Hi recently bought a my98 wagon which did not have a key so couldnt start it, i also have another my98 uk 2000 which i have removed key pickup, ecu, alarm immob box, and my key. I have swapped over the following the car will turn over but is not sparking which makes me think that it is still immobilised somewhere, can anyone help as its totally baffled me

 

Before going any further have you ruled out anything really silly, like, for example, the crank position sensor being disconnected? Do you get fuel injection when you crank it (are the plugs wet)? If you don't, then the likelihood is that one or other of the position sensors isn't reading.

Not at all sure how the 97-8 ECU immobilises, but my understanding is that that it doesn't kill the spark. May be that it does, may be that you have a duff igniter or coilpack on the wagon. Plenty more potential explanations too as above.

Get yourself a multimeter if you don't already have one, and diagnose the ignition lines from the ECU all the way to the business end. Start at the ECU ignition output pins and see if you get activity when you crank it. If you do, you know that the ECU is at least trying to get spark.

If you don't, and you know the ECU is good from the other car, then work backwards for the reasons why it isn't trying to initiate a spark - check the cam and crank pos sensors first.

Assuming the ECU is trying to fire a spark, check the loom from it to the igniter for continuity, and so-forth. Sooner or later you will either find something obviously wrong, or rule out enough other explanations that there's only one or two things it can be.

 

Checked with a multimeter it is not getting any reaction at all at the ends of the plug leads, i know that the ecu that am using works from my ols car as it starts that up fine, am totally lost now

 

Well, you could start by reading my post again and following the suggestions sentence by sentence.

Checking at the plug leads is no good. You need to start at the ECU end and see if it is generating an output. If it is, move from there towards the plugs, checking at each point that electrical continuity is good and that you are seeing what you expect.

If the ECU isn't generating any ignition pulses, you work back the other way to find out why, starting by making sure that the ECU is getting crank and cam position inputs. You won't get anywhere by just checking the plug leads and then giving up!

 

Got it running in the end, turns out that the car was still immobilised in some way and that we had to bypass this by removing the alarm immobiliser box and rewiring it so that it would let the car spark otherwise it would not work, thanks very much for all tour help.