As some of you may knoe I had an engine fire. Well I found a 96 ECU and harness. I researched and the color codes are all the same so its a matter of flirting with my solder for 2 hours. My question is am I losing anything by doesnt this ? Does the 96 ECU have anything that I will lose by downgrading 2 years ? Dumb question but I need to know before I start hacking into a bunch of wires and spending bills.

as long as you get all the wires correctly hooked up to all the sensors youll be fine. just cuz its older dosent mean its "less" powerfull or whatever. and with the 96 youll be able to do the key dance now

Originally posted by 96eclipse2nr
and with the 96 youll be able to do the key dance now

OK I'll bite......Whats the heck is the key dance :scratch

"key dance" is lingo for checking your CEL codes w/o a code reader. to my knowledge it only works on 95,96, and a few limited 97's. you use a series of key turns to make your computer flash out the trouble codes and tell you why your getting your CEL. since your a 98 im pretyt sure it wont work..never known anyone wiht a 98 that will keydance

Ok, you shouldn't do this because ...

Well for one, the ECU plugs are different. The don't physically fit. You can jam it on if you want but they really don't want to plug in. 95s have their own plug, 96-97 have their plugs, 98-99 have their plugs. The 96+ all look similar but the guides on the plugs are different.

Wires are different. If you feel like hacking the harness and rewiring/splicing then feel free. Just sounds like too much trouble to go through to me.

Originally posted by Avenger
Ok, you shouldn't do this because ... Well for one, the ECU plugs are different. The don't physically fit. You can jam it on if you want but they really don't want to plug in. 95s have their own plug, 96-97 have their plugs, 98-99 have their plugs. The 96+ all look similar but the guides on the plugs are different. Wires are different. If you feel like hacking the harness and rewiring/splicing then feel free. Just sounds like too much trouble to go through to me.

Originally posted by brokenrodguy
Well I found a 96 ECU and harness

he has the harness along with the computer from the 96. his origional is toast...pretty much all his plastics got burned up in the fire. pics are floating around somewhere. but yeah...he wont have any trouble because he already has the correct plugs. and crimping/soldering is the only thing he can really do. all this wiring around the ECU is toast.

Yea perfectly stated. ^^^ Pics dont do justice though. You can litterally see shinny copper on all the wiring. To my knowledge the harness goes inside the car through the firewall on the passanger side and the drivers fender. The drivers fender harness is clipped on the fuse box inside so the only wires I gotta mess with is the other loom of about 20 wires. Wire codes are all the same. It wont be that bad.

Originally posted by 96eclipse2nr
"key dance" is lingo for checking your CEL codes w/o a code reader.

Thanks for the clarification. I'm going to try mine for the heck of it...maybe my 98 can be the first one to work :shrug

I'll let you know the outcome...

Originally posted by Whodda

Originally posted by 96eclipse2nr "key dance" is lingo for checking your CEL codes w/o a code reader.

Thanks for the clarification. I'm going to try mine for the heck of it...maybe my 98 can be the first one to work :shrug I'll let you know the outcome...

dont get your hopes up...its not a matter of "luck" or "chance" really. 98-99 computers were not programmed to function that way. there are only a miniscule ammount of 97's it works on and thats strictly due to the change in ECU from early to late. im gonna say that it was definately phased out by late 97 and all 98-99. each year from 96-98 the ECU's changed slightly...as a matter of fact, the only years the ECU's were the same are in 98-99 (in the eclipses of course)

to the OP...how is the cutting/splicing comming along?

Still waiting for concept illusions to accually ship my harness and ecu. At this point I told them to send it over night cause the pasdt 3 days there were busy. Saturday is the only time I have to work on it for a montn but they said they have 300 packages to send every day so we'll see saturday.