Hello again folks,i got some good sugetions on my last post, thought id go for another. i have a 1996 ls400. i had a fellow come up with an idea, he said maybe the ignition switch may not be tied into the computor. i called a few key men, they seemed to know what i was talking about. but their prices are kinda steep. any further comments or sugetions greatly appreciated.

 

if you turn the key and hold it, that's just the starter turning the engine and nothing catching on. Does the car fully start or it stumbles?

if it stumbles, I imagine the timing is off.
Why was the ECU rebuilt?

 

it is likely that either the ECU rebuild or the timing belt change was botched

both of these need to be checked

to check the timing belt alignment, you will need to remove the timing belt covers so that you can see the marks on the cams, when the crankahaft is at Top Dead Center (0 mark on crank pulley and cylinder #1 holding pressure) then the marks on the cam pulleys and cam backing plates should all line up

to check the ECU, you will have to remove the lower glove box and remove the ECU, using the diagram here. photograph the inside of the ECU's lower board, where the six electrolytic capacitors are and post it here, Yamae and I will take a look at your high resolution photos and make sure that the sizes, voltages, polarity, and most importantly, the very rare correct type of capacitors were used.

neither of these jobs can be done in five minutes, but they don't take hours either, and I am afraid that one of these two are the issue.

on the ECU, I have seen the insides of hundreds of rebuilt ECU's, and I have yet to come across one correctly rebuilt, so this is a high probability.