where is ecm

[WmWatt]

One time when my ignition control module (ICM) was dying after intermittent stalling I took it to the garage and they said it would run for less than a minute and die so they couldn't tell what the problem was but they suspected the ICM. So I bought one off the Internet, they put it on, and it was fine.

[Rick the Quick]

I would put my money on the distributor. It is actually called the cam angle sensor and when I bought my '93 it was not running due to no spark. I pulled it home and put a battery in it and to my surprise it fired right up. I went around back to get the air hose and the engine quit. I checked for spark and had none. Not having a repair manual at the time I checked the obvious : fuseable links, the coil to distributor wire, the cap and rotor. Not finding any obvious problems I hit the U-Pull It salvage yard and bought an ignitor (or ICM/ignition control module) and coil for $10. Put them on and she started right up and ran for a minute or 2 and died. Talked to a guy with a small wrecking yard and he told me back in the day he bought and sold a bunch of Festivas. He told me that it was not unusual for the cars to end up at the junk yard because of dying / shutting off intermittently. He told me that 90% of the time a used distributor would fix them. In the case of my '93 it did the trick. And for the paltry sum of $25. As for the repair shop telling you it is the ECU, I would lay money on them being wrong. It is very rare for one to fail. I heard that when you buy a re- manufactured ECU there is a good chance that it is a used ECU that has been cleaned but otherwise untouched. Why? Because it was turned in as a core unit from the shop that sold a remanufactured unit to a customer that didn't need one. Just my 2 cents. Good luck!