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From my downpipe to exhaust tip is coated in black rich fuel shiz... My wideband we just installed Friday is reading super rich under boost and lil lean at idle. Right as my turbo begins to spool and create boost I'm hitting flat 10.0 on afr gauge..... When it should be 11.5-12.5 and at idle sometimes its running between 14.7-15.3 and sometimes 16-16.9 I'm feeling major power loss when the guage hits 10.0 and feels like it wants to go below that which it can't read.

My check engine light has a bunch of codes stored that I need to clear in the morning but anyone have an idea of what this could be or experienced similar problems? I'm hooked up to my stock bcs and the td04 is good to go. I know I already have a check engine code for speed sensor and neutral switch

Getting super shitty mileage as well. I'm hitting afr's that should be what I'm at during boosting(11-13) when I'm barely pushing the pedal

New spark plugs as well

Speed sensor code usually puts the car into a form of limp mode, so that could be part of it. Could also have a vacuum leak.

Ahhhh the limp mode makes lots of sense cuz its really noticeable when that comes on and feels much better when its off(when I start car the cel is never on then will come on somewhere during the drive)

But THAT rich for limp mode?

Been over all my vac lines,all brand new and good

Update: driving when cel is on in "limp mode" as soon as I get into ANY boost and my afr hit a flat 10 my foot will literally be steady on the pedal while my car feels like its fighting against me, I literally feel power acting against me and will not gain speed unless I punch the throttle..

Also notice when I'm cruising with foot off pedal above 40mph ish I'm running 15.5-16.5 afr and when I'm going under 10mph I get a funky idle/bounce which hits 16.5-17.5 afr..

Is this limp mode or something else!? Its a freakin blizzard till Monday so ill do the dcheck/drive to clear and find active codes then. In the meantime am I harming anything?

You need to clear the codes and find out what codes are active and fix those problems. Don't bother with anything else until you do that.

Also notice when I'm cruising with foot off pedal above 40mph ish I'm running 15.5-16.5 afr and when I'm going under 10mph I get a funky idle/bounce which hits 16.5-17.5 afr..

The first part of what you described sounds like deceleration fuel cut, which is normal. Under deceleration with your foot completely off the throttle the ECU will mostly cut fuel to the engine to save fuel.

well the blizzard cleared a day early went out to clear codes and do a driving dcheck and the ONLY code is 33(vehicle speed sensor)

now last time i was up at slodrive greg took my speedo cable outa its housing and my old one was all gnarly and broken so i got a used one that felt nice and lubed and he put that up through my old housing thinking that would solve my code and sound coming from my speedo cable i can hear. well it helped but not all the way, so i suspect we should swap the housing i got the used cable with out with my old one entirely and while we are routing it back to the cluster check the speed sensor back there as well

question is now... why isnt my neutral switch code coming up? my power light still flashes at startup and it was there with the speed sensor code the whole time until just now when i recleared. i also noticed that its not only when my cel comes on that i feeel the force acting back against my throttle when my afr gauge hits flat 10... as long as its not hitting 10 the car feels like it wants to run and spool fine! but when the gauge is reading 10(normally when im in boost) it feels sputtery/not wanting to run smooth/not wanting to shift when it gets to redline(if im in power mode), just super uneasy and rough but not to the point of fuel cut

still wondering why the extreme richness problem, this recently started happening at least a week after ive had the speed sensor code

also for example if i were to go on ten min drive and hit 10 stop signs, 5 of those stops i would be idleing with a 17+ afr and the other 5 i would be at a good 15 ish

I don't know why your AFR's are all over.....but as I mentioned before....fix the issues that the ECU sees and go from there. For whatever reason these ECU's can sometimes do weird shit.

sounds good josh, ill be up at slodrive tomorrow so i will report back! i have a spare ecu too so if this one continues to keep bringing up codes from months ago that have been cleared multiple times ill toss this other one in and see if its any better

At slodrive. Greg thinks its acting funny with the 10 afr reading is because my maf is being maxed out to the point the injectors are just fully open static causing the richness and terrible mileage which makes sense. Says its not throwing the code because its still within certain parameters to be operational. So ill go to pullnpay and grab a metal maf on a NA and see how that goes. We already tried cleaning mine

You have stock ECU and stock MAF? How much boost are you running? What injectors? What turbo?
You can't run an N/A MAF unless you have an ECU designed for it, like an EJ20G ECU.

Td04, stock ecu, stock maf, 10 ish lbs

Hmmm Greg said all the metal mafs are the same and should work

Found my speed sensor issue prolly... Something too shit into the tranny end of the cable!



And this was my cable at the end of the cluster

That cable looks bad. Replace that for sure.
Your mods should be fine. I don't see anything wrong with that setup.

I think the 1990 Metal N/A MAF might work, but the 91-94 N/A Legacys had the plastic JECS MAF.

Replaced cable and all! No cel SO far AND my afr are reading normal! No more flatting out to 10 and my subie fighting me. Guess the ecu didn't like the speed sensor code so bad it put the injectors in some weird fail safe mode who knows, but its back to normal after swapping the cable and rerouting it better under my tmic. Then replacing my cluster just incase with a 92... No more airbag light for me

Yeah, the VSS not working causes all sorts of weird issues on these cars. Good catch!
This is why every time someone posts up with an issue we tell them to fix all codes before even attempting to diagnose issues.

Vss? Sorry not still used to all the abrvs... And also the car is boosting fine now and afr are still better! BUT..

On the way home I had code 41-a/f control whatever.... I think this has to deal with my richness problem, is this code related to my 02 sensor?

Gonna run to pullnpay and grab a metal maf and prolly an 02 sensor tomorrow so we will see where that gets me

VSS = Vehicle Speed Sensor

Ahhh duh I shoulda known that! Yes it still seems to have fixed that horrible hesitation. Ill report back in the morning when I get to pullnpay about code 41. If I fix this code all should be well for a good while!

Good to see you got the richness fixed.

Just an FYI, the 90-91 MT's used the same Hitachi metal MAF as the turbos did.

Regarding code 41, reset your ECU if you haven't done so. Pull fuse 14 (EGI/TCU) for an hour or so, or pull the battery cable. Since you were running rich for so long, and now that it sounds like it's working properly the ECU may have learned bad fuel trims. You need to reset the ECU to the default settings and then see if that code comes back.

Josh I cleared the codes last night and 41 did pop up again but it will turn on for 5-10 mins then turn off for a few then on and off and so on.... So pull that fuse and clear again? Or just pull the fuse for a while and put it back in and see if it comes back