I found a V8 96 explorer in the junkyard the other day. I'm pulling the heads, upper and lower intake, and all the mass air stuff off of it to put into my 77 early bronco.

Does anyone know where the ecu is located, and does anyone happen to have a picture of one?

Thanks

 

the ECU is located in the fire wall ,under the hood just below the wiper transmission on the passenger side. Ther is a large electrical jack with a bolt in the center .remove the jack and there are 2 nuts , one on each side of the unit , remove the nuts and the unit will slide out. sorry no picture

 

Why not pull the entire engine, transmission and PATS system? How are you going to deal with the camshaft position sensor, crankshaft position sensor, PATS system, and transmission controls? The PCM will need to work with all that in order to function unless there are tweaks out there to address all that. The factory service manual suggests that the PATS system ID is programmed to the PCM and the PCM won't allow the vehicle to start if it doesn't recognize the PATS. You might have fewer headaches if you went with something like a Holley Pro-Jection kit and an MSD ignition.

-Rod

 

Im not really familiar with the mass air system. I know about the camshaft and crankshaft position sensor. Im not worried about the transmission controls because Ill be running a C6. But could you explain the PATS system?

 

PATS = Passive Anti-Theft System. This is the transponder key that has an RF transponder in the key and an antenna loop around the key cylinder. The PATS system energizes the coded key which provides an RFID to the PATS system. If the RFID has been previously programmed to the system, the PATS sends a coded discrete to the PCM to allow an engine start. If the coded signal isn't there, the PCM won't allow the engine to start.

I don't have a factory service manual for 1996 so I'm not sure if the '96 Explorer utilized PATS or not. You'll want to confirm that though before starting your project with that drivetrain. I'm also not sure how well the PCM will respond to not having transmission speed sensors from the stock transmission. Some of the systems of that era use wheel speed sensor input from the ABS system for the Vehicle Speed, I'm not sure how many of the parameters in the PCM rely on vehicle speed for their computations. There are a lot of areas for potential headaches when trying to retrofit a modern computerized drivetrain to an older application. I'm certainly not saying it can't be done, just be very sure you understand what you're tackling, and good luck!

-Rod

 

1996-97 did not have PATS but the ECM did have transmission control circuits that you will have to deal with as well as the other engine management sensors.