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For what it’s worth I have bought GE and GTE ECUs from a few ebay sellers for several years. Only once did I get a flood damaged 2JZ-GE ECU that had too much board damage to be repaired.
There are no guarantees with used parts but generally you should be okay especially with capacitor servicing.
My current ECU I got from an ebay seller but I also happened to trace it to an identical sale ad the same person had on Supraforums so that did give me more peace of mind.
Best thing I can suggest is cross-referencing SupraForums sale ads and ebay ads. If you’re okay with international sellers from Europe, Australia and New Zealand you can also cross reference ads from those specific ebay branches.
one pointer on the gauge pod, wrap the gauge with painters tape until it fits snug into the pod. That’s how i’ve used all of my autoextrude pods.
Thank you very much for this tip! I took your advice and gave it a try with a spare VDO gauge. It only took two wrappings of 3" blue painter's tape, a little trimming and... voila! The gauge inserted snugly but not too snugly into my AutoExtrude side vent part and held itself in place very well! Great easy trick that takes all the guesswork out of exact gauge barrel diameter differences. Thank you!
Thank you Craig! As for your clutch, the break-in procedure is always an exercise in patience, isn't it? haha. On such a nice unit, I'd be sure to do the same and make sure it lasts for the long haul. I'm very envious, I'd love to do a trans and clutch upgrade at some point in the future.
I missed this part of your post several days ago. Yes, for any new aftermarket clutch but especially a twin disc it does take patience but it's worth it. You just have to pretend you're driving a much less powerful car that you have no desire to drive faster than your average car. The stock twins generate 80% of max torque very quickly on turbo #1 so you just go nice and easy on the throttle even though there will be some boost. OS Giken reps may say there is no recommended break-in period but really there is.
It's at least a minimum of 500 miles of frequent clutch cycles in a city environment. And you want to go a bit easy accelerating up bridges and hills also. Giving a couple hundred more miles or so isn't a bad idea.
I kept myself from gradually easing into more power until about 700 miles of 85% city 15% highway. I'm still going easy and staying mostly below 3800rpm until I cross 1,000 miles or so.
I'd say careful break-in through 500 mostly city miles including some deliberate bad traffic jam sessions throughout if possible. Then from there, *gradually* increase the power delivery and ease while driving normally and accelerating a little more normally through 700 miles. Again, as much in a city traffic environment as possible.
Somewhere after that it's probably fine to let the engine really rip but I'm sticking to not going 10/10ths until I reach at least 1,000 miles. But as of now at 770 miles on this new clutch I pretty much drive normally and accelerate as I wish to on the first turbo below 3800rpm. I may even be going overkill at this point but.... eh... it certainly can't hurt to ease into full power.
If you ever get any twin disc clutch you will find the hardest part of breaking it in is those first 500 miles or so. It will be VERY grabby and difficult to modulate... rather on/off at first but not as bad as other twin disc kits from what I understand. It's very precise but will be a challenge. You'll probably stall out the car several times just getting the hang of it which can be very embarrassing at stoplights. This is because even mild slipping will be a challenge during break-in. Pedal effort on the other hand is very close to stock for an R154 with an OEM Toyota clutch kit.
However once it's properly broken in (at least with this clutch using the OSG movement alteration mechanism) it will have become MUCH easier to modulate and will be extremely livable. Pedal effort will remain easy and while you'll still have to be used to the way a twin disc engages the slipping capability will have improved dramatically.
Really the only downside, if one can call it that, is the rattling noise of the discs and intermediate metal plate when you push the pedal in. But it's really not that bad. It may throw off people next to your car (say, at a service shop) who think something is wrong with it but it's not even that loud. I think it's kind of cool honestly.
And please don't be envious, lol. I had to scrimp and save to afford that clutch kit from the least expensive place I could get it (RHDJapan) and really only went with it because other single disc full face clutches I had tried (SouthBend) weren't holding the sequential turbo torque at stock boost and I didn't want an aggressive and heavy effort puck clutch as my only inexpensive alternative.
All the things I did for my swap, R154 transmission swap included, took me the better part of ten years in many stages to do and afford. That's a lot of time to make your project happen the way you want it to. Yours is nearly there already
Edit: Oh, also regarding installation of that clutch, you want OS Giken's billet alignment tool, you'll need either their short length flywheel bolts or Driftmotion's custom short length ARP flywheel bolts for R154's and during installation it is critically important not to hang the transmission off the engine from the inserted splines alone. It HAS to be aligned first with the billet tool (not a cheap plastic tool) and then the trans has to remain supported by a jack as it is bolted onto the engine. They explain everything in the English instructions on their website.
Since this isn't what you'll be doing right now just save this post for later on I suppose
I very much appreciate everyone's input and help with my project thus far.
Craig - I love what you said about saving, planning, and "staging". It couldn't be more true. The older you get, the more you realize that the staging process is half the fun. The fact is, I've had a lot of cool cars, swaps, supercharged cars, etc etc... but this is the most well thought out and "sorted" car I've had thus far. Maybe some of that is maturing and admiring all aspects of a vehicle, and maybe some of it is spending more time on a road course and realizing that cars can and should be so much more than just straight line fury (I grew up drag racing Hondas all through HS and college).
Also, great news on the clutch break in thus far! That is such an awesome piece of equipment, and I hope that it's everything you hoped for! It sounds like you've done a great job following the break in procedure. I'm no expert, however, I'd imagine at this point you're pretty safe to start having some fun with that bad boy and not worrying about it all too much. Granted, I don't blame you after what you spent on it lol.
HUGE shoutout to Gerrb - he found me a good vvti ecu. This saves me a ton of time waiting on one from eBay that would ship from Japan. I appreciate you sir.
Gauge cluster also got pulled today so that I can jump the R109 resistor this week while I wait to get my tach working again.
Once the new ecu arrives, I’ll throw it in and see how it acts. Cross your fingers for me!
He is the man, does me a huge solid and made my week. I’ll post up next week on how the car runs with the new ecu.
You’re right on the tach fix - seems like much less work than the tach adapter (thanks again for your offer on that). I’m going to do that this week so it’s ready before the new ecu comes in.
It’s been nice, but snowing again today. Should have good weather this week and hoping to be able to do some cruising next weekend so I can finally enjoy this thing a little!
Hey Rudy, forgot you needed help with the ecu. I have an aristo vvti ecu with no immobilizer if you can't get the latest one to work or need one temporarily let me know... I wont be needing the ecu for a while.
That 6spd ecu is a good one to have if it will still start with the immobilizer. Wonder if he can swap a chip from an aristo one and save the 6spd ecu, might be worth asking.
Thank you very much! I'll be sure to reach out if I have any more issues with ECU's. Who knows, may need another one lol. I did ask the local guys and Tannin if it would be worth trying to repair the 6-speed ECU with the bad chip. Both recommended against it and thought sourcing a new ECU would be my best option. The only downside to the aristo ECU is having to install that relay in order to get my AC operational again. Gerry filled me in on the differences between the Supra/SC and Aristo/GS and why that relay will need to be installed now.
I did manage to go drive the car a little bit on Saturday with the bad ECU for ****s and grins. Hooked the battery up, the car started and warmed up great, but then would immediately go into limp mode as soon as boost came on. With the bad ECU in, as soon as the car is warm, when you turn it off and back on it would immediately run poorly again and have to be limped home. Until it cools, the battery is unhooked, ECU reset, and started again, the car will continue to run poorly on that ECU. I'm hoping that both this issue and the car going into limp mode are both related to the bad ECU (and it seems to make perfect sense). Fingers crossed the new ECU will fix all of these concerns. I'm so excited to actually get this thing on the road and be able to get a good shakedown drive in. It sounds so, so tough, and I can tell the car will be relatively quick even on stock twins and ECU.
On the plus side, I pulled my gauge cluster last night and manage to bypass the R109 resistor (which I can confirm the resistor number on my '92 manual cluster) in order to restore tach function. Very excited to have a working oem tach!
Thanks for reading, and thanks for all of your guys' input and advice.
The only downside to the aristo ECU is having to install that relay in order to get my AC operational again. Gerry filled me in on the differences between the Supra/SC and Aristo/GS and why that relay will need to be installed now.
AC signals from AC amplifier are different between a JDM Supra 6speed 2jzgte vvti ECU and the Aristo 2jzgte vvti ECU. The JDM Supra ECU will have it on pin 1 of B77 (G) connector which is same as the F59 connector . Remember the Aristo (which is our GS cars) 2jzGTE has a more complicated system. A lot of things pass through what they call the MPX network for control (one of them the AC system) which the Supra do not have.
Compare the pinouts of the Supra 2jzgte ECU (first link) and Aristo 2jzgte ECU (second link) . Check that pin 1 of B77(G) .. it doesn't exist on the Aristo 2jzgte ECU.
I did manage to go drive the car a little bit on Saturday with the bad ECU for ****s and grins. Hooked the battery up, the car started and warmed up great, but then would immediately go into limp mode as soon as boost came on. With the bad ECU in, as soon as the car is warm, when you turn it off and back on it would immediately run poorly again and have to be limped home. Until it cools, the battery is unhooked, ECU reset, and started again, the car will continue to run poorly on that ECU. I'm hoping that both this issue and the car going into limp mode are both related to the bad ECU (and it seems to make perfect sense).
Make sure it is an ecu problem . This sounds like something else to me IF everything works well from a cold start and car starts acting up when warm. Though it also can be since some components like capacitors might start acting up when heated up. Sorry haven't read all the previous post that is why am assuming something else . Maybe a failing temp sensor. Anyway soon your Aristo 2jzgte ECU will be there and you can confirm if it is an ECU problem.
Hey Gerry - that makes sense on the AC side of things. I found an old thread you had commented in and went ahead and bought the needed relay so that I can wire it in before summer. Very satisfying when you can search for an oddball issue like that and find a dedicated thread about it.
As for the ECU... I'll admit I'm not 100% sure, however, having the local ECU/ECM repair shop tell me that chip is bad and Tannin confirming that it's too risky to replace makes me think it can't be a good idea to try and run it. The problem sounds inconsistent, but indeed is very predictable and I can get it to do the same thing over and over again which I don't often see with intermittent sensor issues caused by one beginning to fail. If you start the car after hooking up the battery, it runs great, warms up, awesome... Leave it overnight and DON'T unhook the battery, start it cold, and it still starts and runs like ****. Pop the battery cable off while it's still cold, hook it back up after a minute, it starts up beautifully. Try to start it again while it's warm with or without unhooking the battery and it runs like **** again lol. I confirmed the CEL operates by getting it to go into limp mode while building boost the other day, and what's odd, is even when it starts and runs poorly no CEL or codes come up.
I'm certainly all ears for other theories and/or ideas. However, I'm extremely curious to hook up that new ECU from you and see what happens. Worst case that's not the cause then no big deal on my end, but fingers crossed it solves the issues at hand so I can hurry up and take this badboy for a real spin!
I think since you have a good understanding of the setup try the ecu swap and see what happens, and then go from there.
Sometimes the ecu's will present symptoms all the time, sometimes just when warmed up but a reset wouldn't help with that.
Gerrb is on point if not the ecu the one sensor I was thinking about is the coolant temp sensor (the 2 pin one), it can have similar symptoms and is usually overlooked.
I agree with you. Hoping the ecu solves everything. The motor itself sounds incredibly stout and runs like a top. So I’m relieved I got a nice healthy motor out of the whole deal. If the ecu doesn’t get it right, I still have plenty of time to get her ready for cruising weather. I’ve driven a lot of turbo cars, and NA 2jz cars, but never owned a turbo car and I’ve never driven a turbo 2jz motor of any kind. I’m antsy to get out and enjoy this thing!
I'll say this about chip replacements on ECU boards: I have not tried this yet and may never but I also look at a lot of videos for fun of classic 80's computer restorations (Commodore 64, old IBM PC's etc) and those folks do occasionally swap out bad/failed chips on their old vintage machines for known good ones (or new ones IF they are still made or still in remaining old stock supply).
It's more about the tools and steady hand you have available: a grounded and ESD-safe soldering station (like a Hakko FX-888D) with temperature adjustment, a professional de-soldering gun (again, Hakko makes these), ESD safe projection for you while working on the sensitive boards and the right type of solder and flux to reapply and with good technique. And also probably a big magnifying glass with a ring LED or fluorescent light on a spring loaded arm that can be angled any way needed. And of course a mask to filter away toxic fumes.
Mainly I think Tanin and other similar repair companies are concerned that a bad chip in an ECU might be so proprietary it's just never been for sale to anyone other than Toyota for their own ECU production (very likely) or they are very concerned about introducing any difficult to control factors into the replacement of any chips even if replacements were to be taken from a known good ECU or ECU that had a different chip go bad. But you can see where the issue of supply of chips you just can't get brand new anywhere might be a problem.
And also... how do you know for sure precisely which chip went bad in that engine ECU? The symptoms are not always indicative other than just "it seems to have a bad chip".
That doesn't stop the 80's computer restorers who are very used to this however But in their case they have access to original electrical diagrams for EVERY circuit and how every chip in their vintage machines work. And they can run custom programs to determine if one specific part on the computer's motherboard is having an issue. Even if they still have to cannibalize proprietary and long discontinued chips from spare parts machines they can actually pinpoint the issues with accuracy that we cannot.
We can't really do that with Toyota ECUs. Not to that level of specificity. We have car electrical wiring diagrams but no big schematics of how each popular 1990's proprietary Toyota ECU works. Toyota hasn't ever released that information.
The chief concern when doing any work on small and sensitive electronics logic boards is that you absolutely do not want to introduce to much heat or especially any micro static discharges that might affect any of the delicate tiny circuit pathways inside the chips themselves. These are micro stresses on those components that wouldn't be noticed right away but might be finally after a very long period of time.
It's also why we always take good precautions to properly ground those ECUs and discharge the car's electrical system properly when disconnecting an ECU.
I think you'll likely be good to go with the new ECU you've been sent Rudy and this level of electrical work is something really none of us in this discussion will ever get into with Toyota ECU repair. But... I think such deep repair to ECUs is technically possible despite many reasons to probably not go that far down the rabbit hole especially with what needs to be a robust and durable computer that will always function correctly and thus protect the engine.
A thoughtful response as always! I agree, I just don't think those chips are readily available outside of a secret stash that Denso or Toyota may have laying around. Both companies basically stated the same, that the risk outweighs the rewards of trying to swap a new chip. The local company was able to tell me for certain that the chip wasn't functioning (I'm assuming they power it up and test inputs/outputs but I'm honestly not sure how they came to that conclusion). They weren't able to tell me what the chip does, but were willing to take it back apart and point it out to me.
I hope that you're right! Tracking number says it should arrive today, so I'm hoping to have a little extra time tonight to experiment a little before the weekend.
02-19-20, 06:43 PM
. Maybe a failing temp sensor. Anyway soon your Aristo 2jzgte ECU will be there and you can confirm if it is an ECU problem.