I'm about to buy a PR4 ECU for my B18 in EF swap, from a local guy. The problem is its really cheap and I was wondering if it might be defective somehow.

Can ECU's go bad? Any way to check to make sure its working?

 

Yes they can go bad. Plug it up and try and start the car to check it.

 

Typicly if a PCM goes bad it is due to a bad grounding

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Kendall &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Yes they can go bad. Plug it up and try and start the car to check it.</TD></TR></TABLE>

The thing is, Im collecting parts for a swap. I dont have the motor or anything in the car yet. So how would I check?

 

usually its a capacitor that fries. look at the big round things sticking up, the largest ones on there and see if they have leaked some stuff around. its like green and brownish usually. ive had them go bad and its not the caps, but caps are the most common. it will smell bad too , some say like rotten eggs.
this happens a lot on dsm computers. i have successfully fixed a couple with new caps

 

any pics of what your talking about? Im lost

 

Relinked from pgmfi.org, cuz I figure you're prolly not registered there.

 

so if it dosn't look all fucked up like that one it should be good right?

 

ya saw that there. That's been posted on here too but that was a while back. Sometimes you can't tell. You may have burned up a IC as well those don't usually show. Even sometimes resistors you can't tell. Traces may be lifted. Shorts may be there. Who knows.

 

One of the only ways to tell if it might work, is to throw it into the car and see if it throws any cels.