My son and I are restoring a GVR4, and up until today I thought I had a GVR4 ECU, but after digging them out of storage and looking at things on-line I don't think I do. I think these are 1G ECU's.

If you've followed our thread, this one came with the white GVR4 ... no lid, just the ECU base, so I'm not sure what MDXXXX it is. Clearly it's in EPROM, but the mounting bracket says 1G to me, not VR4. Then again, I don't even know what the case on GVR4 ECU is suppose to look like.

This one came with our green VR4, and I was going to send it out to ECM Tuning to have it gone over and socketed, but it's not an EPROM and the MD193299 internet search say's a 93-94 1G AWD ECU. Not sure its worth doing anything with this one.

I picked this one up on eBay many years back, I forget what my thinking was when I bought it, but the MD128618 says it's a JDM GVR4 ECU, but I'm not sure what years and whether it's compatible with an US GVR4. It's a double circuit board, I didn't take the top off to see if it had an EPROM chip on it, but it doesn't look like it.


I'm thinking I send the first one to ECM Link and have them look it - see if they can figure out whether it's FWD or AWD and whether or not it's good. If it checks out, have them socket it while it's there. Little bit of research I did says a 1G ECU will work in a VR4, but it might run a touch rich at idle. Curious what your guys thoughts/experiences are, especially from the VR4 people on here.

FWD or AWD wont really matter as far as running, either will work fine, I would send out the EPROM ECU and have it gone over, have the capacitors replaced if all checks out as good and have it socketed like you said and go from there.

I dont understand. Are you concerned you dont have an ecu out of an actual gvr4?

With the 4 digit code off the connector you can backtrack to the original ECU part from my list http://simon.chi.il.us/ECU/ECUID.html
So the first is a 91/92 MD166260 Federal MT FWD EPROM ECU
The second is a 93 MD193299 Federal MT AWD ECU
The third is an old school dual board ECU. The case was from a 88/89 JDM GVR4 that would have had that type of ECU but can't confirm.

So two DSM ECUs and one old GVR4. I can see some corrosion from the caps leaking on the EPROM ECU so it will need a thorough cleaning, any damage repaired, and the caps replaced at a minimum. Assuming the GVR4 is stock and you don't go with ECMLink you'll want a E943 EPROM to put in it and then use the mounting brackets from the old GVR4 ECU.

pauleyman said:

I dont understand. Are you concerned you dont have an ecu out of an actual gvr4?

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Basically yeah. I've had these sitting around for a while and didn't realize till I pulled them out of storage they weren't GVR4 Ecu's. I quick did some research to see if they would still work on galantvr4.org and here and got some mixed answers. Just figured I'd post up here and see what people had to say.

steve said:

With the 4 digit code off the connector you can backtrack to the original ECU part from my list http://simon.chi.il.us/ECU/ECUID.html
So the first is a 91/92 MD166260 Federal MT FWD EPROM ECU
The second is a 93 MD193299 Federal MT AWD ECU
The third is an old school dual board ECU. The case was from a 88/89 JDM GVR4 that would have had that type of ECU but can't confirm.

So two DSM ECUs and one old GVR4. I can see some corrosion from the caps leaking on the EPROM ECU so it will need a thorough cleaning, any damage repaired, and the caps replaced at a minimum. Assuming the GVR4 is stock and you don't go with ECMLink you'll want a E943 EPROM to put in it and then use the mounting brackets from the old GVR4 ECU.

Click to expand...

Steve - thanks so much for the link and figuring out what was what. The VR4 we're restoring is stock for now, but I'm assuming my son will want to grow with the car and make more power as he gets older. So, I'd like to have something at minimum socketed now so he can easily switch to ECMLink later. I guess, according to your info, if the first board checks out OK, I can use that one, have it socketed and track down a E943 that we can use for now.

I dont remember differences but ive personally ran a gvr4 on a 90 ecu.

The MAF is slightly different, so the airflow measurement will be off some. That's all I can remember right now. Maybe after the coffee kicks in I'll have more.

steve said:

The MAF is slightly different, so the airflow measurement will be off some. That's all I can remember right now. Maybe after the coffee kicks in I'll have more.

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Was it missing the lower section? Or missing the honeycomb? Something like that.

The lower, they all need the upper honeycomb to straighten the air before the Karman sensor for it to work correctly.

steve said:

The lower, they all need the upper honeycomb to straighten the air before the Karman sensor for it to work correctly.

Click to expand...

Yeah. The lower honeycomb. I removed mine in my 1g as part of the " free mods"

Following up with my own thread.

I sent the EPROM ECU into ECMLink about a week ago. They were able to make necessary repairs to the board, socket the board, and flash the existing chip and load a VR4 firmware onto it. It's already on it's way back. Very quick turn around, communication was great. Very impressed, couldn't be happier with these guys.