I'm new to this forum, but not new to cars. I have been working on a '90 Eclipse turbo GS for a short while... One day the ECU fries and when I went to replace it with one from a junkyard I found that almost all of the DSMs were missing their ECU. I have come to the conclusion that this is a common prblem in DSMs and I was hoping that someone could tell me how to keep it from happening again. The ECU that fried was a replacement for the original that had also fried. Please help me out. This is my girlfriend's car and I'm really hoping to be able to help her back on the road soon.

 

It could be many things it could be anything in the electrical, I just replaced my idle sensor solenoid because, that was broken, and they said it would eventually destroy my ecu, so it could be anything so get it checked out or something.

 

What symptoms was your car having to make you want to replace your idle sensor solenoid?

 

Its Idle was not like it was when I first got it, like when I turn on the A/C the rpms drop dramatically.

 

wow, that same thing was happening here. I just tightened the throttle cable, thinking I fixed the problem. Would it really cause the ECU to fry though?

 

I had the same problem on my 94 it seems to me even small shorts can cause this situation so eliminate all shorts specially most common in your stereo its either the radio or and amp is the most common. to avoid you can also put fusible links on your main cables.

 

i know there aren't any possible shorts in the stereo and amp because i put that stuff in myself. I have had past wiring disasters, so let me just say i really took my time and covered all exposed wire. i made sure to make no mistake there. besides, we lost one ecu even before the system was ever put in. before my girlfriend owned the car, though, it belonged to her dad's girlfriend. during that time the ecu had fried for the first time. it was taken to a mechanic and he put in a "magic switch" instead of replacing the ecu. now, you guys, this is probably going to sound really stupid from here... My g/f's dad said that the switch was supposed to by-pass the brain, which we all know can not be the technical way to say it. after i had replaced the ecu once i found that all the switch was was just a switch allowing a black wire running into some sort of soleniod to ground. i don't know what the soleniod or whatever it is is for, but i'm getting the feeling that it is something that needs to be replaced. to give you guys a better understanding of what the switch really does: i know that it is a ground wire. when turned on, the gauges work and the car is able to be started. if you can see what i'm talking about, please tell me what this strange soleniod right by the ecu is and what it does. i want to eliminate this problem for good.

 

i'm sorry about the long post before. the problem is that her dad wants to have the switch put in use again. even though he was driving the car for a year afterwards, the ecu still fried, meaning that it won't fix the problem. since he is my g/f's dad, i'm not going to argue with him. he also wants the car put into a shop and is willing to pay $500 for anything needed to be done. but and brand new ecu + whatever caused it to blow being fixed + labor definitely will cost more than $500 and my g/f doesn't have the money to take care of the rest.