everytime i start (well, try and start) my car, with or without the ECU connected, it blows the fuse to the ECU... any ideas what the hell's going on?

 

You have a short somewhere in the wiring. A power lead is touching a ground or vice versa is my guess. This same thing happened to me and I determined it was in my ghetto-rigged secondary o2 wiring that had somehow gotten stripped and the power lead was grounding out. Popped the ECU fuse every time I tried to turn the car on.