N/A Outback down on power

[Apprehension]

Hey folks, this might be a dumb thread (please tell me if so) but my 04 Outback is running quite poorly and I cannot figure out what it might be. It's a 2.5i in 5MT, so ya know it's not the quickest thing out there but since some time after Xmas it just has zero power at higher revs, like 3000+. First and second gear are usually quite sprightly past 3000 but now it's decidedly sluggish. The needles barely move in fourth and fifth. At high revs it also sort of hiccups and has these very brief surges of power. Down at low revs it's all fairly normal though. I've checked all the **** that I can check without swapping bits around and there doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. Coincidentally the spark plugs were stuffed and I have replaced them but the problem persists. I took it in the other day and the guy said it's not the vacuum sensor because they swapped that for a new one to no avail, it's still receiving the full amount of throttle, the fuel pressure and fuel flow are normal and resetting the ECU did nothing. There's no CEL either (although when the key is turned to the stage before starting the engine the malfunction indicator light, engine oil light and battery/generator light stay on but all go out when the engine is started).The k's are getting up there a bit, just over 194000. So, any thoughts lads?

e; should also mention the car starts normally, idles normally and doesn't appear to be making any unusual noises or giving off any weird smells.

Cheers

Edited January 27, 2016 by Apprehension

[lachlan]

Blocked muffler or cat . Cam belt skipped a tooth ?

[Apprehension]

 lachlan said:

Blocked muffler or cat . Cam belt skipped a tooth ?

Thanks for the suggestions, I will take a squiz. But surely you'd hear a blocked muffler/cat?

[Marky]

Not really, considering the cars almost silent to begin with, you'd probably get a weird eggy smell from it too

May be worth taking to a suby specialist with a scan tool to drive it under power/load, the fault should be relatively apparent then as opposed to trial by replacement

The intermittent nature (you say it does gain power in surges?) suggest it could be metering related - airflow meter? - or spark related - coils?

[Apprehension]

Sussed it. It was the aftermarket tail lights.

[McDoof]

 Apprehension said:

Sussed it. It was the aftermarket tail lights.

???

How?

Caused an electrical fault?

[Apprehension]

 McDoof said:

???

How?

Caused an electrical fault?

Absolutely bizarre, I know. I was googling a bit and read a few threads on legacygt.com and subaruoutback.org where people had had some wacky things going on when they had swapped brake lights, either for different kinds of bulbs or for aftermarket LED ones. I believe the electronic control systems can tell when you're using bulbs or LED setups that don't draw the same power as the factory standard ones and that it will throw the car into a limp-home mode without throwing an error or a light. This is very odd, but it does match up with some of these threads I read.

[Marky]

Thats so awesome

[lachlan]

Ffs