HELP! Massive hesitation (can't accelerte), then car stalls when stopping

[insanity007]

I\'ve got a 1996 WRX V2 wagon and the car hesitates (especially when cold). It\'s not the normal spluttering hesitation, but an epic hesitation where I can no longer accelerate and I have to pull over and stop. The revs drop and the car stalls when I stop or take the car out of gear. I wait a little bit and the car starts fine and I can take off again. It does this a few times until it\'s warm and then it doesn\'t do it anymore.

I\'ve tried cleaning the air flow meter and plug with brake fluid because I thought that\'s what the issue is, but it\'s still doing it! Any ideas??

[lachlan]

is that last line correct ?

god help us

[Darkdax55]

Dear god i hope your not serious

[kamineko]

 insanity007 said:

..I\'ve tried cleaning the air flow meter and plug with brake fluid..

so these guys are hoping you mean brake cleaner, and that you never clean anything apart from internal brake system parts with brake fluid. even brake cleaner is not recommended for cleaning afm elements, you need MAF cleaner, which i think is alcohol based. aaand most of the time it won\'t help a stuffed AFM anyway.

anyway. looking back through your posts, it seems there are some modifications to your car. what was the last working setup, and what has recently changed?

so what CEL codes are you getting?

[B4_685]

Heart stopped at brake fluid lol

B4_685 via Tapatalk HD

[insanity007]

That\'s what happens with a newborn... no sleep and suddenly I\'m cleaning AFM\'s with brake fluid... ;D

I was going to use meths because that\'s what I use to clean PC bits when I\'m modding, but figured I\'d do some research first and every single vid or post I found was with someone using brake cleaner, so I gave it a shot and it came up really nice and clean. I also noticed a black mark on one of the plug prongs and the same corresponding hole, which I cleaned up too.

Nothing\'s changed in ages in this car. It just started being an asshole. I took the Jspeed tune out and swapped it with my other rexy\'s Link, eliminating the need for the AFM, and it ran just fine. When I put the Jspeed into my other rexy and the AFM with it, i replicated the same problem and that\'s how I figured it was the AFM. So I cleaned it and that still didn\'t work and that\'s why I\'m on here.

Now that I\'ve typed this out, I\'m pretty sure it\'ll be that electrical short that\'s gone further than the plug and time for a new AFM... damn my selling my spare a few years ago!

thoughts?

[Rosssub]

Time for a new AFM.

[Koom]

Take the big square cover off the top of the afm (craft knife or flat screwdriver to pry it open).

Then carefully remove anything you need to, to get to the main soldered connections from the plug to the pcb board.

Re-solder all of those connections.

Then re-assembly the whole lot, silicone the cover back on top and see if that sorts it. I\'ve never replaced an afm, just fine that and its sorted it for me every time. The afm\'s I\'ve had due on me have never been the hot wire element in the intake, always old solder connections.

[insanity007]

 Koom said:

Take the big square cover off the top of the afm (craft knife or flat screwdriver to pry it open).

Then carefully remove anything you need to, to get to the main soldered connections from the plug to the pcb board.

Re-solder all of those connections.

Then re-assembly the whole lot, silicone the cover back on top and see if that sorts it. I\'ve never replaced an afm, just fine that and its sorted it for me every time. The afm\'s I\'ve had due on me have never been the hot wire element in the intake, always old solder connections.

Thanks dude... this helped heaps. I took it apart and found that there was some shorting on the board and tidied all that up and it appears to be behaving itself now :-)