I wasn't gonna share this lil story, cuz ain't no one else gonna have the same issue, but since I spent yesterday thrashing in the snow and made sure that neither me nor the car was damaged, and maybe just maybe someone else'll have occasion to try to repair their standalone ECU. So y'all can read on, see just how close this came to being the mother of all zoom zoom boom threads, go ahead and have a chuckle at my expense; now that I can look back on it and laugh, I don't care...Long read though, y'all been warned.
So there I was, with a test report says failed CO at idle. So all I gotta do is talk to the (Link) ECU and lean out the idle fuel. Only problem is, the datapad/PC ribbon cable ain't working. Trouble on the ecu mainboard. Been that way for a year but who cares, tuning's long done and I don't need to talk to the ecu anyhow, till now. This won't be the first time I've had to touch up cracked solder joints. I've redone all the pins for the sockets, the injector drivers, and even had to run a jumper wire from the processor block to the ribbon cable block when I couldn't get continuity down the circuit trace no matter what I tried. So back in there, get out the magnifying glass, and go to it. 3 cracked joints on the processor block, 1 more elsewhere, touch em up, and reinstall.
You know that low ominous music note in every horror movie ever made, that comes up right before the character just cluelessly wanders on and you're saying to yourself "WTF is the MATTER with you, GTFO before your head comes RIGHT off" and they go and get their head removed anyway? Yeah. I couldn't hear that scary music either.
I go to start the car. Pump is running, nothing else is obviously wrong, the keypad even works, hey hey lookit that, just have this little detail of it not wanting to start. Try again and now it don't even wanna crank over? Musta left something on and battery is tired maybe? (BWWAAAAAAAAA scary music note again) (didn't hear it, again) (dumbass)
Put the battery on a charger, pulled the plugs, set 'em on the valve cover wired up so I can see if I have spark. Been there, done that, countless times. I go crank it up and jeeeezuss****ing **** my face starts melting like those Nazis in the Indiana Jones movie as my engine does it's best Old Faithful impression, sending at least 2 full cylinders worth of Chevron's finest all the way up into the rafters of my garage and front wall and fenders and hood and just ****ing EVERYwhere holy crap OMGWTFBBQ oh and BTW, yes you *do* have spark why do you ask?
Times like this when I think "go have a midlife crisis or something already and buy something new with a warranty so some other poor schmuck can screw with it when it breaks" but I never do. There must be something wrong with me.
I have absolutely no idea why my whole world didn't catch fire, but sometimes fate smiles on the stupid I guess. Whatever solderjoint touching up I did, I must have grounded the injector drivers one way or another. They were being held at 100% duty cycle from the moment I turned the key, filling the cylinders and much of the crankcase. As soon as I chilled the **** out, I removed the ECU, and didn't find any crossed joints, so out comes the meter and lookee there, no continuity tween 4 or 5 pins and their traces. Board delaminated? Busted traces under the green laquer? No idea. I ended up having to make 8 or 9 jumper wires on the backside of that mainboard, unbelievably hard picky work, to get those damn electrons to go where they were supposed to. It took a couple days but now the silly wires are all potted in place, the car works, I measured to make certain I didn't bend a rod and did compression test to see that I didn't break a ring land when the starter tried to turn the engine against hydrolocked cylinders, all it needed was oilchange. Then I went in and leaned out idle fuel. Maybe later today I'll try to pass smogtest again.
So the moral of the story is, don't take ANYTHING for granted when working on the guts of your ECU. Next time I screw with it, I'll unplug the injectors first, then turn the key on, then check spark, etc etc etc before starting the car.
Meanwhile, I think I better start saving pennies for a new standalone...
So there I was, with a test report says failed CO at idle. So all I gotta do is talk to the (Link) ECU and lean out the idle fuel. Only problem is, the datapad/PC ribbon cable ain't working. Trouble on the ecu mainboard. Been that way for a year but who cares, tuning's long done and I don't need to talk to the ecu anyhow, till now. This won't be the first time I've had to touch up cracked solder joints. I've redone all the pins for the sockets, the injector drivers, and even had to run a jumper wire from the processor block to the ribbon cable block when I couldn't get continuity down the circuit trace no matter what I tried. So back in there, get out the magnifying glass, and go to it. 3 cracked joints on the processor block, 1 more elsewhere, touch em up, and reinstall.
You know that low ominous music note in every horror movie ever made, that comes up right before the character just cluelessly wanders on and you're saying to yourself "WTF is the MATTER with you, GTFO before your head comes RIGHT off" and they go and get their head removed anyway? Yeah. I couldn't hear that scary music either.
I go to start the car. Pump is running, nothing else is obviously wrong, the keypad even works, hey hey lookit that, just have this little detail of it not wanting to start. Try again and now it don't even wanna crank over? Musta left something on and battery is tired maybe? (BWWAAAAAAAAA scary music note again) (didn't hear it, again) (dumbass)
Put the battery on a charger, pulled the plugs, set 'em on the valve cover wired up so I can see if I have spark. Been there, done that, countless times. I go crank it up and jeeeezuss****ing **** my face starts melting like those Nazis in the Indiana Jones movie as my engine does it's best Old Faithful impression, sending at least 2 full cylinders worth of Chevron's finest all the way up into the rafters of my garage and front wall and fenders and hood and just ****ing EVERYwhere holy crap OMGWTFBBQ oh and BTW, yes you *do* have spark why do you ask?
Times like this when I think "go have a midlife crisis or something already and buy something new with a warranty so some other poor schmuck can screw with it when it breaks" but I never do. There must be something wrong with me.
I have absolutely no idea why my whole world didn't catch fire, but sometimes fate smiles on the stupid I guess. Whatever solderjoint touching up I did, I must have grounded the injector drivers one way or another. They were being held at 100% duty cycle from the moment I turned the key, filling the cylinders and much of the crankcase. As soon as I chilled the **** out, I removed the ECU, and didn't find any crossed joints, so out comes the meter and lookee there, no continuity tween 4 or 5 pins and their traces. Board delaminated? Busted traces under the green laquer? No idea. I ended up having to make 8 or 9 jumper wires on the backside of that mainboard, unbelievably hard picky work, to get those damn electrons to go where they were supposed to. It took a couple days but now the silly wires are all potted in place, the car works, I measured to make certain I didn't bend a rod and did compression test to see that I didn't break a ring land when the starter tried to turn the engine against hydrolocked cylinders, all it needed was oilchange. Then I went in and leaned out idle fuel. Maybe later today I'll try to pass smogtest again.
So the moral of the story is, don't take ANYTHING for granted when working on the guts of your ECU. Next time I screw with it, I'll unplug the injectors first, then turn the key on, then check spark, etc etc etc before starting the car.
Meanwhile, I think I better start saving pennies for a new standalone...
pm if interested
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