^
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Not necessarily. Your case, perhaps. But not always.

>:[ no more power mods til this crap is figured out.

It is figured out. What's wrong with you people? Desperate for something to chat shit about?

Im not sure if u are being sarcastic or serious

What's your deal, dipstick?

Let me amend my statement: no more power mods until SUBARU acknowledges there is a problem and INSTATES a fix for vehicles that have been out in the wild that do not have a fix from the factory.

Thank, please GFY.

@OrbitalEllipses Please explain to us all what relevance engine power has to do with a transient det problem?

If I remember correctly, someone also mentioned bad fuel as his cause for seal failure (which usually would be taken care of by a knock sensor and should not cause any parts to melt away).
Anyway, I guess one question would be if there was a single case of seal failure after they installed this ROM revision?
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37411
However, since most people have this ROM revision not installed, the probability of finding one with a seal failure would be very slim, even if there was still a chance of dealing with detonation after installing this ROM revision (since so far much less than 1% of all cars seem to be affected by this problem).

Btw, how would one get to this ROM revision anyway? Does one need to go to a dealer and specifically ask for it? Do they even know about this problem on a global level?

PS: Increasing power requires an increase of pressure in the combustion chamber and since p*V = n*R*T, going FI does at least increase the risk of detonation.

While this most likely has nothing to do with power mods, I tend to agree with @OrbitalEllipses . It is a major pain, having to fight Toyota (in my case) because I have exhaust, or intake, or tune. The first thing they want to do, is blame the mods.

Having to remove these mods before taking it to a dealer, becomes painful too. I am looking to go FI, but am holding off as well. Not because I think these mods will accelerate the issue. I just don't want to deal with warranty work being denied because they don't know what's going on. I personally would rather Toyota/Subaru get things fixed/corrected, before I continue with my power mods.

EDIT: And just to be clear, I have had this issue. The dealer blamed my intake tube, and denied warranty. I had to fight them, and they eventually got the okay from Toyota to rip into it further. They quickly found 2 bad injectors/collars which were replaced under warranty. Had I known it would be such a fight with them over the intake, I would have removed the stupid thing before taking it in.

Exactly what @TemeCal said...warranty consideration. TSB don't mean squat to an unfriendly dealership. Given the chance to deny warranty claims, they will deny the claim as it's their favorite thing to do.

I don't believe "it is figured out" can honestly be said yet. A culprit has been identified, yes, but the failing part in question I don't believe is a particularly good design. Seal failure for a variety of reasons is entirely possible.

My check engine light has come up a few times, and from time to time I can smell gas fumes from the engine compartment.

So I called my dealer, theres no TSB on there system for this. But the SM told me to bring it in Monday to have it checked and get it fixed right away so I guess well see what happens/

in for a good read later.

Got my injector tools

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/10...ps7f5e8292.jpg

3d scan?

To recap:

My engine started popping in February.
I brought it to Subaru dealer #1 and they refused to look into the issue.
They said the noise was due to my mods.

I then brought it to Subaru dealer #2 with a video of my cold start popping sound, photos of other bad injectors, and even had the seals preorder so everything was ready to go. They also said there wasn't a problem and told me if I left the car there for a couple weeks maybe they would start it a few times and see if they could reproduce the sound. When I pushed the service adviser more he said it was likely due to my mods and probably wouldn't be covered under warranty. After one more follow up call that ended with the service advisor hanging up on me, I decided to fix the issue via a my own mechanic.

My mechanic pulled the engine apart and found exactly what we expected:

http://bminor.smugmug.com/photos/i-f...-fxQfBHx-M.jpg
http://bminor.smugmug.com/photos/i-4...-4RnWdh5-M.jpg
http://bminor.smugmug.com/photos/i-w...-wKXm9Gx-M.jpg

My cylinder #1 injector was so pitted that we couldn't even push a new seal on it using the "special tools". Every attempt resulted in a damaged seal. We ended up putting new seals on injectors #2, #3, and #4 but chose to completely replace injector #1.

From this we learned a few things:

These seals are very hard to replace without damaging them even when using the "special tools".
If you order a new injector they come with factory installed seals.
I therefore believe many of the technicians are damaging the new seals during warranty replacement which later results in another failure.
The "we're ordering you new special improved injectors" trick is just to avoid the manual seal replacement. They can just unwrap and plug them in.
I didn't see any difference in the seal on the ordered injector and the seals provided via Subaru parts.

This ^

This really sucks look like you guys are going through the same problem mazdaspeed platform went through.
For my experience we nail it down to what was causing the problem.
Also have any of you guys try a different seal from a manufacture that have a similar design injector seal like VW,MAZDA,GM,FORD?

agree. not until it's acknowledged by toyota/subaru and there is a fix which is proven to be working (yep, thinking about the hpfp crickets issue)

It looks like the trend among many of these Subaru dealers is to blame mods without looking into the cause of so many of these issues. Whereas the Scion dealers seem to be handling it a little more professionally and diligently.

Well, if Subaru wants to play that game...it looks like one needs to go back to stock (unless you have a reasonable dealer) when you go get these injector seal/popping noises/other crap looked at under warranty...

Boo Subaru, boo for you....:slap:

I really hope it isn't a head machining tolerance issue. If it is, the cost to Toyota/Subaru to replace cylinder heads would be huge and they would doubtfully ever acknowledge or deal with the issue proactively. Rather they would just keep changing o-rings till the warranty runs out.

I am hoping that the FI guys aren't seeing immediate issues because they are already very cooling/temperature conscience, meaning most have an oil cooler which could be helping the coil packs survive.

But the silence from Toyota and Subaru on the issue domestically is still down right depressing, like it isn't even on their radar and this issue is so much more serious than the little idle/cel issue from last year.

I've said this in like 50 threads, but if you want warranty coverage on an issue which is not covered by a specific TSB/recall, Subaru isn't going to cover it for a modded vehicle. 99% of Subaru dealers have zero tolerance for modifications whether they have directly caused a failure or not. They have been through tons of warranty issues with the WRX/STi due to user abuse/mods/etc. they put everything through a very fine toothed comb.

As for the injector seal failure, I hope things get worked out and it is just an ECU tuning issue, but that seems a little fishy to me. There have been issues before however with lean conditions during high-rpm lift, so hopefully changing the mapping in those situations will work.

The forum THINKS it's figured out. Until it is acknowledged and confirmed, it's still just speculation.

It's not a dealer issue. It's a Subaru of America/Tech line issue. The dealers cannot perform warranty work without SoA/tech line's approval/authorization. Otherwise, the dealer is doing the work for free.

I got my ecu updated too but I believe it has nothing to do with the transient timing but for coolant reading levels or something. My dealer replaced all four injectors and gaskets etc. took a bit of a fight but they did it :) PM me if you want more info.

Boo for the SOA Tech Line!

I really wish our original records were there :(

The dealer can look for a reason not to do warranty work or they can look for a reason to take care of their customers. No one on the tech line knows what mods are done to a vehicle sitting in a dealership service dept. I understand they need approval but its all in how the issue is approached by the customer and how the dealership addresses their tech line.

Tech line will specifically ask. It's in the dealer's interest to do the warranty work; they get paid for it. If the dealer lies, and does the work, and then get randomly audited (which they will), then SoA will not pay out on the work.

Tech line frequently asks for pictures of bolts, etc., and can tell if bolts have been removed. For example, there is no reason the bolt on the shockwill EVER be removed unless you put on aftermarket suspension, or the bolts on the secondary cat removed/touched, unless you replaced it with a test pipe/overpipe.

I have this paper stating my concerns, parts they replaced, and the issues they found. If only I thought of having them take pictures or even give me the burnt injectors... They probably threw them away...

What happened to the original records?

They gave me trouble because of my sound tube delete... lol... other than that they really have no reason not to cover the DI/Seals. The dealer "told me" when they called tech line they were aware of the situation and told them to run a test with just my DI on.

I am 90% sure if a person brings their car in with seal failure and ask or pay the diagnostic fee specifically asking for the DI seals leaking they will find an issue and cover it under warranty AND refund the diagnostic fee. (if you lose your diagnostic fee money don't come after me lol)

AFAIK, the Subaru Tech Line investigation procedures only apply to replacement of factory turbocharged engines under warranty. The tech line does not authorize or reject warranty repairs, that is up to the district service manager. If a non-turbo engine fails, and the dealership hasn't determined a cause, the DSM may instruct the dealer to consult tech line, but it's not necessarily a requirement.

bad injector seals
 

I just finished rebuilding my fa20 because of an injector seal that went bad on the direct injector on cylinder 1 and caused it to lean out and melt away the ground electrodee on the spark plug and caused cylinder wall damage.

this seems to be a problem with the direct injectors. when i took it aprt there was nothing left of the seal.

this may become a recall.

here are some pictures of the injector, plug and cylinder

What mods did you have? how did the issue first start presenting itself in your case?

This is what exactly happen to me
Hopefully the electrode didnt cause any damage

They will use a boroscope today to ckeck the internals
Attachment 40814

Check your coil pack, one member here reports that the coil-pack fails first then the plug then the seal, he said to always replace the coil-pack after a DI seal failure. Good luck.

the car is back together and running good now

i have a header back exhaust an injen intake a perrin light weight pulley and a visconti tune. it just started miss firing and smoking.

Did you do the teardown yourself? Or was it warranty work?

How many miles?

Seems like this issue keeps poping up but the poll only shows 7 case. Make sure you enter the poll to help build a case for a recall. Thanks for your report.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/poll....lts&pollid=471

How many track days?

I had exactly same thing. I got P301 and found out that sparkplug was damage. 500 mi later I got popping sound. Then, I realized the seal on 1st cylender was gone. I hope my engine is still okay.