Sudden failure (ECU or Emulator related I'm thinking)

[Miles Frederick]

  Hey all it's been awhile.  I've been away from the dsm forums for a bit, mostly just lost interest in the money pit and put as little as I could into it to keep it on the road.  I've been running speed density on an eprom ecu using an ostrich emulator with dsmap (and more recently jackal) for a good few years.

  The other night on my way home, it just died suddenly.  Symptoms are clicking relays, fuel pump coming on sometimes with cranking, other times not.  Datalogger won't hook up, mmsd pauses immediately indicating no ecu activity.

  So it has to be either the ecu or the ostrich emulator.  Now the ostrich communicates via usb with no problem, anything programmed to it seems to be retained, but I have no way to test the output to the ecu.

  One observation is that when things were working, was one time I had taken the ostrich with me and forgot to plug it back in, I had similar relay clicking under the dash.  As well now, regardless of whether it's plugged in or not, the symptoms are the same.  So I'm leaning towards it being the ostrich, and not just because it's half the price of an ecu .

  Opened it up, there were some previous repairs on the ecu prior to me purchasing it, however everything appears intact and the new caps appear to be in good condition.  As well, I can't find any fault with the ostrich, tested all the pins on the cable to the ecu socket for continuity.

  Anyone have any ideas on how to narrow it down ?  Unfortunately I don't have access to an eeprom flasher as I'd try bypassing the ostrich to start with. (Tried the vortex-diag method with no success, though I was only able to find 3c900b cards to try it with)

Cheers

[John Hartman]

If you head out here, you can borrow another ECU I have to test your Ostrich on.  And I have a couple of chips, one for stock injectors, one for 750's one for 850s.  All are for MAfs(1g and 2g) but unplugged, the car will still start, but it will stall. It can be made to run by manually playing with the throttle.

I would be willing to trade the time and use of the ECU as well as trying my Ostrich(as long as you are very certain it won't damage my goodies) for some tuning time.  I have all my Jackal related crap togeather now, with p-n-p harnesses.

[Miles Frederick]

  Just in case there is something going on that killed this one I wouldn't want to borrow an ecu or test with your ostrich, but if I could borrow a chip for a bit (any should do).  I'm thinking I can plug it in and fire up the datalogger.  If the ecu appears alive (tps reading and no weird clicking), that should narrow it down to the ostrich, though I suppose something in the ecu may have killed it.  It an original v1 though, been around for quite a few years... Still internally it all looks top notch, no corrosion or burnt components that I can tell.

  I'm going to work on borrowing a vehicle to get down there, but I'm not sure quite when.  I'll drop you a pm once I know and see what your schedule's like.

Thanks for the offer,

Miles

[John Hartman]

hugh betcha man!

[Miles Frederick]

Thanks again John for the chip.  Unfortunately it's looking as if the ecu has failed.  But it's definitely nice to have narrowed down the ostrich.  Anyone know of any other issues (wiring harness perhaps) which could lead to the ecu failure type symptoms listed above ?

Cheers,

Miles

[Richard Clark]

I'll give you a good deal on a 1990 eprom if you need a new ECU. 

[Remi Raymond]

Does your CEL come on when the ECU first powers up? (and then go out after 5 seconds?)
this is exactly what my last ECU did when it died, but it still ran the car for a while (albeit improperly)

 One of the telltale signs was the CEL would not come on anymore at all during.
Indicating that the ECU wasn't able to complete its power-on testing. If yours has that as well, consider it toast.

[Miles Frederick]

Thanks for the suggestion.  No cel light, which confirms my suspicions.  It appears completely brain-dead.  Strange how it would just suddenly fail after years of perfect service (no fresh cap leaks).  I read on ds-map that a bad idle control motor can burn the ecu.  Though six months back or so pulled it out and it appeared to be moving in and out correctly and coil resistance checked out.  Definitely something to check when the new ecu arrives.

Richard, thanks for the offer.  Unfortunately I already had one on the way as of yesterday morning, before I had a chance to read your post.  I'm reluctant to go through all the work hacking up the harness anyhow   Thanks for the offer though.

[Remi Raymond]

Thanks for the suggestion.  No cel light, which confirms my suspicions.  It appears completely brain-dead.  Strange how it would just suddenly fail after years of perfect service (no fresh cap leaks).  I read on ds-map that a bad idle control motor can burn the ecu.  Though six months back or so pulled it out and it appeared to be moving in and out correctly and coil resistance checked out.  Definitely something to check when the new ecu arrives.

Richard, thanks for the offer.  Unfortunately I already had one on the way as of yesterday morning, before I had a chance to read your post.  I'm reluctant to go through all the work hacking up the harness anyhow  Thanks for the offer though.

 sorry to hear it died but mine had the exact symptoms, right down to zero cap leaking, and it had been repaired previously as well.