ecu problem?

[crazy_quick]

yesterday, I was coming home from work when my car started studdering. I was just cruising and the car lost power. I put my foot to the floor just to stay at 70mph. and then I pull over, try to turn it on again. And it doent turn on.

So i tow it home and hook up my dattalogger to it and see if there are any codes. It says ecu communication error.

does that mean my ecu is bad?

 

[95blackGsTurbo]

I would check basics first. Maybe your alternator quit and your battery is dead. Try charging it first. If the battery is fine then you may have leaking caps inside the ECU.

 

[crazy_quick]

it turns over, there is power.

I just poped open the ecu and it looks a white substance all across the board. and under the caps there looks to be copper showing.

 

[crazy_quick]

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sorry about the crappy camera..

 

[95blackGsTurbo]

That would be leaking caps. Time for a new/rebuilt ECU

 

[crazy_quick]

that would cause the car to sputter and lose power? and not wanna turn on again.

 

[JayRolla]

Ohh yea leaking caps can make your car act crazy. Ive seen perfectly clean ecu's that where bad and cause problems like yours. I found a full perfect lazer turbo in the junk yard and couldnt figure out why it was there. The motor was clean, no bent valves or anything. The timing belt was new. When I went to test the eprom ecu out of it the car ran like crap, no power when you hit boost. Thats why the guy junked his car because he couldnt figure it out.

 

[crazy_quick]

but it would make the car not want to turn on, right?

 

[shaunman1979]

Yes It can make it not run if it is bad enough. And by the way it looks in your pics its pretty bad. I was having stuttering problems like that with my car. I am just waiting on my tranny to get done to see if that was what was wrong. The board looked just fine but under the caps was a different story. I had mine replaced for $25 and he was able to clean the board up so there was no residue still eating away at it.

 

[crazy_quick]

alos, It always had a check engine light for the o2 sesor. And when I hooked up the data logger (MMCD) about 75% of the time it was at 0.0v Is that ecu related too?

 

[Dvious]

I had the same problem, A ground came of my car and must have messed up the caps, car was sputtering like crazy, wouldn't start sometimes, when it did start it would buck like crazy while i was driving. Call Autozone My Rebuilt ECU was $199 and my car runs perfect also comes with a pretty good warranty, Or you can search the boneyards or call mitsu and spend $1200 just my 2 cents.

 

[steve]

Somebody has already worked on that ECU and done the typical substandard job.
The white stuff is the partially dissolved coating bordering the area where it has been removed from the board. Acetone will do this.

The first thing to check is does the CEL turn on for about 5 seconds when you first turn the ignition on and does the boost gauge go to zero? No, then make sure that you are getting power to the MPI relay all the time and the ECU when the ignition is turned on.

It's always possible that the MPI fuse blew keeping the ECU from powering up and replacing it is cheaper then sending your ECU out for repairs and still not having the car work when you get it back.

Steve

 

[Plyzer]

I'm going through the leaky ECU problem as well. I've found a place that specializes in 1g ECU's. I'm just waitin' for a few extra bucks, then I'm goin' to give these guys a try. Check 'em out...

www.motoguys.com

Anyways, something to kick around. Good luck.

 

[steve]

He's one of the few people who's watched me fix his ECUs and the reason I don't let people watch anymore.

Steve