I applaud your serious attempt to get this fixed, but I would caution you: This sounds eerily familiar to what happened to another member whose car refused to engage the starter after some work was done: He had a connector not completely seated at the ECU. This cost him a over two weeks of time and a lot of money to find.

SInce you started a new thread (which is usually something we jump on people for, but in this case, I think was a good idea) I will say what I may have said before: Start at the basics before getting too deep.

So you say the starter won't engage, and you, at one time, had a "blank black square" in place of the gear indicator and could not get out of Park. After struggling, you have it coming out of Park.

I can't remember if you tried this, but lets start here:

• Turn key to start, if starter does not engage, relax to ON. Wait 45 seconds.
• If engine cooling fan warps to max speed, its' the RCM.
  • "But mark, he already changed the RCM" - yea, the other guy did too - and nothing changed, this told me that the RCM was not at fault, but the wiring from RCM to ECU WAS at fault. Two weeks later, that is what he found and fixed it himself.
• If cooling fan does NOT speed up, then the RCM is fine.

Now, this "blank" in the gear indicator window: That is a sign the TCU is not alive, or at least it is not talking to the "message center" (stupid name for it). But you fixed that, altho as I read your post I am unclear how you fixed that.

Quote:

3) I measured all of the pins on the RCM and pulse module with the ignition key in the on position.

So you measured ALL pins? That does not help us help you if you dont follow that with, "And I found ....................." You never finished this thought (or I read too fast).


Now, you mentioned the pulse module and how you got the starter to engage, I have tried that trick but the way I do it is:
Turn key to ON.
Use a rubber band to force the fuel pump relay to supply fuel pressure to the injectors.
Manually press the armature on the pulse module starter relay - starter engages.

When doing this, if the engine still wont start, it is because the ECU is not firing the plugs/injectors. It is not doing so for the same reason it won't engage the starter - your challenge is to find out what the reason is.
The reason is either the ECU is bad (it isn't) or because one or more of the power feeds to the ECU is not 'there', or because the ECU is not getting what it needs to run the engine.
What does it need?

1. Information from the cam sensor on camshaft position and speed.
2. INformation from the crank sensor on crankshaft position and speed.
3. Permission to start from the SKREEM.
4. Information from various sensors (IAT, MAF, TB, Pedal sensor, etc.)
   1. Some of these in 4. are not really needed to start, but needed to run properly.

My last comment is that, after 40 years of electronic troubleshooting (and your issue IS electronic) that it is tempting to make things harder than they are. This happened in the other thread I mentioned, I repeatedly warned him, "When you figure this out you are going to say 'Damn, that suddenly makes sense' ". In his case, he modded the car and it quit running, so that was an easy prediction to make. I do not remember the history of the car you are working on, so I will not make such a prediction.

THe fact you have a "no crank" and no gear indication would SEEM to be caused by the same issue - and that leaves us with FEW suspects. Again, i do not remember the history of the car, so I can't say that for sure, but if that IS true, you will not need to get all that deep to get this fixed.