Recently bought this virgin P28, bought a chip kit from phearable and installed it. Car sounded perfect, idle and AFR was good but when I took it for a test drive the car began to bog and it felt like I was getting a fuel cut. Eventually the car would die and struggle to turn on so I start to diagnose to find out whats causing the car to shut off and bog, so far I can’t find anything that would cause these symptoms. I opened up my ecu and this is how it looks, I don’t know how or what caused this to happen cause when I bought it and inspected it I didn’t notice any of this and its pretty obvious. My question is how bad is it and can it be fixed or do I have to buy another ecu ?

 

That looks like it could be leakage. But any capacitor gets weaker over time.

 

Most likely fixable with replacement of capacitor(s) and any other board component as needed, and resoldering certain spots.

 

I will double check to make sure that’s the only one that’s leaking when I get home...does a leaking capacitor really have that big of an effect on how the car runs ? I will make sure to drop more pics if I find more damage

 

If you are there replacing one, I suggest replacing them all since you are there.
I have never had one bad enough to keep one from starting, but I have replaced all before when they all looked good and the car was noticeably smoother at all points.
Just a side note many manufacturers in the 80s and 90s used the brown caps, cant recall manufacturer that were later found to be suspect. Caps are filled with a goo that can dry out or leak over time, they just degrade.
Someone with more knowledge probably has better memory than I, but I believe the caps on these boards are rated for something like 100,000 hours.

 

Yea im gonna go ahead and replace all the capacitors I just hope that the board didn’t get damaged. How do I know if the board is no good, what should I look for?

 

Unless you see obvious damage to some board circuit traces, move forward with the assumption that replacement of electrolytic capacitors will solve the problem.

 

what would you recommend using when cleaning it ? Last time I used regular brake cleaner and a toothbrush lol

 

Brake cleaner is too strong of a solvent for PCBs. 90% isopropyl alcohol and a Q-tip or toothbrush should do the trick.