ECU problems?

[Kain]

This may not be the most appropriate place to put this, but I'm gonna put it here anyway:

In addition to TGC, I also hang around club 4g61Club 4g61 ('http://www.4g61t.com') which is a site for 4g61 powered Colts, but they also have a section for g32b Colts which I have. Sorry about the tangent, back to my point. A lot of the 4g61 guys complain about having problems with their ECU's blowing up and having to be replaced, or repaired (those guys are all a bit nuts, and don't seem to have much problem cracking open an ECU to replace bad "caps" as they call them) My question is, can I expect problems like this from the ECU in the Galant? All 4g61 powered cars are from '89-'92, so they're a diffrent generation of technology from the 7g Galant, but still... Things like that keep me awake at night...[/url]

[miragal]

I never see this problem in a Galant.This problem (leaking capacitors)is a common problem to '89 to '91 Mirages and Eclipses. Is a easy fix is you know how to solder, even some places sell the caps for $5.00 or so.I think that Technomotive sell it.

[manybrews]

actually, there are many problems common to the mirage, eclipse, and galant of that era in regards to the ECMs. yes, they have been randomly failing.
the DOHC engines have the added benefit of possibly getting damaged if the idle stepper motor fails.
if the idle motor electronically shorts, it can raise the required amperage high enough to blow the driver transistors for that circuit. generally all this does it destroy the idle control circuits, though. On a rare occasion i have seen holes burnt through the circuit board from this.

however, lately ive been seeing failed ECMs for no reason at all. What appears to be happening is that the voltage regulating circuit for all the 5 volt componants under the hood is frying, and it sends a full 12 volts to everything under the hood that needs 5 (the airflow meter, the coolant temp sensor, the throttle position sensor, etc.etc).
fortunatly, these componants have yet to be damaged by this issue.
and the only real way to fix it is to install a new ECM. ive seen people try to fix thier own circuit boards before, but i have yet to see anyone suceed.