General Weird ecu....

[93AWDDSM]

What the hell kind of repair is this to the damn ecu?

Never checked it but it's been in the car for at least 4 years and I like just broke the "void warranty" band around it and I saw a big mess. Doesn't look normal, can someone more experienced with this stuff help me out?

Thanks

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[2gmitsueclipse]

That looks to be RTV sealant smothered all over the ECU. Likely, the caps were replaced and RTV was used to reduce vibration or prevent further damage to the board.

 

[93AWDDSM]

Thought it was rtv . BEst bet to probably find a different one huh? Or is that really an acceptable way to run it...

 

[2gmitsueclipse]

Was there a reason why you pulled the ECU in the first place? Usually, pulling the ECU is to upgrade or diagnose a problem.

If you pulled the ECU just for fun and the car seems to operate correctly, there should be no reason to replace it. Although, I do not think it would be worth trying to repair due to the mount of time it would take to clean up if repair is needed.

 

[93AWDDSM]

The car was running a little weird, but I'm leaning towards more of a mechanical issue. Thanks for your input on this, really appreciate it.

 

[Dstarperformance01]

I've got one that looks similar and was told caps had been replaced at some point prior.
I had no issues what so ever with this one.
It's now my spare in case something happens I can go stock with no issues

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[steve]

Over the years I saw far too many like these.

First problem was that most times the boards were not cleaned well enough from the original capacitors leaking and it just kept eating away at the metal in the circuit traces until the ECU stopped working again.

Second problem was it was impossible to remove the RTV to repair the damage.

Plus it looks like crap and shows that they had no idea how to do the job with the right coating so it's likely the rest of the work was sub-standard also.

 

[Dstarperformance01]

Over the years I saw far too many like these.

First problem was that most times the boards were not cleaned well enough from the original capacitors leaking and it just kept eating away at the metal in the circuit traces until the ECU stopped working again.

Second problem was it was impossible to remove the RTV to repair the damage.

Plus it looks like crap and shows that they had no idea how to do the job with the right coating so it's likely the rest of the work was sub-standard also.

Normally I would agree with you, but in my case the car was in great shape. No other issues. When I opened the ecu it looked as clean as new with zero signs of damage. I agree it looks like A#* but, I'm not to worried about looks as much as how something performs. If it does its job with no issues i would drive a pink and yellow polkadot dsm with curb feelers as long as it performs like I want/need it to, but that's just me. In my case, I think it was a case of a owner not knowing that it was like that. My ecu also had the void warranty stickers still attached and not broken.