BAD ECU? OR DISTRIBUTOR? OR BOTH LOL

davester1699

New Member
Apr 6, 2010
4
0
0
Alright so here is the dish, I had an engine fire and had to replace my ECU harness. Unfortunately I have an 89 and did not know it had a year specific harness....not sure if any damage was done but i installed a 92 harness first and then found an 89 (the car would not run with the 92) Since then I’ve had a hard time getting the car running....hade coolant in the oil, striped to the heads and replaced all gaskets......had weak spark, replaced coil...now the car won’t start and when I hook up a timing light I get an irregular flash (no rhythm) I’m also getting a code 14 (pulled when the car decided to start...but it died really fast so there could be more codes) I would replace the distributor...but those things are kinda expensive...and I also have the oil pressure and engine temp gauges inversed on my dash so I’m wondering if you guys think it could be a bad ECU? and what would be my best route to finding a solution
 
  • Sponsors (?)


a little help maybe

almost 99 percent of the time,a lower intake gasket leak is what causes coolant in the oil(looks like a milkshake)but youve fixed that if you changed the gaskets.as far as the harness,some 89,s had mass air and some had speed density.the harness has to be an 89 harness specificly for mass air or speed density.if you install a mass air type harness in your car and you have speed density then things wont work.mass air harnessed cars have a few extra wires connected to the ecu than the speed density cars do.make sure the car it came from has the exact system as yours cause if they dont match then your car wouldnt run at all or would run really ****ty.first thing to check for fire is the coil wire.pull the wire off the dist. and hold it an inch away from the post to see if its firing.if not,try doing the same thing using any of your other spark plug wires.if the other wire fires then its your coil wire and if not then its either the tfi module,pickup inside the dist.,cap,rotor,rotor button.you can have autozone check the module for free.you can buy the pickup(pip)and install it yourself instead of buying a new dist.its $24 bucks at autozone for the pip.better than $100 dollar dist.if you have a multimeter you can check the coil by connecting one lead to one prong on the coil and the other lead to the other prong.it should be between 0.3 -- 1.0 volts.anymore or anyless is a bad coil.hope this helps.wbrockstar