I always thought I'd blow something up racing. But no, I blow something up driving down the highway in the rain with my cruise control on! (warning, long story) If you want to help, I'm just looking for a dealer that's mod-friendly for warranty work.

Ok, so here's the deal. Last night I'm driving home in the miserable wind/rain down I-80W from Rocklin and I come to a lighter rain area and hit accellerate on my cruise control (yeah, I'm one of those weirdos who uses it). Usually this isn't a big deal. This time, however, my car decided to KEEP ACCELLERATING. You can imagine my dismay when I hit cancel, set, accel, and then completely turned off the cruise control and it kept accellerating!

At this point I was at about 3900RPM in 5th gear and the turbo was starting to spool (17psi by now). With my setup, that meant that soon I would no longer be going 95, but 150. I mashed on the gas pedal a few times to try to free up the throttle cable. I'm no stranger to 100+mph, but it's a little different in 40mph crosswinds and pouring rain on practically slick tires. I was starting to hydroplane, BAD. I knew if I was going this fast by the next turn in the freeway I would be going straight into the center divider instead.

So I kick into survival mode. I used my brakes to slow me back down to normal speeds again (70mph). This was followed by some more gas pedal mashing and cruise control switch usage. Nothing was working and I knew I couldn't use my brakes anymore at those speeds under power. I wanted to kill the car and coast down, but I was in a construction zone with no shoulder.

I popped it in and out of gear (5th and 4th) a few times -- obviously bouncing off the rev limiter in between -- trying to get my throttle cable free. It was no use. About a mile down the road I rounded a corner (by hydroplaning across two lanes) and saw a long straight with a wide shoulder. I dropped it out of gear one last time and then decided to kill the ignition.

In case you were wondering, coasting to a stop on the freeway from 100mph in the pouring rain without power brakes or power steering is quite interesting. Good thing I have a manual transmission.

After I got stopped I popped the hood open and sure enough, the throttle cable for the cruise control was stuck holding the throttle plate open. I was able to jiggle it around and free it. I started up the car and heard a wonderful "ting ting ting ting ting". I figured I probably shouldn't drive the car but I didn't want to sit out there and wait for a towtruck. So I limped her home.

I'm fairly confident that my UTEC and it's timing retarding is the only reason I was even able to drive it home after that Rev-limiter filled experience. On the drive home it was sensing knock at EVERY RPM point under almost any throttle position. Something is very broken.

I'm still under warranty (500 miles 'till it's up -- probably the only reason I'm not extremely pissed off right now) and I need a Subaru dealership that won't automatically dismiss me because I have a FMIC and aftermarket turbo. I'm confident my aftermarket parts had nothing to do with this catastrophy. It was most definetly a mechanical problem of some sort with the throttle cable binding up or something was wrong inside the cruise control mechanism.

Help

JD
www.wrxhackers.com
webmaster@wrxhackers.com

 

damn. crazy story... that actually happened to me...

not as bad.. i was able to shake it off by pumping the gas.

btw.. mr wakie... what are you pushing now?

got some dyno charts?

mods?

utec huh?

 

No dyno chart. I'm sure I'm not pushing more than 300 @ wheels on 91 octane. Right now I think I'm at about 60hp. As for the mods, see:

http://wrxhackers.com/members/wackie/mods.txt

Nathan from TurboXS just told me he's had the same thing happen to him too. I'm sensing a trend.

JD

 

Well, good luck on the mods story. A blown engine with a big fatty turbo and an FMIC...go figure. SoSC (Santa Cruz, not Steven's Creek) is mod friendly, but I am sure they are not that mod friendly!

If I were in your situation, it is VERY WORTH IT to put in a day or so and pull of ANY EVIDENCE OF ANY MODIFICATION.

You could save yourself thousands...litteraly, for using a Saturday, and Sunday to do the work.

I have never had the throttle stick during cruise control, but a couple of times, when I was reving the motor from the engine bay, by turning the throttle body plate manually, that beeeotch became hung wide open because of the stupid cable got hung up with in the valve thing...

Andy

 

well if ur gonna tear ur car apart.. good luck

but i'll call and check first.

check w/ ckevin

 

Wait, you said you'd call for me?

 

nah i really meant to say was

if i were you i'd call and check before bringing it down there all monstered out

 

Update: Subaru of Santa Cruz said they'll look at it if I bring it in stock. I guess they can't put illegal stuff back on once they work on it.

JD