astra ecu?

Friend of mine had a good experience with

Unplug your ECU for a few minutes to let it reset to factory defaults. You can then see if the problem recurs.

Without seeing the vehicle, it could be anything. First thing I'd do would be check the resistance across the injector terminals for any obivous fault with injectors. I'd then try swapping the suspect injector with another one to see if the fault moves, to eliminate the injector as the cause.

Next I'd be checking the wiring, for any obvious damage before testing for continuity.

Thanks for the replies, folks.

The guy at the garage swapped injectors 1 and 2, same code came up for injector 1, so that ruled out the injector. He also said he checked the circuits and they're OK. Seems really odd that the problem is on-off-on-off in a regular pattern.

If it is the ECU, do the numbers have to match or can one that's physically the same size be reprogrammed?

Cheers Keith

It's not quite that easy. Any second hand ECU has got to be reset before it's removed from the donor vehicle, unless you also get the Immobilizer module that sits around the ignition barrel, along with the 4 digit security code, so you can reprogramme it to suit your keys (unless you also swap all the locks aswell).

And yes, part numbers will have to be the same (or checked for superseded numbers), and the ECU will most likely have to be re-configured for your own car).

One other thing to check though. Was the P0201 the only code stored? These engines were notorious for coil pack failure, which could be picked up as a different fault by the ECU, and is something I'd be considereing before going to the expense of a new ECU.

Thanks, moray. That was the only code that came up. I spoke to the guy at the garage when I put the car in, and he mentioned that the coil packs are a common fault, so I asssumed that he had also checked that.

I'd be more inclined towards a loom fault, rather than ECU. Sit with the engine idling, then go round the wiring loom, wiggling it and listen for the engine missing. Ford had a good feature called the 'wiggle test' where the car would beep if you touched a connection that caused a fault (when wiggled, obviously).

At least it's sounding as if the garage is competant :)