel filter. I did that and it made a huge difference. The idle improved a little, the low speed miss (below about 2500rpm) was gone except when the car is cold. Before I couldn't take off and be confident the car would actually go, I now can which makes driving a lot safer trying to pull out in to traffic. When the car is cold unfortunately is does still miss and hesitate to take off below 2500rpm, but this soon goes away with about 1km of driving. The rough idle remains sporadically.

So the next step was to have the injectors removed, cleaned and refitted. It made the car run perfectly for about 3 days, it was like it was brand new......then slowly it started to go back to it's old habits. I have noticed that the colder it is when the car first starts, the worse the low rpm miss is.

So I am now looking at replacing the injectors. I would rather stick with the OEM size as then I do not need a tune. But finding them aftermarket is a little hard.

Does anyone have the OEM injector part numbers?

Or failing that my other path is a different size and a tune, does anyone recommend injectors and what he part numbers are?

Thanks in advance.

Issue is not the fuel system, it is your engine having a small vacuum leak on idle/cruise and the ECU is compensating by adding fuel.

[leigh]

I have considered that and looked for it to no avail. Why would having the injectors cleaned professionally have sorted the problem completely for a few days?

I had the car in for data analysis at All Drive Subaroo, he mentioned it is fuel related and said he did not believe it is vacuum based on the data he saw from the sensors. I am taking it back tomorrow to see if the original problem exists or if this is a different issue altogether.

[Robbks]

I'm with matt on this one.
vacuum leak somewhere.
could just be a hairline crack in the pre-turbo intake pipe,
manifold to head gaskests could be leaky

take a can of throttle body cleaner around the engine bay with the car running
spray it at/ in/ near every joiner/ joint/ pipe, etc
the car will either pickup in rpm or splutter/ cough when the TB cleaner is sucked in.
check the vacuum hose to your FPR for cracks, my 3.0 was idling rough and using heaps of fuel. the hose ad come off the fpr.!

[kiahatsiu]

I have some stock injectors floating around at home somewhere, no idea what the part number on them is, but I am obviously willing to let them go for less than new ones. Problem being is you may well end up back at the same rough running spot, cursing my good name.
Check for air leaks and check the AFM "wires" are clean. If it is still running like a dog I will be back in aus in 2 weeks. Also, I have heard garage88 have a few sets lying around too, but they prefer to keep them for trouble shooting punters cars.

[KiDo_Tuning]

I have considered that and looked for it to no avail. Why would having the injectors cleaned professionally have sorted the problem completely for a few days?

I had the car in for data analysis at All Drive Subaroo, he mentioned it is fuel related and said he did not believe it is vacuum based on the data he saw from the sensors. I am taking it back tomorrow to see if the original problem exists or if this is a different issue altogether.

They would of disconnected the battery or reset the ECU after the work... it takes a few days to self learn again(AF#1 Learning parameter)

I have a Snap On smoke machine for testing leaks, remove the airbox/MAF, shove the Smoke machine cone fitting into the intake pipe and the smoke exposes the leaks. It is amazing how easy leaks occur on a turbo car. BOV vacuum hose, splits in rubber hoses, split BOV gaskets, loose hose clamps etc all make the engine run lean on idle/cruise. If it makes it run lean on boost, it is a vacuum leak between the airflow meter and the turbo intake, if it runs rich on boost it is a vacuum leak on idle/cruise between the turbo outlet and the inlet valves, which means the air escapes on boost.

[leigh]

I have considered that and looked for it to no avail. Why would having the injectors cleaned professionally have sorted the problem completely for a few days?

I had the car in for data analysis at All Drive Subaroo, he mentioned it is fuel related and said he did not believe it is vacuum based on the data he saw from the sensors. I am taking it back tomorrow to see if the original problem exists or if this is a different issue altogether.

They would of disconnected the battery or reset the ECU after the work... it takes a few days to self learn again(AF#1 Learning parameter)

I have a Snap On smoke machine for testing leaks, remove the airbox/MAF, shove the Smoke machine cone fitting into the intake pipe and the smoke exposes the leaks. It is amazing how easy leaks occur on a turbo car. BOV vacuum hose, splits in rubber hoses, split BOV gaskets, loose hose clamps etc all make the engine run lean on idle/cruise. If it makes it run lean on boost, it is a vacuum leak between the airflow meter and the turbo intake, if it runs rich on boost it is a vacuum leak on idle/cruise between the turbo outlet and the inlet valves, which means the air escapes on boost.

What you say makes sense to me. When I first start the car in the morning it runs like it's on 2 cylinders when I first drive off, as soon as it gets on boost it feels like a normal car again. I guess that would be because the vacuum leak no longer exists, it is now blowing air out of the hole/split/whatever. Or possibly the boost is fixing the problem by forcing a hose on tighter with the pressure. Is a smoke machine the best way to test for this?

If there is a vacuum leak, which logs are the best to look at to determine that?

By the way Kido, I noticed you do remote tuning. Very interested in this as you have some very good comments with people who have had this done. Can you please PM me a price. I will obviously need to get the issue I am having sorted first. Any plans to come to Sydney soon?

[Robbks]

What you say makes sense to me. When I first start the car in the morning it runs like it's on 2 cylinders when I first drive off, as soon as it gets on boost it feels like a normal car again.

Could also be a sign of leaky injector seals,
start the car and if it splutters like it does than shut it down.
remove the spark plugs and see if any are wet with fuel and fouled

If there is a vacuum leak, which logs are the best to look at to determine that?

the engine bay is the best place to search for leaks, using the procedure I posted before

[leigh]

I will check for leaks over the weekend with the throttle body cleaner. I have done so in the past by visually looking and could not see anything obvious, but they can be hard to find I guess.

I am booked in at All Drive Subaroo for Wednesday morning so he can log some data on it when it's cold if I don't find an issue before hand. He did say when I spoke to him today that he looked for leaks last time (using what method I don't know) and couldn't find any, he did say there was no evidence of a leak in the data.

[all4b4]

do you mind me asking how much they charged to change the fule filter?

thanks
christian

[leigh]

do you mind me asking how much they charged to change the fule filter?

thanks
christian

I did it myself. Not that hard a job really, just fiddly. Parts are about $280 for a genuine Denso fuel filter and fuel pump kit from Australian Fuel Injection. If you took it elsewhere I guess they would charge you 2 to 3 hours labour plus parts.

[leigh]

I had the car at All Drive Subaroo today, they have diagnosed a misfire on cylinder 4. Could be a valve, piston, spark plug, injector oring, injector etc...I am going to look into it myself.

But I still believe it is injector based as when I had them cleaned it ran perfectly for a few days. If it was something more catastrophic like a piston it would never get better. Does anyone where I can get an injector to test it out?

[Robbks]

I had the car at All Drive Subaroo today, they have diagnosed a misfire on cylinder 4. Could be a valve, piston, spark plug, injector oring, injector etc...I am going to look into it myself.

But I still believe it is injector based as when I had them cleaned it ran perfectly for a few days. If it was something more catastrophic like a piston it would never get better. Does anyone where I can get an injector to test it out?

pull out the injectors and check/ replace the 0-rings first
ensuring to seat them correctly

[leigh]

I got some second hand injectors from dr20t on this forum, changed the one in cylinder 4, reset the ECU and the car is running smooth at idle now. Fuel economy is also better due to tthe car not thinkning it is running lean and tipping more fuel in.

The injectors he gave me had the same blue tops but they had a metal ring at the base, the original ones I had in there have a brown plastic claw looking piece at the base. Don't know if there was an update at some point?

Anyway, the only issue I have left now is cold starting! The car is still idling rough when it is first started on a cold morning. Start it when the ambient temp is higher and it is not so bad. I am thinking vacuum leak or coil. Coils can perform better/worse depending on temp...vacuum leaks can close up with a little heat too. If I drive the car about 200 metres it is perfect again, no hesitation. If I hit a little bit of boost, the car runs perfect as well while it's still cold. The fact it runs nicer on a little boost indicates a vacuum leak to me.

I guess every morning I will have to get the bonnet open and spray some throttle body cleaner in different places and see if I can isolate a vacuun leak. For now I am not too phased as I have fixed the two most offensive problems.

It looks like problems do come in threes. I have had faulty fuel pump/dirty fuel filter, failed injector in cylinder 4 and now what looks like a vacuum leak somewhere. All had similar symptons which made it hard to pinpoint each one.

Dirty fuel filter/failing fuel pump: The car would sometimes hesitate when taking off from a stand still whether the engine was hot or cold.
Failing fuel injector: Rough idle.
?????? : Rough idle when cold, hesitation when taking off when cold, next to no power until I hot boost and all is good again.

My XR6 Turbo has never had these sorts of problems!