Steve,

> Ummmmmm Karl?......*classic* sign of ECU failure....it tends to be a thermal
> problem and I've limped 'em home by pulling the boards out of the black box
> and letting the air curculate around them..a friend once installed a 12v
> cooling fan over a cut out in the plastic ECU cover and got 2 years before it
> stopped dead....

Could be, but this ECU is a remanu from Kyle at Volks Motorsports
with less than 3 months on it.  I presume it was rigorously
tested.  Can it be failing just the same?  Sure.

As far as thermal failures, all of this stumbling stuff happened when
the van wasn't even warm yet.  We ran it pretty hot all weekend (>600
miles) with no problems.  Again, does this rule out ECU problems?  Of
course not, but so far so good(TM).  :-)

> I would think about getting and carrying a spare ecu....

Good advice, considering some of our ambitious trips coming up.  :-)

Even in light of all of the above, I still think that the Hall sender
is an overlooked part for causes of van stumbling.  I've had a number
of people tell me "yeah, that's exactly what it was" after telling
them about this.

Regards,

-Karl

Karl F. Bloss - blosskf@apci.com or bloss@enter.net
'87 Vanagon GL Weekender "Beverley"; Trexlertown, PA
http://www.enter.net/~bloss/vw/