Sol0

Quick rundown: 3.2 Auto. Woke up one morning and would not start.
Symptoms: Aside from the obvious, I get no CEL when the ignition is keyed. Fuel pump does not prime.
Troubleshooting: Checked Main Relay, it clicks
checked ALL fuses, both underhood and driverside footwell, all fuses good.
Swapped ECU with known good ECU out of working vehicle, nothing. Conversely, tried this ECU in known working vehicle, it started up just fine first try.
I just changed the fuel pump itself, still nothing.
Also, checked the ECU ground on the thermostat housing, it is good to go.
There is no spark.
I cannot get ahold of a code reader yet, its the only thing I have not done (stupid, right?)
Now the kicker...I live in England where they don't have TLs or facilities to reconcile Recalls. At this point, ANY help at all would be incredibly useful. I will work on getting ahold of a code reader this week to see if it can point me in any direction. Thanks in advance.

Opel

The FI relay might be bad...while I had a similar problem, pulling the FI main relay cause the CEL to go off. I discovered this through my testing, so it basically disables everything if it went bad..you have to remove the under-dash cover by the fuses to expose the relays. They're right above the fuses.

Is there any other lights that don't come on with ignition?

I don't understand how another car started when you tried your ECU in it. It shouldn't start, the key needs to be programmed before you can start it.
Apparently based on your description, your ECU seems to be working.
Does the motor crank at all?

From my recent experience, aside from what I said such as FI main relay going bad, or anything along those lines, also any shorts anywhere in direct link to the ECU wires might cause the ECU to disable itself and go dead. This can be even from a sensor going bad in a way that would cause a short of any kind. It is what happened to me, when the output shaft speed sensor went bad/broke inside the tranny, caused these same symptoms.
I'm just throwing this stuff out there, as possible causes, but not necessarily the real cause.
I'd love to troubleshoot your car, only if you were closer lol...but damn, England? How did you end up with a TL in England?

Have you also tried swapping clusters? To make sure the CEL circuit works. This is one of the procedures to determine CEL circuit is in working condition.

While having an OBDII scanner is a great thing, chances are that if you don't see the CEL on your cluster, you won't be able to read anything through the scanner. Even the DLC goes dead when such thing happens.

You mentioned that you checked all fuses. I just wanna make sure you literally mean ALL, and not just what you suspect might be a fuse linked to the ECM. There's a few fuses that aren't labeled exactly for each of their circuits. So if you haven't done this, check EVERY SINGLE FUSE.

You can do another thing to try and narrow things down, hopefully.
Unplugging the ECU connectors one by one, while plugging back what you unplug, might help you narrow down if there should be a short, it will help you find out where to look for it. Each ECU connector handles a bunch of different functions and sensors, so you will know based on that connector, where to look for possible things.
You have to do this while checking by turning ignition on each time you unplug something. Let me know if you find anything with this. Knowing which connector brings back the CEL by unplugging it, I will know what functions it handles, and try and steer you to the right place.

After playing with the ECU, if it doesn't help you narrow down anything, another thing you can try is, unplug every sensor you possibly can in your engine bay. Unplug them one by one including transmission sensors, while checking for CEL. Plug back what you unplug, and move on to the next, don't leave too many sensors unplugged. Do all this while everything on the ECU is plugged in!
You will get codes by doing this, so having that OBDII scanner to wipe them out after you finally find the problem, would be helpful.

Here's a thread of a similar problem. Just thought it might help or trigger some ideas of your own as to where to look.

https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-problems-fixes-114/no-cel-ignition-799200/

I know I threw in a whole lot of things, while your problem could very well be coming from something very small, just trying to cover a much as possible. My situation was caused by something very stupid lol. Hopefully it's just your FI main relay under the dash.

Let me know if you find anything.

Best of luck!

Sol0

Dude, this is exactly the type of response I was looking for. I now have a plethora of new info and areas to look into. I will have to start more troubleshooting tomorrow, but I will keep you posted.
You, sir, are on the Christmas Card List.

01tl4tl

just a thought--any work done on the car recently? thats the first place I always look
or really bad puddles or weather experiences?

the SECRET backup power for the ECU is the CLOCK fuse on passenger end of dash
always worth cking that, as well as every fuse- with a `multimeter` or `12volt test light` from parts stores,,not just visual exam

any turning over of the engine at all?
looked thru the Timing Belt inspection covers behind cams? see if the belt is there and on tight?

Opel

Any updates on this?
I'm very interested to see what the problem was.
I'm tired of reading about the same whine thread after thread lol.....j/k