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I have just done an oil change on my 02 RS30 and I noticed today that I now have a check engine light coming on. The oil level shows as on the top hole on the dip stick when the engine is hot and over the top hole if the car is cold. Is it possible to diagnose the check engine codes on these cars or will I need to go to a dealer to get it diagnosed?

I just purchased a 02 legacy RS30 and the cd is missing so my climate control wont display at all. Its annoying and I really want to get it working. The OEM head units been removed and a Sony has been installed so i am not sure if this is part of the issues but the DVD from the satnav unit is missing for sure so i really need to get my hand on an image so i can try getting it working again.

I just purchased a 02 legacy GT30 and the cd is missing so my climate control wont display at all. Its annoying and I really want to get it working. The OEM head units been removed and a Sony has been installed so i am not sure if this is part of the issues but the DVD from the satnav unit is missing for sure so i really need to get my hand on an image so i can try getting it working again.

Well I finally changed the sensor today after thinking about doing it for the best part of a month. It was full or hairline cracks and as soon as i put the new one in the check engine light never came on again. the car runs way better and is no longer farting around when driving. The CEL used to flash on and off quite a bit and very randomly retarding the ignition when I really didn't need that to happen. I believe the knock sensor is tuned to listen for the frequency of pings from the engine, when these are encountered the EUC decides if the noise is important and if it thinks it is it will retard the ignition. The torque of the bolts apparently important also, as if its not torqued properly it will change the frequency that the sensors able to listen to and give false readings making the car run poorly.

Split green tea all over the passenger side carpet and made the car fully stink all weekend.

I managed to unblock mine and its working good now, I just used a garden hose and some connectors and flushed it in both directions. I do have the water gurgling behind the dash sound now though. I also had a play with a bypass T junction but its not as simple as it sounds because you need to be careful where you t into the pipes as the TMIC takes up a lot of room above and around the pipes. I am going to add a smaller T back in as it remove's the gurgling noise but I still want heat so i think that's maybe the best way to go unless your game to replace the heater core.

Its unburnt fuel getting burnt in the hot exhaust. Its normally caused by valve overlap which is where the exhaust valve is partially open and allow a little gas to escape, normally an exhaust is tuned so that the resonance in the exhaust pipe will push some of the unspent fuel back into the chamber, where it should be, before the valve fully closes. When the engine is running hard the gas flow is not as efficient as at lower revs so the fuel stays in the exhaust and gets burnt creating flames out the exhaust. Turbo exhausts tend to be more free flowing also so they are more prone to this at high revs. Generally the more tuned your car is for performance the engine tolerances are smaller so this happens more during hard driving. As somebody said above if the cars running a little rich that will also cause it, the ECU will try to compensate for this but depending on the cars setup, sometimes it cant. It wont hurt your car if its rich but it will foul plugs and sensors if its like that for a long time. But since as it just happens when your going hard its probably not an issue.

Did you note the order that the conrods came off the crank for reassembly? I am just curious as i watched a few vids of these being pulled down and they seemed to think the order was important. I guess if your reusing bearings and other parts due to the wear on the items it would make sense but I would have thought that if your going to changed everything it wouldn't matter so much. It could be of course that my questions are silly to people who know better but its where my knowledge of these engines is at, at the moment and I am curious now to pull one down, got to clear the garage first though as the one here is a pigsty to work in.

Yeah it would be good to see whats its actually hearing and doing to decipher the sounds from actual knock. Mine I think might just be dirty as the engine was dirty as anything when I got the car and had leaked like a colander under the manifold due to numerous rust holes in piping that's now been replaced. I will have to pull the manifold again but this time I think I will do myself a favor and remove the primary turbo first.

I was thinking after reading this that if it was opened electronically via a stepper motor or something like that it could then gradually open rather than just opening it. The vac could be used to trigger a pressure switch instead of opening the IACV and that would then tell a small circuit to begin slowly opening over a preset time.

I was thinking after reading this that if it was opened electronically via a stepper motor or something like that it could then gradually open rather than just opening it. The vac could be used to trigger a pressure switch instead of opening the IACV and that would then tell a small circuit to begin slowly opening over a preset time.

Did you ever get to the bottom of the issues with your car?

Cheers guys I will sort the sensor and check the solenoid also It felt a lot like the timing is retarded when the engine light comes on and i suspected that that was happening. I think I will just price a new sensor as getting to its a right pain in the backside and it would be a lot of work to change for a second hand one to just have it fail again.

Cheers Ross, that's where it was originally but because it had another one mounted under the manifold that wasn't connected I thought that somebody had been lazy and disconnected the old one and mounted a new one in a more simple to get to place. I will see if I can remove it and add it back where it should be. I have also noticed that there is a loose plug on the side of the auto trans that's going to nothing not sure if its how it should be but I cant find anywhere it should plug into. One other question I have is regarding my boost of the primary turbo as it seems hit and miss. Sometimes it really good and other times its feels like it not kicking in properly. Could the BBOD box cause this sort of thing as its the only area that i haven't replaced pipes so far. I read that there are lots of solenoids that can get dirty and play up. I have run the engine diagnostics though and don't get any other errors aside from the knock sensor. I also pressurized the manifold when i was looking for leaks and had nothing major leaking. I guess it could just be a sign the turbo is getting old and is due for replacement or rebuild. By the way that engines looking mint in that pic I think if i stay in NZ long term I will buy a better condition sub and rebuild the engine fully like that. I would love to pull an engine and have a really good play with one now I have got started

I have my car running now but I am randomly getting a check engine light coming on and off, the code generated is for the knock sensor. Its not always on just every now and then. When I got the car it had two knock sensors connected to the engine, one was under the manifold in a difficult to get to position and was disconnected and the other one was just up from there and was connected. When i removed the manifold I removed the disconnected sensor and moved the one that was plugged in to where the disconnected one had been under the manifold. Because the check engine light is not on all the time i am now unsure if the sensor is faulty or the lead to it is maybe not a good connection of maybe I have the sensor in the wrong place as i have no idea where it should be on the engine.

Checked them with a mirror and sure enough the lugs were missing on the plug pack side, so they were just pushed on and sitting loose. Caused major issues for me last night when i took the car for a run. Got a nice piece of road and got it onto boost and as soon as i got off the accelerator she was missing and farting around. Was really annoying and because i had had so many vacuum and boost issues I expected it to be something like that, but the plugs were quite loose and after cable tying them to the plugpacks its now idling nice again. Cheers for the help though guys its sure making diagnostics faster for me.

They are the plugs from the loom that fit the the coil pack, as I had the manifold off. and yeah cant make them go back on two of them. Here is a pic of the culprits

I am having an issue with the plugs that go onto the coil packs I cant seem to get two of them to lock on and they just remain loose. Is there some trick to getting them to fit nicely.

I need to replace my cars timing belt and maybe the tensioner and other bits at the same time. Where is the best place to buy and what sort of money would I need to allow for parts?

I took the intercooler off today and found two more loose bolts on the bottom of one of the pipes checked all the gaskets and tightened everything and now all the 'cats trying to claw themselves out from under the bonnet' noises are fully gone. I changed the oil, oil filter and also flushed the engine, radiator and heater core to remove any rusty rubbish and refilled with coolant. Its running quite well now and the nest thing to fix will be dealing with the transmission oil and any other old fluids left in the car.

Yeah I had wondered also about the turbo, when I got the car it had a whistle but that was caused mostly by the inlet pipe being old and stretched, with the newer one that issue is gone but I did have that annoying screech going on. Anyway when last night I remembered seeing a bolt missing on one of the intercooler pipes close to the secondary turbo and after that my mind suddenly started working properly and I felt like a right idiot. I bolted the bolt back in and the noise is gone I am going to take it all back off this afternoon and refit all the pipes and double check everything. Also i need to flush the radiator and heater core and top it up with new coolant and also do the engine oil and filter. The think that had me most stumped last night was that the car seems to be boosting and with a really shagged turbo I would have expected it to run worse or smoke depending on what was wrong of course. Also before I worked on it there was no screeching noise so i suspected something I had done or changed had caused that issue. The other thing I urgently need to do is to get a timing belt kit as i don't want timing belt or tensioner issues. Where would you go about buying a full kit at a reasonable price?

Idles well now but at 2.5k in the revs the scream begins, its exactly like one of the belts is loose and running over the pulley. it never happens unless I am driving the car and I cant make it happen just parked up. I am wondering if it could be a small boost leak as fitting the TMIC is never easy so in the morning I will check all the pipes again and have a go at running a leak test if that fails.

Ok I did find three of the pipes were not the best of fits they are the three at the front where what looks like a PVC valve is in the middle of the other two pipes on top of the manifold. I had replaced them but the fit was not the best so I found more pipe now and redid that. The main thing I did find was that what looks to be some sort of right angle crankcase breather pipes that vents from the heads had a crack in it and when it was knocked it leaked. I managed to fix it and make it seal and after that cant really hear anything happening. The car ran really rough when cold as I moved it into the garage and this morning it hadn't done that at all. The other issue is the the return pipe is the wrong size internally as the OEM one was a lot smaller diametre inside, the new ones about 2x as big in its internal diametre. I will order some replacements for all those pipes but I don't think they are causing the issue I am having. I will refit the airbox now and see if it will run properly when started.

Will do and I will let you know the results.

I have finally stopped my car from overheating but I had a really hard time getting the turbo inlet pipe back onto the primary turbo. I ended up getting the inlet pipe plastic welded but when getting it back on I think I have cracked the weld again. The main issues I have it that like 10 and 23 connect via a T to the spigot that's damaged and now I have a horrible wining sound that begins around 3k and sounds like a fan belt is trying to escape from the engine. Its not the belts and this sound cannot be heard if the car is in park or neutral and its revved it only happens as the turbo comes on boost and gets worse as the revs climb so I then back off the throttle to stop it happening. I am unsure if this is related to the wastegate not opening or the BOV perhaps not working because of the crack in the pipe that was welded. I am fast getting to the point of pulling the manifold again and ordering a Aftermarket inlet pipe as the standard one seems pretty terrible to me. Its to easy to damage it every time you have to remove the manifold and seems to be prone to warping over time and damage to the vacuum spigots. Anyway I need to try and test things to sort out where the sound is coming from and any help or ideas are welcome.