banny sti

iTrader: (68)

Glad to hear it Pete, place wouldn't be the same without you . Although methinks there is room for everyone here in scoobynet geeks, crankpots, stark raving loonies etc. Everyone adds to the rich tapestry, although it is nice to read posts that are balanced, articulate and thoughtful as opposed to inane insults and belittling of others. As for your Common Sense Control crusade I wish you all the luck in the world you will definetely need it . As for blowing your own trumpet, you blow it as long and as loud as you like Pete, just give us some forewarning .


Regards Maz

Gary C

No, the question was,

"damaged their engines by not knowing of octane boosters,and by simply using std uk 95/98 ron fuels in their imports"

I think SUL should be fine in an import, but not so sure about using 95. Anyone know if all imports can retard enough ?

AC-scoobie

Isn't there an **** licking smiley?

andyr

TBH knowing what caused an engine to fail is often very hard to determine as 1 problem can then result in another which results in another which leads eventually to something major happening - looking at a knackered engine and saying for sure what caused the problem is not always obvious and many people don't get their blown engines examined to see the cause, they just get it repaired or replaced.

*IF* the JDM Impreza ECUs were mapped for 100/102 octane fuel (I am not 100% sure if this was ever the case) then *IF* their ability to retard the ignition in the event of knock was only of limited ability ( the early models would have had simpler ECUs) then if you were driving hard, serious knock or det would not have to last very long at all before it started a nasty chain of events.
Expert In All Things Engineering Pete and his love of all things **** (he's always mentioning the word so there must be something about it !) ignores certain issues.
1) He drives like the old cretin that he is. MPG is more important than BHP to him.
2) He would only buy a UK market car. That will have certain adaptions from the original JDM model to deal with local peculiarities or likes/dislikes. Such as our comparatively low quality fuel.
Even if Pete fitted a Knocklink to his car he would never see any evidence of knock or detonation due to points 1 and 2 above.
To add to the risk of knock/det, which is what lower quality fuel is at risk of causing, owners of JDM cars that have modded their cars will have moved further away still from the resemblance to the std UK model so even if that will happily run on 95/98 fuel a JDM classic Impreza running a cat-free exhaust is at risk from the damage caused by knock - it may run for 000's of miles on supermarket fuel like that but using Optimax plus octane booster brings the fuel that your car runs on closer to that which it was intended to use. At worst your car's ECU is not having to retard the ignition with the resultant reduction in performance, at best you lesses the risk and the engine runs closer to it's optimum.

slammedmind

yes all jdm cars are mapped for higher fuel, the japanese have 100ron fuel standard at the pumps, this doesnt affect standard cars when the come over to these shores but rather the high performance cars.

middxsti

yes but as stated before,japanese also have 91/96 and 100RON,so surely how can the jdm cars be only mapped for 100RON???

AC-scoobie

The same way as pre 99 PPP cars are mapped for SUL only.

slammedmind

where in japan do they have ron 91?? this is news to me? After a recent trip to tokyo ive only seen 98 and 100 fuel at the petrol stations????

aaronhowe

I'd like to add that for the ECU to detect knock, det actually has to accure first. If you get a sudden and drastic enough det it can damage an engine before the ECU has a chance to retard the timing.

Imprezas are designed to be driven hard. To say that the only reason engines blow is because people rag the **** off them is wrong. Yes you will cause more wear but as long as its looked after like being warmed up first, serviced regularly and run on good fuel then it shouldn't give you any issues.

middxsti

91/96ron availability in japan is what's been mentioned is available there,in this thread, but if you've been there then i suppose we've heard porkies,but even if 98 ron is there our jdm vehicles should run fine on this in the uk,no?

Gary C

Now I don't believe that at all.

Knock or pre-ignition happens in modern cars, they fit knock sensors to allow the ECU to optimise the ignition to match the fuel in use. Knock has to happen to allow the ECU to do something about it.

The damage as far as I know is due to the higher temperatures and shock but takes time to actually cause serious damage.

pslewis

Only on ScoobyNet can such an **** statement like that appear

The ECU isn't fast enough, eh?? So, the speed of light is too slow

Compared to an ECU adjustment - any adjustment made by the driver in response to a CockLink Light Show is pathetically slow!! So?? why have a CockLink? To tell you that the engine is fooooked?? I think I will know that as it will run like a bag of nails!!

The ECU is too slow .......... foooookin heard it all now

Pete

banny sti

iTrader: (68)

Its called respect, something that is earnt.

LegacySTi

iTrader: (13)

GUILTY!!! Melted a piston twice!!! Big Ends twice!!! Not all same car and over last 3 years. Both times Pistons down to fueling so my fault, 1 big end down low oil (big thicko from the island) also my fault, other down to second hand engine which got 900 miles out of. Turned out come outta car that was rolled. So prob running upside down or something.

pslewis

What evidence do you have that it was down to fuelling??

Or is it a guess??

Pete

captain ted

Pete speaks a lot of sense and many of us on here agree with what he says.

Some of you out there must think the Impreza must be the most complicated car to own!

It has been my most reliable car I have had and has always run on 95 RON, not modified, tows a caravan and does the school run everyday! (MY01)

Ted.

Gary C

Iye, run my STi on 95 too, no problems and don't expect any as it is designed to run on it.

But to all of us smug UK car owners, would you run a JDM STi type R on 95 ?

I think I would for safetys sake get it remapped for 95 first.

Generic User

Ever noticed that the people who know the stock Subaru's ECU mapping tables inside out (be it JDM or UK) fail to make any detailed significant comment on threads like this.

Intentional dumbing down?
Yes sir, you need a new ECU and a re-map, that'll be £500 for the ECU and £300 for the remap please. Nowt like speculation, fear and **** gossip to increase business

Remember, if the car does suffer detonation it will be worse and more destructive under high loads, it usually won't suffer any harm when driving in accordance to UK speed limits and road conditions. Start driving like a tit however....

People say a Impreza was "designed" for this. No, it's a road car. Going from A-B is its primary design purpose. It is NOT a rally or race car. Going fast was a last thought consideration (Design team: "the 2.0 Sport is is as slow as ****, what can we do? I know, lets strap a Turbo on...good idea")

It was designed to be CONTINUALLY used in normal road conditions where maximum speeds rarely go above 80mph. It is not designed to be thrashed and used hard 100% of the time. Even the 280bhp JDM models never sniffed over 110mph.

So why expect it not to blow up above this with the restrictor removed and running UK fuel? It is a recipe for emptying your wallet.

From an engineer's point of veiw in failure analysis. If something fails it is usually due to the item being exposed to operating conditions that are outside of the original design limitation or influenced by factors that were never intially considered. Apply this logically to a Japanease market Impreza

Fat Boy

pslewis

Excellent post ..... readers please note its contents!!

The Impreza that you and I buy is NOT designed to be driven like a Subaru Rally Car!! (look how unreliable they are, even with proper attention!)

They are, as said above, designed to be driven sensibly ... with, yes, the odd spurt of the available power .... but, too many think that buying an Impreza means that they HAVE to drive like utter ***** and then they cry when the engine blows!

Engineers know whats what, these cars are superbly put together ... too many people are making too much money out of the ScoobyNet **** Scaremongering for proper, well thought out, advice to be fully agreed on.

Newcomers could do MUCH worse than listen to me and the other level headed folk on here

Pete

AC-scoobie

What a load of crap, Pete does exactly what he claims to be fighting on here. He makes wide sweeping statements that are pertinent to his specific model of impreza, mixes it with a dash of sh1te for good measure. As you painfully higlight above, your car is an unmoded MY01 running on 95ron.... and? That's what it's meant to do!

aaronhowe

How many road going imprezas that have blown up though have been thrashed for 100% of the time. I would wager that none have. Infact I would be suprised they were driven hard for more than 30% of the time.
When the engineers were designing the impreza I doubt they would have said to them selves "No one driving this car is going to want to use full throttle so we won't bother making sure its reliable flat out for any length of time"

The original statement was how many people have damaged their engines from using the wrong fuel and the answer is that on imports probably quite a few. Yes if you take it easy it won't really have much of an affect in the short term but could do in the long term. If you start to use the loud peddle a bit though then it will be more of a concern.

These statements you like to make just continually highlight how little you know about modern engines.
I will repeat that for the ecu to detect knock det has to accure first. If the first instance of det is bad enough it can cause damage to the engine. More minor prolonged det can also cause damage but over a much longer period.


The cocklink as you often like to call it (I think there are other reasons for this other than the fact it rhymes) is not designed to stop you causing damage if very bad det is occuring. It is there to warn you of minor det that could be an indication of something else wrong so you can catch it early.

Pete you continually comment that these are just normal cars like any other but what you fail to mention is that these cars are making 276bhp out of a 2 litre engine. That is 138bhp per litre. At this level there is a LOT more pressure on this engine than your everyday run of the mill car. So no this is not a NORMAL engine as a normal one would probably blow up in a couple of thousand miles if you tried running that amount of power through it.
A small problem in fueling on a normal car would quite possibly only show up as slight lack in performance but on an engine under MUCH higher pressure the problem is multiplied many times over

I do agree that there is a lot of scare mongering on scoobynet but I don't think you should automatically dismiss everything you read just because you don't understand it.

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

I think you'll find they've just given up banging their heads against a brick wall. I've heard the likes of Bob Rawle, Andy F, Pavlo, David from APi etc... all commenting on this isssue before. At the end of the day they've said their piece - you can take their advice or dismiss it as sales talk and leave it.

Ns04

Carlos13

So Pete you think that the ECU in an impreza processes instructions at the speed of light?

Exactly how many instructions per second is the the speed of light? Actually, no, an approximation would be good enough...I'd be interested to see how you convert from distance/time to instructions/time.

Enlighten us, oh engineer...

Generic User

I do so love the way context is taken so literally! Giving finite percentage of how a car is driven during its lifespan is impossible without spouting wild speculation. But the figgure you can be pretty much be sure of, is a vehicle thrashed 100% of the time will not last as long. You should know better than to expect anything more from an arbituary figure

The reason why, is nobody can judge. I know many people who consider themselves mechanically sympathetic drivers. When in reality it is quite the opposite. This makes measuring the % of cars that are driven hard impossible, as many owners who abuse their cars kid themselves into thinking otherwise. And woe betide anyone who questions their better judgement!

Indeed, but the engine's lifespan in a situation of high likeliness of detonation and high combustion temperatures is directly related to how the car is driven.

In lamens: you can have two cars, tuned soley for 100ron, running on 95ron. One driven hard, the other driven considerately. Which engine last the longest?

Fat Boy

Obvious answer in that scenario, but, to pose the question so as to encompass the query originally posed by the thread starter, it should have read like this:

You have 4 import STis all originally mapped for 100ron:

Two are run on 95RON, with one being driven hard and one being driven as if it's a metro automatic.

The final two are remapped for 97 RON to suit our fuel and then one is driven hard and one is driven like you're already dead.

Which ones are more likely to blow up first?

aaronhowe

That is obvious and that is the point. The car which is being driven hard will be the one that goes pop. However it is not the hard driving that made it go bang its the fact that the fuel is wrong. The engineers will have tested the engines to death (litterally) and this will have included being run very hard to make sure it will stand up to it during the warranty period.

Generic User

Indeed, but the intial thread question is about an engine not using the fuel it was initially tuned to run on.

The lamen's term was to simplify the statement made directly above it in reply to the quoted text, as it probably flew over most people's head.

No need to read or argue into it any further. As it is a clarification of the intial factor in this scienario, nothing more. That being: you can have one JDM import running on NUL that suffers no consequence, whilst another car of the same spec running on the same fuel fails relatively quickly.

APIDavid

iTrader: (4)

I'm not getting into this. Drive your cars on whatever fuel you want to.

David APi Engines / APi Impreza
www.apiengines.com

Generic User

LOL