Hey guys,

Got a question and hopefully someone around here has some ideas. We rebuilt the engine on the lancer (I blew a hole in a piston) and put it back into the car. We hooked everything up and tried to start the car. The car is running but only one of the coil packs is firing. If you swap the coil packs the same two pistons fire and not the other two so I know the coil packs are alright. I checked the signal at the ECU and both wires are pulsing just one isn't firing. Anyone have any ideas?

-Sandman

 

i had this same problem when i rebuilt my engine, the guy that did the reinstall accidently plugged the coil pack plug and the crank angle sensor plugs in backwards. If you look at each of them, they are on the same loom and the plugs look exactly the same, needless to say after asking some people, if you mix those 2 up it will fry your ECU and it only caused 1 pack to fire and the car was only running off 2 cylinders instead of 4. I ended up having to get a new ECU from a junked lancer and it works fine now. Just check those 2 plugs, they are on the passenger side of the motor bay...

 

Yea, I think we fried the ECU. We tested the lines and we were getting pulse on both coil lines coming out of the ECU. The second we hook them up to the packs and test there the one has the pulse and the other doesn't. So we opened up the ECU and it has that nice fried electronics smell.

 

interesting..... i just had a guy swap my engine and he called me saying "the engine is in, but only 2 of your cylinders are firing".... i have NEVER touched my ecu before this...

 

pull the ECU out and check for fried parts...almost a gaurentee the same thing that happened to me.

 

i actually picked it up from the mechanic this morning because i was curious. it didn't smell funny and nothing looked discolored. i'll have to take a closer look when i get home. that would be some bullish if that's what happened. i got another one for $125 on ebay so i'm not out a LOT but i'm still a little peeved.

btw, nice ride chris (as if that's EVER in doubt). when did you make the switch? i've been gone for a long time.

 

sold the lancer back in august last year, so yeah...been a while.

 

hmmm....no bad smells, nothing obviously visible on the board. do i dare put it back in my car and try it out?