Computer

[denguy]

Has anyone ever actually seen a computer up under the dash anywhere, or is it just a rumor?

[bhazard]

wat?

[TominMO]

Drugs are bad, m'kay?

[Chobobulous]

Are you talking about an ecu or an ipad? I heard the sport models came with an ipad under the dash.

[Bert]

Get out your flashlight and look up under the dash on the driver's side just left of the steering wheel. Small metal rectangular box roughly twice the size of a pack of smokes, is up there and connected to a thick wiring harness. Was a fairly primitive 'computing' gizmo in the 1980s/90s and referred to as an ECU, engine control unit. But good luck trying to run your car without one or thinking you can swap to a different engine without also swapping in the correct ECU.

[denguy]

Yeah, after I took out the instrument cluster I could look in to toward the upper left corner of the firewall and see the upper third of the ecu heavily bolted in place there. If I can get it's wiring unplugged from the bottom edge I will leave it there and put in the new one in a more convenient spot. They must sell some pretty big smokes up there in Canada.

[Flyin4stroke]

Good luck. Those can be tricky.

[Pu241]

Yeah, after I took out the instrument cluster I could look in to toward the upper left corner of the firewall and see the upper third of the ecu heavily bolted in place there. If I can get it's wiring unplugged from the bottom edge I will leave it there and put in the new one in a more convenient spot. They must sell some pretty big smokes up there in Canada.

Yeah, not certain what Bert is smoking, the ECU on the festiva is closer to the size of the old 5 1/4" hard drives and a little thicker.
It is held in a bracket by one 10mm bolt at the bottom of the assembly, so not all that "heavily bolted in".
Which you could not see from the instrument cluster view.
Remove bolt and it slides out and can be disconnected.
However it is tricky getting to that single bolt.

[denguy]

Ok, Pu241, I can see 6 screws, 2 in each of 3 corners of the cp, going thru 3 metal tabs that stick out from somewhere behind the cp. Are you saying that the 3 metal tabs are part of a hidden bracket that is held in by one 10mm bolt, and the bracket with cp attached will come out as a unit when you pull the 10mm bolt, even without first pulling the wire plugs? How do the plugs come out, is there some kind of latch?
By the way, the cp measures 6.75 x 6.25 x 1.25 inches . Sorry, no metrics available for our Canadian friends.

[william]

Theirs small tabs that you push down on like a lot of other wiring plugs then wiggle and pull.
The tabs are in the center of each plug

[Team Lightning]

If it hasn't been removed before, there are 2-10mm bolts on the bottom of the ECU. I removed the fuse block and was able to remove mine without any trouble. I used a 10mm ratchet wrench to remove the bolts.