In the past couple of months I have seen my CEL come on 4 times now, all under gentle acceleration (talking 1/3rd - 1/2 throttle) from low revs in 4th gear. It blinks for 20 seconds max then goes away. During all of this the engine is running as smooth as the day I got it and there is no discernable performance loss at all.

I have had the fault diagnosis machine plugged into it a couple of times now however the ECU has not logged any faults.

Anybody come across a similar thing? I am just fed up with haveing the crap scared out of me everytime the thing flashes with me with thoughts of massive repair bills.

The car is an My01 Bugeye Wagon with zero mods, always run on super.

Thanks.

 

My car is also an 01 WRX, although it has a few mods and was remapped just under a year ago, for the second time.

My CEL came on and stayed on when I was razzing it up a dual carriageway last week. The manual refers to emissions. I did a "search" on here and saw reference to possible causes being the neutral postion switch on the gearbox, the o2 sensor and finally the lambda sensor.

What exactly is the difference between the 02 and lambda and what effect will running with a faulty lambda for a couple of months have ?

And how much is a Subaru lambda ?

 

If its a WRX then it sounds exactly like the problem I've had with mine. Neutral position switch is likely the cause but the fault that often gets stored in the ECU is "Misfire on cylinder" 1,2,3 or 4 (or several cylinders). If you can get the CEL to blink at will, like I could, get your dealer to log the state of the neutral position switch while you are driving - even though you might have your right foot on the floor the neutral switch tells the ECU that the gearbox is in neutral - which it obviously isn't. Very common fault on MY01 WRX. There is a modification that the dealer can do to reduce the over sensitivity of the switch - it involves the fitment of a spacer/washer (between the switch and gearbox casing I think)

 

the lambda sensor is the o2 sensor. A knackered one will drop your fuel consumption quite drastically sometimes, you might not get an error code either, occasionally, if it still givs a good voltage then it wont show up, but will still cause over fuelling.

 

Thanks Mikey. V helpful. Would that explain a smell of fuel on razzing it ?

How much is a Subaru lambda ? And where is it, on the exhaust ?

 

On the 01 WRX, the primary 02 sensor is in the O/S of the exhaust manifold. There is also a rear 02 sensor by the second Cat, under the car

HTH

 

front is an air/fuel ratio sensor the second one is the 02 sensor

 

So if you have a decat apart from the sportscat dp, you won't have the second cat ?