Bad ECU from the factory!!?

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crabillac

crabillac

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Has anyone out their purchased an orange ECU that was junk out of the box?
I have been trying for days to fire my 318 up. I have trouble shooted, and traced all of my wires, and all seem correct. Resistor is good. Distributor is new replacement w/orange box that I tied into system, and was running good last year when I removed motor. I replaced motor. Engine would not start. It turns over like crazy, but will not start. I reset the reluctor, and it fired right up. I had a bad ground, and I think fried the box. I got a new box from summit, and it acts exactly the same. No spark. I have a timing light hooked up, and there is no spark during cranking. I am running a 0.6 ohm coil, and the proper ballast. The coil checks out with multi-meter. It can only be the ECU! Right!?! I am at the end of my rope! The next thing that I buy for this accursed car will be either a sledge hammer, for sale sign, or both. PLEASE HELP!!:angry7:
 
are you sure your ballast is good?

I have seen even new ones fail.....they either snap from heat or they get a crack in them and will sometimes make connections and other times not.

a good way to test this is to disconnect your wires from each end of the ballst and hook them together TEMPORARILY just to see if it will then start.

also check all your grounds and that you getting correct juice to the coil.

also pull a spark plug wire and see if your getting any spark...even a faint spark...or no spark at all (just to be sure its not a fuel issue or something even though odds are its not).
 
Coil shows voltage going in, and out with key in on position. Fuel is not a problem. Ballast has continuity. Absolutely no sign of spark to wires. Engine just turns over, and over. No pop, no cough, no indication of combustion.

Is there any way of testing the un-energized ECU box? I did probe the wires going in, and got voltage going in with key "on", but I am uncertain if the voltage is getting through the box, or if that is where it stops.
 
I bought a new orange box from summit that would not work out the box myself.Put my stock one back cranked right.
 
have you checked for burn wires on the exhaust? or loose ground straps? or any other burnt wires? relays? sounds stupid maybe but have you checked your fuses?

it will most likely be one of those stupid smack you in the face "why did I not think of that" type of problems once you find it lol.

the ignition box COULD be the problem.....there is new junk believe it or not.

but I would not point my finger to that right away since your car would not fire with the old one or the new one....sounds like something else may be the culprit
 
DusterDude72 said:
have you checked for burn wires on the exhaust? or loose ground straps? or any other burnt wires? relays? sounds stupid maybe but have you checked your fuses?

it will most likely be one of those stupid smack you in the face "why did I not think of that" type of problems once you find it lol.

the ignition box COULD be the problem.....there is new junk believe it or not.

but I would not point my finger to that right away since your car would not fire with the old one or the new one....sounds like something else may be the culprit
Click to expand...

I bought one of NAPA's blue electronic boxes and had problems out of the box, mind you there only $30 and the second one I bought works good and is going on the second summer!

I would buy one of these and see if that fixes it after all there only $30 and it may make your car run again
 
Thank you! That is encouraging! I ordered the summit brand replacement. I bought it because I noticed that it had a 90 day warranty. The Mopar brand does not, and in fact they print a disclaimer that all Mopar parts except the crate engines, are sold "as is". How is the Napa warranty? If they warranty their stuff; I will check them out in the future. It is better then waiting a day for snail mail. Thanks for the reply/advice!
 
You mentioned that you have no spark when cranking but have power to the coil and ballast with the key on. Those are two seperate circuits. When the key is in the crank position the run postion is off and when you release the key the crank position turns off and the run position is on.

If the ignition switch or the wiring to the down stream side of the ballast (ballast is bypassed during cranking) is bad you may have no power to the ignition when cranking. Check to make sure you have power to the ecu & coil in both the run and crank positions.
 
Good luck! I hate those kind of problems. I would go with a new Silver ECU and be done with it!

John B.
 
Got new ECU. No change. Bypassed ballast no change.Checked ballast looks like new on back-side, and establishes continuity. checked coil w/ key on 12 V going in 12 V going out. Changed out coil nothing. All wires good, all fuses good. Checked distributor 12 V going out.Got to wait for other person to come over so that I can take checks in start position. May replace distributor pick-up next.
Any other advice?

This is getting brutal!
 
Pull the dizzy and one plug with wire. Ground the plug to the block and with key on turn dizzy by hand. You should see a spark? That will tell you if everything is working. Bypass the ballast resistor for this test. I did an upgrade to electronic and the ballast resistor was new but the wrong resistance so I had trouble getting it to spark. Swapped to the old ballast resistor I had and whamo! spark and runs. Lesson learned. Just because the resistor has continuity does not mean its working. So bypass for a test and see.

John B.
 
Check your conections at the fire wall. Some times they get loose. It could be the ignition switch is going bad too. So check that next.
 
Check the air gap in the distributor. Use a brass feeler gauge. If its to far out, it wont start. Just had a similar problem on my dads Fury.
 
Just switched back to points distrib. and got spark (sort of) backfired first, then turned distrib., and got rumbles but it would not maintain running. It acted like it wanted to start but just will not. Set back to TDC pulled distrib. came inside to check thread. Will print out other suggestions, and try later/tomorrow. Thanks to all
 
I have had an orange ECU that was bad right out of the box. As suggested, check your ground, reluctor gap, and have the ECU checked at your local auto store. When you replaced your engine did you change the cam/timing chain? If so, are you certain that everything is set correctly? The way you said the engine spins when you crank it sounds like the timing could be drastically retarded or the cam timing off.
 
Engine did run. I had to shut down to adjust rocker arms. Shorted wire against coil, and problem started. Waited a day for valve cover gasket to dry. Fully expected car to start really thought nothing of shorted wire until car refused to start.Car has not run ever since. That was last Saturday. I will buy new coil, resistor, and have ECUs tested tomorrow. I am running out of weekends.
 
Mine wasn't starting the other day after I had the distributor out and was placing new parts in it. It turned out to be that the ballast resistor on the firewall broke. The coil was only getting power on the start position but not when the key was at the "on" position. The timing was also off making it hard to start. To narrow it down we connected a long wire to the coil directly from the battery and the car started and ran.
 
I was having this problem today.No spark,then hooked a jumper from the ECUs metal body to the battery ground and finally got spark,but still wouldnt start.Looked at the reluctor and saw it was hitting the pickup and re gapped it.Ran ,but backfired and wouldnt start but examined the dist. cap and saw a hole in it.Replaced the cap and vroom,it runs.You can test the coil using a multimeter
coil_checks.jpg
 
Just helped a friend with a dodge demon that had no spark and it ended up being the pick up on the distributor was bad and not sending the spark out... Try pulling the coil with from the cap ... While someone cranks the engine.... Hover the wire above a ground and see if you get spark...if not, pull ur dist cap and with key on see if you have power at the pick up.... If so, then your pick up is either bad or out of adjustment.... If not, the problem is somewhere else.

I just had a no spark problem with my duster but it turned out to be one of my coil wires was not tight.

Hope that helps
 
Worked on it all weekend. I have either a short, or a bad ground because of voltage drop before resistor. Going over the wires one by one starting with ignition switch, and replacing bad wire with new. Two possible problem areas are horn relay, and gauge cluster.Wires look pretty nasty in those areas. Also checking grounds. Plug into firewall was replaced 2 or 3 years ago because it was so bad that if you looked at it from the side; you could see sparks.
 
Worked on today. Changed out bad wires checked, and added ground wires. Fixed possible short near ampmeter gauge.Checked reluctor with brass feeler for the 10th time. Checked coil; coil is good. Used 2nd coil, and measured primary, and secondary resistance on both. Both measured the same, (within values on drawing) no spark with either coil. I also ran direct 12 V. from battery to + side of coil. I tried with, and without resistor bypass. So it has got to be either the distributor, pick-up, or the ECU, I am taking my 3 ECUs to Advance Auto Parts tomorrow, 2 of them were Summit replacements that never worked when installed despite a good ground. The 3rd is a Mopar ECU that was being used at the time the engine did run. If the Summit replacements are bad; that means that they sent me 2 bad ECUs back to back. Despite that.... I hope that they are bad. It might end this mystery once, and for all!
 
You might take an ohm meter to the two wires that plug into the distributor. Check each one from the dist. plug, back to the ECU! You might have an open or short in those wires.

It's hard to believe you have 3 bad ECU's
 
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