This page is a collection of pages we're putting together to document ECU damage and repair concerns. We often receive ECUs that have significant corrosion from caps leakage or have severely botched socket jobs. We want people to see these pictures so they can evaluate their own ECU before it's even sent to us. We're hoping this will reduce the shock factor later when the ECU arrives here and we have to break the bad news.

Often someone will try to do the socket work themselves either to save a buck or to reduce down time. But seriously, if you don't know what you're doing, you could very easily be increasing your costs and down time while compromising your own ECU's working condition all at the same time. It's just not a good idea.

Motto: Friends don't let friends (or incompetent shops for that matter) socket their ECUs.

• Botched socket #1 - Example of a socket job gone wrong on a 2G ECU
• Botched socket #2 - A “shop” did this one for someone. And left him with a dead ECU.
• Botched socket #3 - A “friend” did this guy a $128 favor. Thanks.

Leaking capacitors and the resulting corrosion are the biggest problems the older ECUs face. This is a major concern for the 1990-1993 ECUs. This is less a concern for the 1994-1995 ECUs, but we've seen leaking caps on those too! It far less common, but still something we have to check while the ECU here.

Look at these examples to learn how

• Example #1 - Example of how to identify corrosion
• Example #2 - Leakage under the heatsink is harder to see, but more expensive to repair
• Example #3 - A partially disassembled ECU to show just how extensive caps leakage can be
• Example #4 - Just a collection of corrosion pictures to show more examples of what to look for.

Sometimes people will send us an ECU that some “other” shop has worked on before. Sometimes that's perfectly fine. Other times, that's a miserable mess. Here's where you'll find examples of some miserable messes.

• Bad work #1 - Clear RTV? Ugh. And what's that big long, ugly wire for!?
• Bad work #2 - Wow. I have to at least give credit for even attempting this one.