Saturday, April 04, 2009
Civic Disobedience II: Revenge of the P28
I didn't much like the original Civic Disobedience, and predictably, the sequel wasn't very fun either. But at least this time it was a low budget sequel. It started a week ago when I was leaving work. The engine turned over but wouldn't fire up, and then the Check Engine light came on. Then I smelled smoke. Coming from inside the car. The ECU was giving off a pretty good smoke show. More smoke than the time the Triumph Spitfire had an electrical fire, in fact.
So I unplugged the ECU and drove my truck home (I keep it there for junkyard runs and such). Went to a local junkyard and found a replacement Honda ECU for arund $100, about what they go for on typical Honda forums. I was kind of worried something else had shorted in the wiring and fried the ECU, but it turned out the wiring was fine. An ECU autopsy showed the cause of death seemed to have been a capacitor in the power supply having shorted out. I know what you may have been thinking, but I haven't made any changes to the stock wiring harness other than bypassing a faulty clutch switch. Ok, so I did put an Innovate LC-1 and a digital gauge on the Civic... but I didn't change any of the stock wires to do this. Honda makes it pretty easy to add circuits, as there's several connections on the fuse box put there for add on devices that you can hook up with a spade terminal.
So I unplugged the ECU and drove my truck home (I keep it there for junkyard runs and such). Went to a local junkyard and found a replacement Honda ECU for arund $100, about what they go for on typical Honda forums. I was kind of worried something else had shorted in the wiring and fried the ECU, but it turned out the wiring was fine. An ECU autopsy showed the cause of death seemed to have been a capacitor in the power supply having shorted out. I know what you may have been thinking, but I haven't made any changes to the stock wiring harness other than bypassing a faulty clutch switch. Ok, so I did put an Innovate LC-1 and a digital gauge on the Civic... but I didn't change any of the stock wires to do this. Honda makes it pretty easy to add circuits, as there's several connections on the fuse box put there for add on devices that you can hook up with a spade terminal.
Labels: Civic
