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My Civic is out of commission. Thursday I punched the gas in 1st gear and my car sputtered out like my fuel cut off had kicked in, but is was no where near redline+. I limped over to the side of the road and had to be towed. My tach would not function and the car would start but would miss badly and die. My dealer, after having it now for 2 days, says that my ECM is blown. They could not "get into" the ECM to pull any info out of it (diagnostic codes), but plugged another ECM into my car and it worked. When they put it back into the showroom car, it says low charge. Here is the delimma. The dealer thinks the prob was caused by a voltage spike (?) and they believe that my UR underdrive pulleys caused the problem, thus voiding my warranty on this repair. So my question is two fold: 1) can underdrive pulleys cause an ECM failure and/or power spike? 2)Typically what would cause an ECM failure and/or power spike. Does anyone have any thoughts on this. I am not going to get jacked by the dealer without going down fighting. I need help big time.

 
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Yeah, I don't get how the pullies could have caused a voltage spike? These UR pullies are supposed to decrease the output of the alternator by about 10%. Thus the battery was probably charging a little slower than usual. That's what that error code probably means. Voltage spike, voltage spike... Hmm... Let's see... Voltage spike must have been from the battery. That's where the ECU gets its power. Aren't there fuses for this sort of thing though? The fuse should have blown first.

 
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I used to have the under-drive pulleys on my old Jetta and never had any trouble, although I did notice that the volt meter would not go as high as before. I am just hypothesizing here, but I believe that your ECU must have had some kind of pre-existing voltage fluctuation accross its internal circuitry, which could possibly have been made worse by the slight drop in current (if any) caused by an under-driven alternator pulley. If this is the case, the dealer can then make a strong case for your pulleys being the cause, even if the ECU had a pre-existing flaw.

This flaw, BTW, is not as uncommon as it sounds...it comes out especially when performing any kind of ECU tuning...IMO, it's a good idea to have a backup ECU, just in case, but our cars are so new still that the ECU is prohibitively expensive. This is why I am kinda having 2nd thoughts about upgrading the ECU with the JET chip...[IMG]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/IMG]

Anyways, sorry to hear about your trouble...if you could get an independent shop to examine your ECU, you might be able to prove a pre-existing ECU flaw...I just cannot believe that the under-drive pulley on your alternator would have such a drastic effect on the voltage supply. How's the rest of the electronics in your car, besides that tach? If it is only the ECU, that could possibly be a clue that it WAS a flaw it laready had (the tach gets its signal through the ECU).

 
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Keep it coming guys, I need all the input I can get here. What could blow up the ECM, what would be so drastic that they can't even get information from it now?

 
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Here's an idea: If your dealer would allow you to keep the new ECM and test it for a couple weeks, you could possibly then find out or at least get an idea of the effects of the under-driven pulleys on your electrical system...you could have your car analyzed by a shop to see if there's any deviation from the factory recommended settings/power levels.

Edit: The downside to this would be, of course, that if it turns out your pulleys are to blame and they cause the 2nd ECM to fail...you'll have to also pay for it and the repairs needed to get you back up and running[IMG]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/IMG].

 
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Hmmm...well...i'm thinkin' the same as grey...the pulleys you have should have been decreasing the volts. Because when you are using accessories and rollin' up and down the windows, the volts will dip down a bit...the worst thing i could see happening with UR underdrive pulleys would be your battery would discharge and just the car wouldnt start....i don't see how it could blow the ecu. i mean, unless somehow the ecu detected that the volts were reaching low levels, and then sent a message trying to increase power, causing the spike...

 
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After working on vehicles for over 15 years, I was completely stumped on the reasoning on this one. So a few of the engineers and I sat around at lunch and talked over the plausable reasons.

1. As far as warranty, you are probably out of luck. An exhaust would have been pretty safe, maybe even a header or intake, but something that altered the electrical functions will be hard to argue out of.

2. What an underdrive pulley will absolutely do is run your alternator slower. Now realize that an alternator does not produce power until a certain RPM. Decreasing its RPM will mean that it will not produce power unless you are moving that much faster. I.E. if you decrease the speed of the alternator by 10%, then you have to move the engine 10% faster to produce the same output. Stop and go driving, especially with your vehicle at idle will not charge your battery as fast. When it is hot outside, your alternator actually produces even less output. So now that we are getting into summer, your alternator is doing even worse. As far as a spike, your regulator would have to be way off, and that would not be your fault. Alternators are noisy (electrically speaking) power sources. The computer could not even run on the unfiltered DC voltage coming off the alternator. What filters all this bad power? The battery.

3. Now it is the battery to not only provide power to start the car, but to also use its natural capacitance to filter out the power from the alternator. The problem is that we have small engine bays. And Honda wanted to save weight, so they used the smallest battery that would adequately run the vehicle. The problem is that when a battery ages its internal plates begin to sulfate. Equate this to the plates rusting and you will understand. When the plates get mores sulfate, they produce less energy. And running the batterly low increases the rate of the sulfate. Why does this matter to you, if a batter is going bad due to age or undercharging, it loses it capacitance capabilities. And it allows more unfiltered DC power to reach your ECM. The matter gets even worse if you have a big system and have ever run the battery to where the car will not start.

Now, is this really something that could harm your car? Only a maybe, but I would have removed everything before dropping the car back at the dealer. The only thing they ever have to know about is the lowering springs, and I am replacing the struts anyway.

 
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I'd get the car back, replace the pulleys (if you have them) and take it to another dealership to have it looked at and repaired..... and hope that the two dealerships don't share information on car repair! Good luck!

 
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1) Another thing that might warrant investigation is contacting UP and ask if they have ever had anything similar while conducting tests on their product for our car.
2) Maybe (if you installed them yourself) you might have left something disconnected and caused a disturbance in the force. (haha, thought maybe you needed to smile) Or the shop that installed them left something disconnected, like an important ground of some sort. From my experience with circuitry (since I am a senior in E.E. school), I have had so many blown EPROM chips from forgetting to connect one silly ground. From what you said, you gave it gas, and maybe at that instant enough DC level voltage was produced to get to the ECU and cause a voltage spike. He was right on with that description of the process.

I do not know. my 2 cents.
peace.

 
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I dont really know much about the mechanics and electronics of our cars but I would think that if you can get the company that makes the pullys to back you with data from their tests and research and take that to the dealership and see what you can do.
Hopefully this helps.
Good Luck man.

 
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I appreciate everyones' input so far. It has been helpful. I am hoping to hear from Whiterabbit and Mohawk too, as they seem to know about this electrical stuff. From what it sounds like, my underdrive pulleys should not have caused a problem. What about washing the motor? I can't believe something happened that they cannot get info from the ECM? Any more thoughts???

 
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I tried posting this reply earlier, but the server was being uncooperative. I finally went to sleep and I saved my post. Here it is:

I think rickinthescv is dead right. If you want to keep your pullies then I'de get a new battery (like the Optima that I have). Then get a volt guage and amp guage and hook it up to the battery. Monitor it and see how it's doing. If there is no problem then you shouldn't have a problem again with your pullies. Also, I guess there is no fuse for the ECM? Otherwise it would have blown before the ECM did. As voltage goes up so does amperage, so you might invest in a 20 ampere fuse for your ECM (if there isn't one there already). Basically Honda is relying on the battery to a certain degree as a voltage regulator. There has to be another regulator for the battery though. I guess that one has a broader range. What I mean is maybe the alternator gives it voltages in a broader range. Then it gives the battey a diminished range. When the battery got weak (as proposed by rickinthescv), that range was fed to the electrical systems of the car. The ECM was the most sensitive component to fluctuations in voltage so it went.

 
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Grey: there is a fuse for the ECM, that is what is weird. I really don't think that the Honda dealer has a clue why my stuff blew and they are just grasping for straws. What I don't want is to just put another ($380) ECM in there and then still have what ever problem caused the first one to blow. Doesn't someone have a way to figure out what exactly happened? What kind of service shops could help me if the dealer can't?

 
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Tell me a little more about your battery, who makes it, where to get it, etc. etc. etc.

 
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It's the OPTIMA Red Top 75/35-925 Battery. Check out this thread: Optima Red Top Installation Update

 
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I don't see how the pulleys could have caused the computer to get fried. It has a fuse to protect aganst voltage spikes in the first place. How could too much power have gotten by the fuse, it can't. Plus, I was looking into the pulleys myself. I read numerous articles all over the net and even emailed some of the manufacturers. Nothing about voltage spikes was ever mentioned.

 
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Yeah, that's another funny thing. The stupid fuse. Whatever rating the fuse is, it should be decreased so that it blows out sooner. I wonder if it's a 20A fuse? If it's 25A, then I'de change it to 20A.

 
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Okay everyone, I spoke to a local electrical shop today while I had my car in for service. Here's what a couple of technicians in there had to say: They are not 100% sure about the 7th gen Civic but the previous generation utilized both a fusible link and a fuse to protect the ECM. Additionally, the ECM itself had on-board capacitors to supplement the voltage needed by the ECM, should a significant voltage drop occur. Capacitors are like little storage batteries, which can rapidly "discharge" their stored energy and compensate for a drop in voltage in a given circuit. I cannot believe that Honda would leave any of these devices out of the new generation of cars' electrical systems, especially where the ECM is concerned.

Still, these guys also stressed that the new Civic may just be less tolerant to any voltage drops, since its sensors and circuits may be engineered to work more precisely and with less tolerance for errors/current variations, given that they must all work with the ECM to precisely manage the engine to comply with more stringent emissions standards. I don't know what to make of this but it sorta makes some sense...some if not all of our cars are ULEV-certified...hmmmm...I definitely need more info on this.

Another thing mentioned, which was previously brought up by someone here, is that the electronic components are very sensitive to ground loops and poor grounding. These guys even went so far as to say that they would recommend upgrading the stock grounding points/contacts/wiring when considering any kind of electrical work or upgrade.

So there you are, that's the gist of it. This particular shop may just have a paranoid or over-cautious staff but again, some of what they said could be true.
It all just keeps pointing to a premature failure within the ECM itself, and it may just be an unfortunate coincidence that it would happen right after the under-drive pulleys were put in. Someone else here suggested taking out the pulleys and taking the car to another dealer and I would have to agree. At the very least, this should be seriously considered. It sounds as if the dealer in question has only performed preliminary in-house testing, so there is a strong possibility that this has not been entered or reported into the Honda database, so no one outside that dealer has any information about the problem.

 
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Hey, that's great informaton you picked up. Hope it'll help out Familyman.
I'm pretty sure all 7th gens are ULEV.

 
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Thank you for the info/input. I appreciate everyone's .02. I'm going to talk to the dealer now. No one at UR or Jet or Python Injection is around today. But I figure that between the 3 companies someone should know something about my problem that could help me out. I'll let everyone know what happens as it develops. I have over 35K on my car and use it pretty hard with the racing and all. So, who knows.

 
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good luck familyman, and keep us posted...hopefully all goes well for ya...

peace[IMG]i/expressions/beer_yum.gif[/IMG]

 
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I can't really comment on the electrical system, but that's pretty well been covered. I have had experience with contrary dealers and service managers. I would go with the suggestion to put the stock pulley back on and go to another dealer(s). If that fails, go over their heads. Some serious complaints to district service, etc. can usually at least get another look see or more knowlege than the dealer has. Like someone said, if the dealer hasn't seen the problem before, he may blame it on anything to avoid a warranty claim. Checking into it further up the line may very well find some knowlege of the problem and how to fix it.

 
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Well i just got your Pm about 5 minutes ago! Here is my problem i had! I had the aem pulleys, and i had a similar problem! When i my stereo blasting when the car was at idle the car would surge or bounce rpms! It would jump anywhere from 500 rpms to about 2500! Then finally one day i was driving and doing alot of stop and go driving and blasting the stereo! Well it sucked my battery completely down to the point of the car wasnt getting enough juice to run the fuel pump and the tach, gas , and headlights! A long time friend that works at a stereo shop called "cartoys" said that if i was to draw my battery completely down to dead or under 5 or 4 volts and then all of a sudden turn off all electric current draw ( stereo and amps) that the charging cicuit would be trying to charge the battery in high output mode and would jump the voltage to fast for the ecu to disperse or negate the extra power surge! Thus frying some sort of electrical compontent! But my question is that with all of the fuses and fusable links in these "HIGH TECH" systems why would such a thing be possible? Fortunaly for me it only costed me a 300 dollar alternator! Yes my alternator fried as a result of the underdrive pulleys! But i also was running about 1400 watts of continuous power! I learned from my mistake and fxed it! Sorry i dont have much more info than that! Dakota

 
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Thanks Pimp. Stay dry.

 
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Here is some food for thought about the electrical system. Our alternators have voltage regulators. With that in mind, let me show how a voltage spike could have passed though the fuse block with out blowing a fuse. Say for instance, our ECU's are rated to handle up to 14.5 volts at 20 amps, but say your voltage regulator went out, and you alternator starting producing 16.5 volts. (just for the fact it did not know when to shut off) Trust me this is not unheard of either. Now your ecu is operating on 16.5 volts a 2 volt increase over the maxium allowed voltage range. Kinda like if you have a 60 watt light fixture, and you put a 80 watt bulb in there, you are not drawing more amps, just more wattage, which in time will either blow the bulb (faster than expected) or short out the fixture. Say this same senairo happened to you. I would with out a doubt have another stock ecu placed in the car, then check the voltage output reading to see if this was a possibility. Actually, the best that I can tell, this is the only possibility to explain what happened to you. If you would like, you can check with Mohaw, I think that he will agree with me on this one. This is very common in stereo systems where the amp blows or shuts off. Like most amps will work in a voltage system between 10.5 volts to 14.5 volts. Any thing under 10.5 volts will shut your amp off and anything over 14.5 volts will blow the amp in most cases. You can have a voltage spike and not blow the fuse as long as the voltage spikes and the amps does not rise above that of which the fuse is rated for in that particular circut. I also find it hard to believe that they can not plug a Honda PGM Tester into your ECU to check the DTC ( Diagnostic Trouble Codes). For if they did get the codes out, I think that they would find that it had nothing to do with the new pully's instead it was a malfuntion of the voltage regulator.

<Edited:> Also check around for local shops that works on Honda's. More than likely, they will have a PGM-Tester that will work on a 2k1 civic. If so, they would probably on charge like 50-100 dollars to check it and tell you exactly what happened.

 
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Boosted: Thanks. Does my car have a voltage regulator or does the battery handle that job?

 
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All aternators have voltage regulators. They are located inside the Alternator itself. Sometimes, when the alternator gets to hot, it will cause the voltage regulator to malfunction. Thus power spikes or a lack of charging. I would defintely explore this possibility.

 
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Thank you.

 
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Your welcome. After reading about your situation, it seemed to be the only possibility for a voltage spike. Of course the only other option is a factiry defective ECU. I am sure that Honda will deny that though.

 
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At our car shops like pep boys and such they all have ecu/ecm/pgm testers. they will test it for you for nothing. I know the biggest chain that has them is AUTO ZONE. I dont know if you have one where you live but i know they have them for sure. Get it tested there and see what it says. Maybe honda is trying to f you on this? I know they have tryed to f me on a lot of stuff. i just went to different dealers until i got it fixed under warenty. i have had to strip my car 3 times now for 3 different trannys......so start by finding a tester and then move to striping your car down.

thats all i can really think of. But to let you know one other thing. your name and car is in the Honda directory as haveing these pullys on your car. the only way to get around that is to go to a different honda dealer that has a different "Zone" manager. you would have to call the dealer that you first went to and ask them who is the area's honda rep. or zone manager. and then starts calling around and asking if the same guy is at all of them. i had to drive 65 miles to get out of the "zone" that i am in. and i still ended up with the same guy. just happed to be that the other guy was ill that day. good thing was i still got my new tranny. the guy didnt think that it was my car. who would think that a guy would have his car towed 65 miles to get a tranny.

Hope you get this all fixed up

later

01eX