he said he has checked and rechecked everything from fuses and relays from the ground up. he said everything with the fuel system, pump, filter, (both newly installed) CSV, injector, lines are all good, the car has new plugs, plug wires, distributor cap and rotor, batter, alternator belt. he said the connections all look good to the starter. so asu usal the audi is being a beyotch.... he said the only thing he can find is that the computer isnt even turning on the fuel pump relay etc.. he said u can "jump" them individually but he doesnt want to mess anything up with such an intricate system. so i'm looking for an ecu for my 87 5kcstq.. anyone got one? the fuel pump rleay was just replaced a couple months back.. does this all sound legit. i'm at a loss, everything that has been suggested on here has been tried and checked with no positive results. thanks for all the help though.
this is the reason why the car is being sold in the spring. I know its love or sell with these, and my love for them is being overtaken but my frustration and my angry wallet..

you gota love when the mechanic calls you up with the news that he can't figure it out and all that his computer is saying when the car is plugged in is that everything is fine but the computer isnt turning things on?! ahhhh i hate this thing!

1st in the out put testing system

This is not a car that you can plug in a scanner and it tells you everything, sounds like your mechanic is not familiar with the older Audis. As a result, he is guessing based on his experience with other cars.

First things first: your car DOES NOT need a new ecu. The Hitachi ECU's are very robust and almost never fail short of something catastropic (flooding, tree falls on car etc.). Yes sometimes on of the transistors overheat and fail, but if you open the case you can smell the burnt aroma and will know that is the problem. If the current traces are not cooked on the circuit board, many times they can have a new component re-soldered onto the board.

Pull your codes first. If nothing shows then check every d*mn rubber bit for vaccuum leaks and go from there. Have your mechanic check your fuel pressure output and fuel volume from the new/old pump and see if they are within spec.

Do you have the correct sparkplugs in the car?

Is the fuel filter new?

Do you have the correct dist. cap and rotor on the car?

Does the starter spin and not even a cough to start, or does it just spin with nothing?

Sniff the tailpipe for a raw gas smell - if you smell gas it is getting fuel, but no spark.

Bypass the fuel pump relay by jumpering the two biggest slots that the fuel pump relay plugs into, you may want to fuse this wire.

Try opening up the airbox and removing the air filter, then push up on the metering arm as the car is cranking - if it cranks then you have a fuel distributor misadjustment.

If you will give us detailed info on what you have done so far and what the car is doing, we will do our best to help.

yes the plugs are the rights ones, i've been driving the car for the past 4 months with them in.

fuel filter is new.

dist cap and rotor are correct, like i said been driving the car for a few months now.

maybe you had missed the first couple posts about this issue, i will sum it up for anyone that doesnt know what happened:
new plugs, wires, distcap and rotor, alt blet, battery, and now fuel pump and filter.

had been driving car for about 4 months, no issues, then over time i noticed that time it took to crank and fire was getting longer and longer.. 4 seconds, 8 seconds, then when i was at 10 seconds + of cranking i knew something was going on... eventually it was cranking for about 20 seconds, i was about to flip it off and it started up, so i drove for awhile, and then stopped soemwhere, came out and it woldnt start- 40 seconds of cranking, so i roll started it up fine. drove somewhere else, parked it. tried to start it. nothing ffor about 30 seconds of cranking. let it sit for about an hour, cranked for about 30 seonds, nothing, so i roll started it fine. next morning, go outside expecting it to take 30+ seconds of cranking, starts up after maybe 10 seconds. drive to the gas station 1/4 mile from my house), fill up, and then nothing but cranking for 30 seconds or so. roll started it outta there. now i'm getting nothing but cranking. roll starting it wont even do it. something was consistently getting worse here over time.

If roll starting doesn't get it started now. Better do a compression check. The pump only comes on for a short time when you first try to start the engine, it doesn't stay on unless the engine is running.

I've gone through three of them, pull the steering wheel then thetwo screws in the instrument panel, you can see the harness plugging into the back of the switch, pull it off. Next there is a tiny worm screw that holds the male connector component in place, the hole for which should be covered with a little dob of black goop. Once you get out, you may notice a crack or worse, meaning as the key rotates the switch it expands, loses contact and gets progressively worse over time. Damn near killed me the first time it happened but now on every Audi I own, it's the first place I look.

It's a $20 part and super common. If your car is otherwise running fine, do this, takes all of 10 minutes. Provided you have a big enough socket for the steering wheel nut :) 23mm I think.

Good luck!

When the no start occurs will it jump start? If so think about the battery.

That sounds like exactly what happened to me..and I mean exactly. A new ECU fixed the problem. The cheapest computer I could find anywhere was at AutoZone believe it or not.

why would jump starting do anything? lets say i cranked the car for a minuye, possible itd kill the bettery then i'd have to jump start it, but hooking up cables to the battery would just let me crank longer, doesnt help start it.. and its a new battery.. like i've mentioned many times.. i'm leaning more toward the igntion switch now.. thanks for the input

and spliced in the footwell. The ECU is very voltage sensitive I'm told.

If you jump start it from the post under the hood not at the battery you might learn something.

I'd also check the ECU ground at the manifold.

I would like to know if there is spark and fuel. Check the spark by taking the plug of the cyl. No. 1, put the plug into the wire and ground it to a the engine. Have someone crank the car while you observe the spark. If the spark is there, put the plug back, and check for fuel delivery. Excersize extreme caution, loosen the bolt at the fuel filter exit side and have a helper briefly crank the engine. If fuel gushes out, fuel delivery from the pump and pump relay are good. Please let us know if you have both spark and fuel. If yes, you have massive vacuum leak which can not be compensated by your Hitachi Mac 11-C ECU, under standstill conditions.
Please keep us posted,
Zoran in Toronto

I've got a MAC-11 (stock) sitting in my garage that I will never use again. e-mail me at rob [at] flyinghead [dot] com and tell me what it's worth...

but anyway, good chance its the computer. I dont even think I told you, the computer died on the 200 a while ago (about 10 minutes after I got it running) and I also couldnt figure it out for the longest time. Bought a computer off of someone installed and bingo.

could not be sending a signal to the fuel pump?

I believe its soposed to a signal to the fuel pump... atleast thats how it was on my 5k.

Try jumping from the post under the hood, then from the battery, see if there's a difference. This would eliminate a voltage draop through a bad pos cable to the starter connection. Did you recheck tightness of the connections at the starter? Or at the battery maybe, even the ground wire too. Or maybe you have a really slow turning starter that is eating amps and drawing down voltage. I have experienced very slow turning starters and it always seemed to take a really long time to start, if at all.

But when i got my car i changed the coolant and after it wouldnt start, took it to a mechanic and he could not fix it, spent 4 hours on it, maybe he wasnt the best audi guy to take it to but it ended up being the MFTS, if you havent checked that.. I recommend it. i believe my car was cranking but not starting but i am not 100%.
If that was a waste of a post sorry but i thought it might help so I figured give it a shot.

Still think you should check the reference sensor in the bell housing. If the sensor is dead and is not giving the ECU a signal, it won't fire. I had a dying one that only worked when the engine was cold. Once warm you could crank to China. I would guess that if its dead (it'a magnetic pickup), then the results would be the same all the time.

It isn't a hard fix and easy to get at.

Good luck - I know the frustration!