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Had a nice surprise visit from Sheila and John this morning as they were making their way home from the CCUK Snowdonia weekend. Good to see you both. Also good to see a few more Celicas here than normal. Cars looking good.

One from this weekend’s outing to Watergate Bay Sprint, nr. Newquay Cornwall

I don't think polymer give a massive longer lifespan especially at higher temperatures. They do tend to have a lower ESR which may be a benefit for some, especially the 10uF which are usually the first to go and I suspect the reason being high ripple current as they don't have a paralell ceramic capacitor. For smaller values like the 10uF, ceramic capacitors are now available in a usable size and should offer much longer lifespan and lower ESR. I have had a report that these caused a problem in an ECU though I've used them in others with no issue. In theory, tantalum should offer a better lifespan for the larger values however they are much less robust as far as over-voltage surges and explode when subjected to them. On newer exu's, be aware that gen6 uses a 4 layer PCB and the inner power planes appear not to have thermal breaks. This makes it much harder to melt solder all the way through to remove / refit components and damage to the through plating cannot easily be repaired with links as the tracks are impossible to trace. This means there is a finite risk to changing the capacitors which could desroy an otherwise perfectly working ECU. I would be surprised if the gen7 ECU wasn't also a 4+ layer PCB.