04 Cobra Died While Driving

04Cobra550

@
Established Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2011
Messages
36
Location
Tulsa
Had my car shut off while driving, died as I was just cruising. Showed dashes for the odometer, then went back to normal and started right back up. Did this a couple times, then it died completely and wouldn't start back up.

No overheating, all of the gauges were in the normal range.

Now it's showing all dashes on the odometer, only the gas gauge is reading anything, and the fan turns on when I turn the key.

Accessories work, cranks but won't start. PCM issue? Any help is greatly appreciated.
 

DHGTerminator

aka The "Bullsnake"
Established Member
Joined
Jul 15, 2008
Messages
1,001
Location
OK
Had my car shut off while driving, died as I was just cruising. Showed dashes for the odometer, then went back to normal and started right back up. Did this a couple times, then it died completely and wouldn't start back up.

No overheating, all of the gauges were in the normal range.

Now it's showing all dashes on the odometer, only the gas gauge is reading anything, and the fan turns on when I turn the key.

Accessories work, cranks but won't start. PCM issue? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Are your gauges sweeping when you turn the key on?
 

04Cobra550

@
Established Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2011
Messages
36
Location
Tulsa
Everything but the fuel gauge isn't moving at all, no sweeping.

Not sure on the tune, picked up the car about two months ago. I'll try to get ahold of the previous owner.
 
Last edited:

MoKo_03SVT

=]~
Established Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2009
Messages
2,630
Location
Smoke-La-Homa City
I had this exact same thing happen to me/my car. I made a thread on it, which is around here somewhere. Its titled - "fried my ECU out of nowhere?" When this happened to me, the car would just crank and crank, but wouldn't start. The dash quit showing mileage...only "------". Also when I would try to reload my tune, the car would no longer recognize the hand-held, once it was plugged in.

To fix it, all I ended up doing, was unhooking the battery for a few minutes, to reset the cars ECU. She fired right up, afterwords...and hasn't done anything like it since! Thank god!

Hopefully yours will be an easy fix as well. If unhooking the battery doesn't fix it, then more than likely your ECU is fried. Good luck! Let us know if this fixes it!
 

04Cobra550

@
Established Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2011
Messages
36
Location
Tulsa
Moko, thank you so much. I found your old thread thinking 'man that'd be nice', took a long run to get to my car this morning and gave it a shot.

Unplugged it for 15 min, everything came back on like normal(!), tried to start it and it almost caught... but then went back to dashes.

Went into the dealer what-chama-call-it (holding the trip button when you turn the key until it says test), cycled through it all and turned it off.

The next time I turned the key everything was normal. Drove it home. I'm stumped.

Not much done to car, just bolt ons, pulley, the basics. Have a sticker on the side for diablosport.com, assuming there's a diablosport tune but I don't have the handheld.
 

SilverCobra7

Philippians 4:13
Established Member
Joined
May 3, 2011
Messages
956
Location
The Valley
That Sux... Mine shut off a couple times after letting off the gas! Found out to be a cracked fuel cap. I would try what Moko^^ said and see if that works...
 

CobraBob

Authorized Vendor
Established Member
Premium Member
Single Barrel Sirs
Joined
Nov 17, 2002
Messages
105,354
Location
Cheshire, CT
Glad it seems to be fine now, but I would definitely research this. You don't want to end up getting stranded somewhere at the worse possible time. I would contact the previous owner and see if he ever had this happen.
 

MoKo_03SVT

=]~
Established Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2009
Messages
2,630
Location
Smoke-La-Homa City
glad you were able to get her started back up!

...oddly enough, my car also had a diablotune installed, when this happened to me. i have switched since tunes/tuners.
 

BlownDSGvert03

New Member
Established Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2011
Messages
25
Location
miami florida
tyr un hooking the battery for a feww minutes and see if she starts up if not ur pcm or ecu are fried!! happend to my old bullitt when i tryyed to load a handheld in it not knowing that i already had a piggy back =/
 

04Cobra550

@
Established Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2011
Messages
36
Location
Tulsa
Does anyone know where the PCM relay is? I'd like to wiggle some things and try to track down the issue. I'm with you, I'd rather not be on the freeway and have it shut down again.

What could cause this? Loose connection? User error?

Drove it to work today down the backroads, in case it died again, but it drove like nothing had happened.
 
Last edited:

04Cobra550

@
Established Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2011
Messages
36
Location
Tulsa
Update: Drove around for a bit, it jerked a couple times like it was thinking about shutting off, thankfully didn't.

I guess my thought is the PCM relay is loose (bumps in the road hasn't seemed to affect it though), from what I gather the tune may be bad? Would that cause this?
 

Ironhand

Banned
Joined
Jul 27, 2005
Messages
8,321
Location
.
Right before the PCM connector there is a ground that should be attached to the body of the car in the passenger side kick panel. Make sure that ground is there because it grounds directly to the PCM.
 

04Cobra550

@
Established Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2011
Messages
36
Location
Tulsa
Thanks ironhand, while looking over the relay in the kick panel, I bumped the wires in front of the ecu. Car immediately shut off like it's been doing.

After taking it all apart, I found a module plugged into the top of the ecu ( I'm out of my comfort zone, assuming this is the ecu - it's large, silver box inside the passenger kick panel).

The module is pink with sct engraved on top. Googled it, cant find the exact product on their website. The module is not making a good connection, if it moves barely the car shuts off and I get the problem I've been facing.

Bought some cleaners, cleaned the crap out of it, and it connects 1000x better, but a good knock will still cause the car to shut down. Call me crazy but I want this to be robust.

Any thoughts? Should I just replace this module?
 

04Cobra550

@
Established Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2011
Messages
36
Location
Tulsa
Posting this up in case it helps anyone in the future:

Found out the issue, the chip wasn't making a connection because the ecu comes with a layer of plastic on top of the connectors. When installing a chip, you need to scrape off this plastic layer, clean it all up, and stick the chip on.

The previous owner hadn't scraped the plastic off before installing the chip. I scraped off the plastic, scraped off the melted plastic on the chip, put it all back together and it's been golden.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to help me out, I owe you all a beer or eight.
 

Users who are viewing this thread



Top