ECM repair

[illinest]

alright, I soldered in new capacitors and the car is now running.
It seems to be missing alot and is on the verge of stalling. Should I suspect that I did a bad job on my soldering or is this more likely related to gas/fuel issues. The car was idling rough before the ECM went out, but now is slightly more pronounced I think. We have only changed out the filter and cut out part of the air can thus far...

I have heard that the car might need to "relearn" engine management... that sounds like BS to me, but I would appreciate an informed answer.

 

[steve]

I have heard that the car might need to "relearn" engine management... that sounds like BS to me.

Most ECUs I see need more attention than just changing the capacitors and that may be the case here.

It's true that the ECU needs time to relearn, the farther away the nominal your O2 sensor and fuel system is the longer it takes for the closed loop fuel trims to settle but I doubt that's the issue here. What usually is the case is either the ISC circuit isn't working or the BISS adjustment is so far off that the ISC is driven out of range. Since I pretty much catch everything else on the bench your results may vary.

Steve

 

[GoldenBoy42]

Well I think the problem was the ecu was too far gone for our skills to fix. I was parked on an on-ramp talking on my cell phone and it stalled and would not start again. A very familiar situation. I cranked it over a few more times and it fired up, but I decided to press my luck and see if I could get it back home. I made it about 2-300 feet before it completely lost power. It didn't shut off right away, but seemed to drop rpms almost instantly to about 2k. I tried to give it some gas because i thought it was just trying to stall on me, and that had no effect. I steered it towards the side of the road and it shut off. I'm thinking I'll just shell out some money for a rebuilt/repaired ecu. E-bay'ing looks like I can get one for $230 shipped. After I confirm that the plugs and injectors aren't firing again, are their any other fairly easy repairs that might save the ecu?

 

[i1nk83]

just send it to steve(above poster) he does all kinds of dsm ecu repairs and really knows what he doing. plus i can almost guarantee that he price will be less than 230, and you know there is nothing wrong with the ecu. think of it as a freshening up if you will.

 

[cantrun10s]

Just curious, what did you end up doing?

 

[steve]

I received a 90 Turbo FWD ECU from Mechanicsburg shortly after, that I fixed. I don't know if it's the same guys or not but it's likely. I didn't hear anything back afterword. I usually like to find out how it worked out but I have to assume no news is good news.