Hello,
I have a 90 eclipse 2.0 DOHC and recently it started stalling on me. The first time I was simply driving down the road(in the rain) and it stalled, when it stalled I could hear a semi steady clicking sound. I later identifed this as the fuel injection relay in the center console. Its done this several times on me and I cant figure out why. Here is all that I know;
The car has power and can be cranked; rarely does it restart immediately, a cooling down period of several minutes us usually needed.
I replaced the fuel filter hoping that may have been the issue, it wasnt.
During one of its episodes (in my driveway prior to replacing the fuel filter) I manually(physically) closed the contacts in the relay while trying to start the vehicle, it would sputter but would not run.

It almost seems as if the fuel pump is going out and some sensor is detecting the low pressure and shutting the fuel injection system down. Is that possible? I havent found a sensor for that particular function? Things are tight and I hate to spend the money on a fuel pump and have it wind up being the computer or something else. Since this is my commute card I need to get it running ASAP. Any ideas?

Thanks
Richard

 

hmmmm...tough one....check your fuel mix, had a experience before just like that. soon i, found out its the fuel mix. some screw head mix my fuel w/ oil and sugar.

 

Did you ever replace the capacitors in the ECU? 90 to 94 eclipses are NOTORIOUS for having the capacitors leak on to the circuit board causing lots of problems. Eventually you will start having things like your Idle control motor making the same sounds as your pump relay, and there is a laundry list of symptoms that go along with this ECU problem eventually. Just something to think about during your diagnosis. I have had 3 1g eclipses, ALL of them had this problem. It is like magic when you spend 10 minutes working and have 10 malfunctions clear up just that fast.

 

Simply replace the capcitors?? Are we talking unsolder them and all?

 

Yes. But if the capacitors leaked, the ECU is ruined. Once you start having problems, It's too late. You will have to replace it. Wether it is used or not makes no difference as long as you can prevent the problem from occuring.

 

An electronics shop can repair them for cheap. Capacitors are about 30 cents a piece.

 

Thanks for the tip. I'm at the point where I am thinking its either the ECU or the Transistor Ignition Module. One thing I thought of was I noticed that one of the times it stalled (on the freeway) I was deperate so I tried some starting fluid. The engine ran(poorly) but while it was running there was no tachometer reading. Thats leaning me to thinking there was no tach signal and since the ECU is fed its tach signal off the same line if the ECU istn getting a tach signal it wont run the fuel injection. If one of the two transistors in the unit is bad then that would mean two plug wires wont fire and would explain why when I manually physically closed the fuel injection relay contacts that it sputtered but wouldnt start(running on two cylinders is apt to do that I'd guess.

Anyone else think I may be on the right track?

 

Sounds logical. I am out of my element when it comes to electronics, but that would be my take on the situation. Is there a way to have your module tested? When they fail, is it possible to have a non-moving part such as this be intermittent, or would it just quit? Just some questions I would ask myself.

 

I'm no electronics master and I tend to look for simple things first. Juat to clarify, in your original post did you mean the "fuel injection relay" or the fuel pump relay?

 

Firedoc; Its possible to test it but since the problem is so intermitient(sp) it would be hard to trust. The only thing I can think of is that when the module gets sufficiently hot it was failing. I ran that car for 4.5 hours today and drove it all over the place and the problem didnt resurface. The only thing I have done to it was to remove the cover from the spark plug valley (wante to be able to pull a plug wire and see evidence of spark if it failed) and I grabbed ahold of the connecto for the ignotion transistor assebly to try to pull it off. Didnt succeed but gave up since I wasnt going to pull it to test untill the failure occured which it never did.

pc; the Fuel injection relay. Its mounted on the support brace near the dashboard end of the center console. Its a double relay in one case. According to what I've read and been able to test myself one relay when on runs the fuel pump. The other relay powers the fuel injection in some manner(the schematics I have arent complete).