What is? the purpose of the "Front ECU?"
 

I was playing around under the hood of my car, trying to figure out some good ways to install a starter kill circuit on my car. I was looking in the power/fuse box under the hood and saw the piece that is labled "Front ECU" I'm new to Mitsubishis..so I thought maybe this was the only ECU for the car..but apparently its not? What purpose does this piece have? I notied the car will run without it there..does it store information about fuel maps or something? Maybe its just how Mitsu imported gremlins into the US with our cars...mysterious black boxes that serve no purpose?

Does anyone have a clue? I'm still working on a nice location for the starter kill circuit..if anyone wants to take a look at the comments I've made about it..you can check this out and see what I'm up to. I'd like to maybe post a "how to" article over here if anyone is interested..

Protect your Evo with a Starter Kill Circuit!!

-Bedlam

The front ECU controls the headlamps, tail lamps, position lamps, fog lamps and windscreen wiper/washer. It’s signals come from the column ECU and ETACS ECU via the SWS system and directly from the fog lamp switch.
Here in AUS. the CG Lancers are fitted with immobilizes. Not bragging…as a trade off we don’t get the option of the cruise control :-( .

Hrmm..thats totally not what I would have expected of the thing..but I guess that makes sense. The lack of cruise control is one of the things that bothers me about my car too..in my experience the seats are real comfortable after 4ish hours sitting in them..and it would really help things out if I didnt have to keep my foot attached to the gas pedal as well.

Thanks for the info man.. :)

-Bedlam

I might be wrong, but my understanding is that the main ECU has an immobilizer chip in it. You can not hot wire the car. It will only start with the factory key. That is why you can not swap out ECU's for flashes you need to send yours in for the reflash. So i'm not sure why you need a kill switch. My 2c.

Well..my last car got stolen..I tend to think a little more cautiously than most people. The next county over from where I live in Denver has one of the highest car theft rates in the entire world right now. Whats to stop someone from popping a 'generic' ECU in your car and driving away? Transponder key wont do jack for you then right?

Most of the cars being stolen are Hondas/Acuras..but I imagine you could get a lot of money for E8 parts on the black market.

Of course I'm paranoid..I already had one car stolen, it cost me a LOT of money..just trying to throw some options out there for people. :)

-Bedlam