Hello everyone I'm new here. I sometimes have to work on Hondas and thought it would be good to be a part of the Honda-Tech forums. I also would like to share with everyone a cheap, fast, and easy way to replace a 7th gen civic ECU without having to get it re-programmed by Honda.

 

I recently had to repair a 7th gen civic that had the alternator bolts break off when the engine was running causing the all too common issue of frying the ECU/PCM. When I had finished re installing the alternator the car was stuck in limp mode (stalling out, no power, PGM-FI relay clicking, no tach, and no com with ECU.

To fix this, grab yourself a used ECU. I went to my local U-Pull yard and got one for $40. Then remove the fried ECU and open it up. On the side of the board opposite the connectors there is a small EPROM chip labeled IC240. Remove this from the board and solder it in on in the new ECU. Next, de-solder the large green chip with 16 legs labeled HIC340 and solder it onto the new ECU. Now I'm not sure if that step is necessary (I thought this might have been part of the immobilizer) but it worked for me. Now just install the new ECU with the transferred parts into the car and it will be as good a new.

For only $40 and the time spent soldering, the car is back to normal and the best part is that you don't have to get towed to the stealership to have the car reprogrammed.