ECU in the engine bay?!?!

[Skeeter]

I'm playing around with the idea of sticking my ECU for my KA in the engine bay behind the LH headlight, where the air box would be. I know these ECUs normally go inside the car and since it's not technically sealed, can accumulate moisture/dirt/etc. inside. But what if I seal the case up? Anyone see a problem with this? I know it's probably just a wishful thinking pipe dream.

[rednucleus]

I would not be comfortable with my ECU under the hood. Keep it inside in a relatively clean dry controlled environment.  Sealing it up may also cause heat related issues, and temperature swings may lead to condensation corrosion issues. After working on my circuit board recently, I'll bet it would turn in o a corroded mess under my hood.

[iceageg]

I think red hit the nail on the head.  If you wanted an easy way to disconnect it you could always get a high quality multi-pin bulkhead connector and place it in the firewall.  Then you could just unplug the whole harness from the inside or outside as needed.  It would be a fair amount of work that would probably only pay off during the rare engine swap but i think it is a better solution than anywhere under the hood.

[sideways_s12]

I also agree with Red I think it's an all around bad Idea. The factory put the ecu inside the car for a reason...

[Skeeter]

Engineers aren't always right. I do understand they're not really designed for it, I just got bored and wanted to think outside the box a little bit. As a side note, my swap is almost done lol.

[JonB]

I pulled one ecu from a yard and water had gotten in it - one of the boards was warped. If you open one up, you can see that there's a series of transistors mourned to a heat sink - it is a computer, but I don't know that it gets anywhere near laptop hot.

On the other hand, I don't think my megasquirt has any cooling vents or openings. If you have a few ka units, and keep the car outta the rain....

[sideways_s12]

True engineers aren't always right but they are right in most instances otherwise they wouldn't be engineers lol anyway how much more is left with your swap?

[Skeeter]

I still have to finish up the wiring a bit and figure out why my trans mount isn't lining up. It wants to sit hard left and about 1/2" too far back. I've done a lot the last couple weeks and chipping away at my to-do list. I have a bunch of tedious cleaning and such left, but I want to hear it purr.

[sideways_s12]

Not to bad, before you know it you'll be done and driving her....

[iceageg]

Engineers aren't always right. I do understand they're not really designed for it, I just got bored and wanted to think outside the box a little bit. As a side note, my swap is almost done lol.

My idea with the bulkhead fitting to quick disconnect the harness at the firewall is a little outside the box.  A lot more work but it definitely fits your outside the box criteria.

[JonB]

I was also thinking about trouble with the obd on this. You'll need two people to run codes.

[Skeeter]

Well, I have an OBD2 KA and I'll be running a connector to read codes easier.

[Skeeter]

Update: trans mount finished. Wiring is almost done, but while I was testing my starter connections, my head gasket decided to shit the bed. I'm glad that KA's are simple and that I wasn't driving it yet.

[sideways_s12]

well that's shitty...