cdchris12

I totally agree with you that not all issues would still qualify for warranty service. However, your previous statement specified that Link would `Link will still repair an issue with the ecu assuming it's unrelated to the soldering you have done... [for] $150 minimum charge`... If the issue is indeed unrelated to my modifications, then Magnuson-Moss would very clearly apply here, and that repair should be done at no cost to me under the terms of their limited lifetime warranty. That's why I used the two examples I did, as neither of those would be related to something like a window motor failing or the engine losing oil pressure causing one of its pistons to eject itself from the block, for example. That said, You're very correct that ESD procedures need to be followed; good thing Link provides us with a ground strap included with the ECU. It's interesting to me that they do that, as the entire board is covered in conformal coating anyway, but I suppose the ECU's pins are not. For my specific situation, soldering wires directly to the pins shouldn't cause any issues. Because of the aforementioned conformal coating, it would be painful (and unnecessary) to solder to the board directly anyway. I have ~18 years of miniature and microminiature soldering experience under my belt, so I'm pretty confident I could solder wires directly to pins and cover them with solder mask, conformal coating, or something similar to prevent them from coming into contact with any other pins. I'm also reasonably confident that wouldn't void my warranty unless Link could specifically prove that my modifications caused the issue at hand. Despite that, it's almost certainly worth my time to never make this more than an armchair exercise.

Now that's an interesting take on things... If the modifications I performed (soldering to pins which the manufacturer has now confirmed are not connected to the mainboard of the G4X) were determined not to be the cause of whatever fault occurred, would I not maintain my warranty coverage pursuant to the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act and thus be eligible for a free repair or replacement under Link's Limited Lifetime Warranty? This is the same argument as maintaining a new car warranty despite installing a new exhaust system or fitting new rims and tires, as far as I can tell...

You specifically mention that soldering to the _board_ will void the warranty; does the same apply if I solder to the pins themselves? Seeing as my only onus for using these pins in the first place was for a clean install, It's probably worth my time to just run them out the side and keep my warranty intact. I'm not wanting to buy another $1.5k ECU for this car ever again

That's a really good question as well. I hadn't even considered this could possibly void the warranty

I've got a JZX90 G4X PnP, and I'm swapping in a 2JZ for the 1JZ this car came with. With that, there's enough work involved in repinning the harness that it just makes sense for me to build my own harness. Ideally, I'd love to just add wires to the unused pin slots in the main ECU harness for basically every expansion port connection instead of having them run out the side of the ECU outer case. I'm worried though about potentially putting +12V or +5V somewhere that is labelled as "nc", but is really connected to some sensitive component. My question is, are the pins labelled "nc" in the manual actually not connected to anything internally in the PnP ECU?