New to this forum here, and looking for a little advice as I am at a loss with this car.
Little car history- 1999 Subaru legacy outback with the 2.5L engine, Car has 224,000 miles. And okay maintenance history.
I recently bought the car for Decently cheap but it did have one slight issue, it’s throwing a P0301 cylinder 1 misfire. It’s only missing at idle the moment the RPM goes about 1000 rpm the miss fire is gone. I bought it with the confidence I could easily figure it out. I was wrong lol
The previous owner replaced the coil pack, plug wires, fuel filter and spark plugs. I pulled all of the spark plugs out, verified part numbers and verified gap was in spec. I verified the spark plug wires Ohm’d within spec. I verified the new coil pack was producing good color/ strong spark with a spark tester. Cylinder 1 is not completely missing as if you unplug the #1 injector the engine rpm drops and the engine noticeably shakes
I did a compression test and found I have 155 psi of compression at cylinder 1. ( not new but in spec)
At this point I said screw it and threw a reman injectors in it as they were decently cheap I have had no change it still has a slight miss. (Throttle response is definitely better though)
I checked for vacuum leaks with some ether and haven’t found anything.
I have read through multiple forums and a lot of people always say timing belt, I do have a question about this as I do not know when it was replaced but if the timing belt is loose / stretched wouldn’t cylinder 4 have a slight miss fire also? As it’s a dohc design. Intake on one cam exhaust on the other.
Now I’m thinking I need to check valve lash on cylinder 1 as maybe it has loosened up over time but with this being a shim bucket design I would expect it to tighten up. But who knows lol maybe a cam is going flat? Really don’t want to do this as it’s going to suck but if I need to I will!
What route would you guys take from here I’m kind of at a loss and any help is greatly appreciated!
