had a drivability problem, to start out with. hooked up a snap on scan tool to pull codes. the scanner could not communicate with ecm then my car would not start at all. think i may have spiked the ecm, any other ideas or things i could check???

 

What year?

Maybe a fuse, maybe a coincedence, I don't know.

 

1992 ES the first problem was it would backfire thru the exhaust and barely run, intermittently then run fine.

 

checked fuses several times, they were good.

 

From the symptoms you described there is a good chance the ECU was going out beforehand. Hopefully you didn't cook it beyond repair.

On a 92 you can check the codes with a simple analog voltmeter.

 

thats what i was afraid of. could the ecu cause the backfiring and rough idle problem? i thought it might have been the injectors. it has 125000 miles on it and wasnt taken real good care of before i got it, i did the 60000 mile maintenance and changed the plugs and wires and water pump that was about 20,000 miles ago. i live in chicago anyone know where i could have the ecu checked near me??

 

You could check around at some chain type autoparts stores, see if they have one you could buy. If it works, great, turns yours in for the core, if it doesn't, back the drawing board.