Hello,
I am as of today the proud owner of my first Mazda RX7. I had been looking at these fine vehicles for about 6-7 weeks in hopes of purchasing one (actually I remember when I first saw one a buddy of mine had a 1st generation back in the early 80's). While doing research on the 7 I found this group and website and have found it to be great. I've spent a fair amount of time going through the archived articles (what a great tool to have at ones disposal). I actually used the "How to buy.." in my purchase. Let me say up front that I am not a car mechanic but do enjoy "tinkering" as my wife says. Anyway, I picked up the 7 in Pittsburgh today (after using the education I was able to obtain from this website) and drove her home to (near) Frederick, MD and put her away (the car not my wife) in the garage. If it weren't raining I'd have washed her off. That will come soon however. While I don't have grand ideas of doing alot of what many of you have posted I do feel comfortable doing some (in other owrds no engine changes in this brain) things. This leads to my first posting and question. I have attached 2 photos of a box (at least I hope they are attached) I found in the trunk when I got home. I have a little electrical and electronic back ground and what I can tell you is inside this box is circuit boards, I have no idea if it goes to my 7 or not but if someone can identify it I'd appreciate it. Anyway, I running on here let me wrap it up with a big THANK YOU to the website manager and all that post helpful facts here. I look forward to visiting and soaking up some more of the knowledge presented here.

 

Thats a ECU give me a minute and i'll tell you for what car, your ecu is located on the passengers side carpet area, pull the carpet under the dash, you'll find a kick panel and theres your ecu. I'm guessing he changed the ecu out or he got a extra.

-Andrew

Edit- I think it's a series 5 (89-91) ECU for convertable rx7's

 

Welcome to the club.

What you're looking at is an ECU. I assume you car must already have a working one and that's just a spare, because otherwise you would not be driving it anywhere (assuming that you did drive it home and not trailor it.)

What trim and year did you get?

 

Thanks for getting back so quickly - the 7 is a 89 vert w/108k. It's an automatic and it drove great over the mountains of WV and western MD. It kicked down and tacked at 4 a few times (from reading some of the posts I was babying (sp) it). I am thinking the 5th and 6th ports worked fine cause it had more to give than I asked of it. The temp gauge stayed solid at 1/2 way (again the post I read said to check that). I paid $3100, it has no rust (even by the firewall, see I did read the posts) I went by the "How to buy.." and started it and ran it up and let it cool down. No flooding problem it started right up. It had sat on the dealers lot since 12/13. Once it warmed up it purred for me the Carfax shows it was owner by 2 people with the 2nd have it the last 11 years and only put about 5600 miles a year on it. So how can I check if the ECU is good?

 

You'd know it if it was bad. You'd have problems like poor ideling, not starting, limping around, etc. That sounds like a pretty good deal you got though, just make sure to keep up on your maintenance and don't leave your wallet sitting in the garage (I'm pretty certain my 7 has been stealing cash from mine... it's always empty).

I'd probably change the oil, flush the coolant, and have the tranny flushed too. I always do the same with vehicles when I purchase them just so I know exactly when they'll need to be changed again.

 

lol yeah, i tached mine this morning at 8k and it still had some left to give.

 

What I meant to ask was how can I tell if the extra ECU is good?? Can I send it out to be checked??

 

would be easier to just plug it in and find out or ask the previous owner. personally i would put it on the shelf until you have a problem that you suspect could be a faulty ECU then test it out. make sure the numbers on the ECU in bold match your cars ECU as well, don't mix up the ECUs.

 

Thank you!