where is ecm

[vinelandidiot13]

shop told me a while back i need a new ecm after having electrical problems after a while they never took care of it so where do i find it? dont know to much about it

[WmWatt]

It's up under the dash on the driver's side near the door/fender.

[firebush357]

Yep, Under the dash on the driver side. It is a pain in the butt to get out... What kind of electrical problems are you having? It is not often that the ecm goes bad.

[vinelandidiot13]

i have looked uder the dash and cannot find it is it ever under the drivers side seat or is that something else,its not starting as far as i understand they checked all the other electrical and it came down to the ecm being the last thing they could think of

[WmWatt]

Just checked the Haynes manual on removal. Doesn't mention under the driver's seat on any models, just one location under dash. What year is your vehicle? Not starting could also be ignition control module which is involved in timing of spark.

PS need to look high up under dash.

PPS. The car should start and run even if any of the emissions control devices are not working. The emissions stuff is just there to clean up the exhaust gases and are not essential to the running of the car. The car will run without them as a safety feature in case one should pack it in on the highway nobody wants the car to stop running at crusing speed and become a hazard to navigation. Usually if a component isn't working the check engine light will come on indicating which one it is. You can see any stored codes when you turn on the key if you ground out a wire in the engine compartment which differs from year to year. Loose or cracked vacuum hoses connecting the devices can cause engine problems. These cars are old and today's mechanics can have problems diagnosing problems. What you may need is a retired auto mechanic who understand the simple Festiva.

[vinelandidiot13]

It's a 91

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[firebush357]

You have to lay on your back in the Driver floorboard and look up under the dash near the top of the clutch pedal. There will be two large yellow connectors going to it. The module under the seat is for the automatic seatbelts.

Like WmWatt states, most of the new mechanics can't diagnose these older cars because the computer doesn't tell them exactly what is wrong with the car. Can you tell us if the car has Fuel, Spark and Compression? There are so many little things that can make this car not start and it is very rarely the ecm.

[vinelandidiot13]

there is fuel no spark and have not been able to check compression yet

[vinelandidiot13]

ok there is fuel compression from left to right 170 150 150 170 although i have not had spark and inline spark tester shows no spark it is putting out something unfortunatley found out from being shocked

[firebush357]

Compression numbers are good which shows that the timing belt did not jump. I just had some issues with one of mine not starting and I used an inline tester to check and it showed no spark but I later found out that the bulb was bad in the tester... I Don't have someone to help me test the system so I pulled out the Number 1 Spark plug, the one with the longest Plug Wire and ran it under the hood and used the Windshield wire to hold it down and then ran a grounding wire directly to the battery so that I can see that it was sparking from the driver seat. My problem ended up being that my Plug wires were in the wrong order. On a side note, the distributor can go in 180 degrees out and the rotor can go on incorrectly I believe. There is a system in the distributor that acts as a Crank sensor that sometimes goes bad.

Was the car driving and then just shut off or did you buy it not running?

Where did you check for fuel?

[vinelandidiot13]

Car was running and was trying to solve other problems it sat for a while and then it would just not finish starting up at times it sounds like it's going to but doesn't

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[firebush357]

If it were mine I would give it a shot of Starting fluid while someone was cranking to see if I could get it to fire to rule out bad fuel or bad injectors. If you haven't done it yet, go ahead and replace your Fusible Links with long leg PAL fuses to make sure that isn't the issue. I have also had an issue with a mouse chewing through some of the wiring which required some probing with a multi meter to find.

If it does not fire with Starting Fluid then I would go back to the Spark issue and check all of the Spark Plugs and wires to make sure that they are functioning properly. I had 1 car recently that a spark plug just stopped working. Also make sure that your Distributor didn't turn to full advance or retarded timing somehow.

[WmWatt]

Do you know the nature of the "electrical problems" mentioned in the original post? Might be a key in there somewhere?

[vinelandidiot13]

They told me it was a electrical issue and that it was most likely ecm so far I know there is no spark and dont know enough about cars to know what to do next

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[vinelandidiot13]

Wait talked to my wife they said it would go to start and lose power

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