Thread: 1G 2ND ECU BURNT

89 GSX PRETTY MUCH STOCK. THE CAR FLEW IN TO A DITCH I PRETTY MUCH PULLED THE FRONT END BACK OUT, REPLACED THE HOOD AND FRONT BUMPER AND STRAIGHTED THE RADIATOR SUPPORT BACK... SMALL OIL LEAK HERE AND THERE BUT... ITS BEEN ALL FIXED... THEN I FIRED IT UP.. THE CAR WARMED UP.. MADE A FEW CLICKING NOISE... THEN OUT COME SMOKE FROM UNDER THE DASH? ANYONE EVER HAD ANYKIND OF EXPERIENCE LIKE THAT... CHECKED ALL THE WIRE HARNESS TO SEE IF THERE IS CUTS OR RIPS IN IT BUT FOUND NOTHING... ANY ONE HAVE ANY IDEA.. MY LAST RESORT IS TAKING THE ALTERNATOR IN TO CHECK IF ITS GIVE IT TOO MUCH JUICE..

Sounds likes the caps took a sh!t on your old 89 ECU. Smells like fish now? Open the ECU up and remove the circuit board. Check underneath if the board is brown/black. You 'might' be able to salvage it by just replacing the caps if that is the issue. Hook up a pocketlogger next time your able to fire her up and make sure your voltage is below 12.8V with a load on it.

If there was quite a bit of smoke coming out the capacitors probably completely melted and burned a hole in the board, so you may need another ecu. Same thing happened to me, i thought it was a burned wire too because there was so much smoke. But it's definately your caps.

Originally Posted by My2AWDs

Sounds likes the caps took a sh!t on your old 89 ECU. Smells like fish now? Open the ECU up and remove the circuit board. Check underneath if the board is brown/black. You 'might' be able to salvage it by just replacing the caps if that is the issue. Hook up a pocketlogger next time your able to fire her up and make sure your voltage is below 12.8V with a load on it.

CAPS? where's that at... i have two totally burnt ecu.. almost caught on fire...

See the blue circled "Board Number"? To the right of that are 3 large black circular looking caps. Those are the things that go faulty, blow up, and ooze nasty juices all over your board and ruin the circuit board. Remove the board and look underneath where the caps are installed.

but i smoked two of them.. one was the orig. one on the car and the other one was my friends.. is it possible both of them were bad caps?

89 caps will go bad, not a question of "if", but "when". So they do need replacement. Get another ecu installed and hook up a pocketlogger and monitor your Voltage at idle. That'll tell you if you're overloading your ECU.