Actually no....The guys at the garage had a bunch of dead/half-dead batteries which they used to start the car with. Poles coming on and off 2-3 times a day and battery chargers hooked on and guess what?? The ecu died!
I wasn't there when it happened but you can imagine...Anyway, the car sat there for a week or so while I rechecked all wiring and tried (in vain) to see if there was something to be done with the ecu. Finally, I ended up ordering the only one available from ebay for...ouch..~492Euros
![Shocked :shock:](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
Unfortunately,
164Q4 ecu's (Bosch p/n 0261203301 -without immobilizer) are very rare. Maurizio has located someone in NL who can probably repair bad ones, so I'm giving them a try also so that I will have a spare. Damn, this
is a setback...As soon as I receive the ecu, we will continue driving for 300 more km (with unleaded 98-oct gas going for ~1.90Euro/liter) and then map/dyno. Reasonably enough, my mechanic agreed to pay for a large part of the damage...
The worst part of it all is that we missed the Alfa club 3-day track meet where we aimed for one of the top slots, considering the car weighs 1104kg (no driver, no gas) and should have ~260-270hp, which we'll know about soon enough. I put the car on the scales and surprisingly enough, front/rear bias is 55/45 with me in and
no gas! We will repeat weighing with a full tank when we're up and running again. Stay tuned!
Jm K.