Thread: Quick B13 ECU question

Hey,

On a '92 SE-R (VE if that matters) - if your dizzy is totally disconnected (the wiring harness), but the car is still hooked up to the battery (so all the light come on etc.) will the ECU have power to pull trouble codes? With the ignition key on accessories?

ECU gets power from the car not the Dizzy.. Its pin 47&48 at least... Also I think 38 as well ..

Explain more of the problem your having?

I don't know if I have a problem or not, that's the thing, lol.

the ecu should be flashing something. there is a everything is all good code, I think its 55 or some crap like that... but I think the key needs to be in the ON position before it will give you any codes (2nd position.)

Heres whats going on. I don't know if any of you saw my thread about how my friend Ted who knows nothing about these cars (well some would say I don't either, lol) - no but seriously I found him a 91 SE-R a couple hours away like a year ago, all stock, but he never changed the oil and beat the hell out of the thing. I think he missed a shift but (the good old 3rd to 2nd at redline) but he says he didn't. Anyways he lives a good hour away, he was going to sell the car for like $800 and I talked him into getting a VE and we planned on doing it in his garage. It's his daily driver but he drives a freaking Hummer for "fun" (RE: guy has money) - so I get there and his DE distributor is all messed up because he chopped it up. He literally just started hacking wires, he thought all of that had to be pulled out. Before I even got there. I said don't touch anything, I wanted to first pull the valve cover of the DE and see if maybe it was a rocker arm and worth saving, and the VE to look for oil starvation up top and check in general. never got the chance. I also wanted to replace the water pump while we had the VE out and I started taking the front cover off and hes like "ill just take it somewhere to do that lets get started".

Anyways back to the distributor- we were thinking about getting the VE distributor from Andreas or another forum member because although getting the DE out was relatively easy with me and 2 other big dudes, wiring up the VE was a major pain. I told him to buy an MSD box he said he forgot. I told him to get JWT or poly mounts since we'd be there anyway and he forgot. I told him to get new spark plugs and new wires he forgot. I was pissed at this point and ready to leave. But hey it's his car. And he helped me move once.

Anyways, we got the VE in there on the shit mounts (his choice) and just can't get the 4 plug wire from the distributor connected to the engine harness. The colors are all different.

So I went home to look at how my VE was wired up and took photos, went back to his house, re-wired, no start. My colors are different too (so I'm told, I see very little color) It wants to crank but won't start. So we gave up and I went home and decided to take my distributor off to bring it to his house and see if it started.... and here's where I get really dumb, with the distributor off still, I forgot and tried to start the car last night and I heard buzzing noise down by the ECU.. car didn't start of course, and a little oil came out but that was it. So I'm hoping I didn't do anything it. I can't get it to blink codes for me right now... Sorry for the long post.

Oh and BTW he had his Sentra towed to a mechanic to finish up the wiring anyway!

Dude... All you need to do is NOTHING with the wiring.. Cut 1 ear off the 91 dizzy and slap it in.. Plug all the plugs in and wire up VVL is all you needed to do.. THATS IT .. Its letterly like a 4-6hr swap ... You don't want a VE Dizzy as the CAP/Rotor are JDM only.. Stick with parts you can get 91 Dizzy... At this point you have a dam mess on your hands if you cut shit... Just wire it back the way it was and run it...

I am assuming you blew a fuse in your car. Like Shagspeed said, the ECU gets its power elsewhere, it has nothing to do with the dizzy. You should be able to have the motor out of the car and the ECU will still power up and you will be able to check codes. There should be no issues with trying to start the car with out the dizzy, but something happened. Sounds like you need to find a good mechanic to work on your car. Every other day you are posting something about how something you are working on does not work.

Thanks for the tip. I explained clearly that my bud started hacking away before I even got there and I had to try to fix it. I don't post every other day about problems I have, dunno what your talking about. the problems I've had with this car over 3 years were 5th gear popout, headgasket blew, cooling issues from time to time, and 2 clutch discs failing. since I've been a member since Jan 2012 (and been driving these since July 1999) I don't see how that's possible.