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Fixed the code 7. Pulled out my multimeter and started testing. I had a good solid 5v on the yellow and no ground. I traced the wire back and couldn't find any issues but since everything is wrapped its a little hard to tell. I simply grabbed an extra connector added a connector to it and grounded it to the thermostat ground. Reset the ECU and fired it up and its all better.
I honestly am thinking that down the road I'm going to create a new harness. I'm not totally happy with what I have now. Next time I hit the junkyard ill look for a ECU side harness and create a harness that's more like an OBD2 without the connectors in the middle. Honestly maybe I should just look for a full OBD2 setup and see what it would take to integrate. I was close to doing that with the JDM harness but I didn't have the fuse box connectors.
Still have the code 4. I'm going to look online and see if there are some good tests I can do with the multimeter but I'm not planning on pulling anything else apart until I get the new ECU. I have wasted a ton of time already playing with the distributor.
Ok troubleshooting Code 4.
BLU/GRN Crank Position Output Pin 2
Not sure how to test to ECU
BLU/YEL Crank Position Ground Pin 6
Tested with multi meter and good ground.
Testing Sensor, Multi meter positive on Blue/green and Negative on Blue/yellow
.369 and just in case tested my other dist and came back with .372. This is without being connected to the harness. I am reading that it should be between 350 to 750ohm. Honestly ill need to read some more to determine if this means anything, I would assume that we are good to go since the readings were basically the same between the 2.
I did another test for the sensor at the ECU and had .365/.375 so it does seem like the wiring is good. Maybe its just the ECU doesn't like what it is seeing. I am becoming very impatient for the new ecu. haha
Got my ECU and plugged it in. Fired the car up and no codes. The idle was at about 250(according to my stock tach). I took it for a low rpm drive around the parking lot and once warm the idle dropped to almost 0. I advanced the timing a bit and the idle was about 250 once warm. Very rough/boggy at low RPM then ok once in mid rpm. I pulled one of the caps from the intake manifold for vaccum and its now sitting over 500 and pretty smooth.
As I was playing with it I ended up throwing another code 4. I'm not too sure what to think about that. I may just drive it a bit and see what happens, the engine has been sitting for 5-10 years so it may need to break in a bit.
I need to buy a timing gun so I can see where i stand as far as timing.
One oddity, i was going to adjust the idle screw on the throttle body but... there isn't one. I tried to put one in but there seems to be no threads. I may need to remove the throttle body and see what the deal is.
Car is getting better. I was going to drive over to Hmotors and try to get a replacement knock sensor since the cheap ones take more than a month to arrive and the rest are $80+. This was going to be my first real test drive. I knew my driving there and back was a bad idea so I kind of assumed I would end up getting near the freeway and turning around. I jumped into the car and it wouldn't start. ;(. After playing with the distributor and wiring it looked like I had a loose wire somewhere in one of the connectors. very frustrating. I ended up swapping the connector and I finally learned the trick to re-pinning these damn things, took me long enough. This time it was perfect. During the troubleshooting process I ended up pulling off the dist cap and I figured it would be a good time to check the coil that came with the engine again. Well... definitely bad. I also noticed that the connector under the dist, one of the coolant sensors had a broken wire. My Accord harness was definitely weathered and some of the wires are brittle. I chopped the wires and replaced it with one from the JDM harness. At this point my harness is mostly the JDM connectors, I kind of wish I would have just followed thru on the OBD2 Harness plan. Definitely a change that's on my wish list. I think when I build the new harness ill keep every pair in its own wrap just to make things easy, everything wired directly to the ECU. Its a little more difficult when pulling the engine but not that hard.
I ran the car for a good 35-40 minutes while I worked on my alignment.
That's another thing I wanted to mention. When I got the skunk 2 upper control arms I thought the bolts were tight, well they were not. That's why my steering went crooked when I was torqueing my Axel nuts. I leveled out my suspension and roughly dialed in the camber. It still needs a little adjustment but its a good starting point.
Ok back to the engine. Its idling pretty good, there is a random miss now and then. I was thinking... its a JDM motor and tuned for 91 octane. I'm almost positive it has whatever the lowest fuel is, 87? So that may be part of the reason. Ill throw in some octane booster when I hit the store, that should help. No more code 4. We will see if that demon comes back.
I also removed the plug on the knock sensor, since its broken I think it may have been throwing in a ton of fuel. Ill put in a new one as soon as possible.
I'm going to try to get in a few mile drive today, unless I get lazy. I think tomorrow ill head to the muffler shop and have them modify the stock header, no matter what I do at this point ill have to go to the muffler shop anyway. Ill wait until I have a good option for a better header.
I think ill hit up harbor freight for cheap timing gun as well.
Got the car to the muffler shop this morning. She did throw a code 4 pulling out of the driveway, she is still running a little rough. I shut it off then back on and did not throw another code all day, i drove it around town for a few hours.
Below is a pic of the exhaust work, i decided that i want to add a wide band eventually so i went ahead and got the bung added. I had them cut the pipe after the collector and add new bungs since the O2 sensor was getting pinched between the crossmember and exhaust.
After the exhaust work was done i have not heard any pops from the exhaust. She sounds a whole lot better. I went ahead and went to autozone and changed the cap/rotor/plugs wires. I got some NGK coppers, I tried to use the GSR cap but it did not line up with the bottom bolts, i could have made it work by removing the sleeves for the screw holes but since i was still at autozone i opted to exchange it. The 90 Accord cap fit just right, im using the internal coil so getting the right cap took a little googling. They do not stock NGK wires so i ended up with duralast or whatever the autozone brand is. I was already changing everything out so i just wanted to get it done. Ill most likely pick up some NGK's down the road. I picked up a cheap timing light from harbor freight so i can check things out.
The car still feels a little rough, honestly not being able to explain the issue but it feels like a belt is too tight. Im worried that maybe the timing belt is too tight. I will check the timing and go from there. I am also considering putting the balancer belt back on, maybe.
You will be able to hear if the timing belt is too tight, it will sound like a blower. The roughness, is it a vibration or does the engine sound a little rough? There is a difference.
I'm having a hard time describing it. I would say its more of a vibration than anything. I'm not hearing the classic supercharger sound.
I have to say the car... holy crap its so much faster. I pulled out of the muffler shop and did a major 1-2 burnout and at the end the clutch was super soft. Kind of scared me for a second.
After driving my wife's 2 civics I really hate the clutch on the accord. The engagement point is really high. I have replaced the Slave, the master and now the clutch/pressure plate/flywheel. I'm going to try adjusting it a bit but I'm not sure if its just the way the stock accord clutch feels.
Checked the timing today, it was maybe 2-3 degrees off for base timing. Not too bad. I went ahead and lined it up correctly. It was very smooth, not bouncing around at all.
She sounds perfectly smooth at idle. There is definitely a good vibration tho. I am regretting installing the balancer belt a bit at the moment.
I installed a new air filter.
I also noticed the plug on the EGR was a bit wonky so I went ahead and replaced that.
I adjusted my clutch petal a bit, well actually I shortened the master as much as it would go. I'm not sure it will make any difference but it would be nice if it did.
I'm thinking that the next step for me would be to go ahead and get that wide band and maybe the data cable for the ECU. Should be interesting.
Not much of an update. Cleaned up the interior a bit and mounted my ecu. The wiring could definitely use some work but i still think i want to create a new harness so i'm going to leave it as is for now. I have a coolant leak i think that coming from the engine to heater core hose so i ordered a new one. Still has a vibration but i have not really driven it much. She needs a good wash. Here are a few pics, not much different from some of the other pics. Got her out of the garage for some fresh air. Im thinking ill get all of the panels flat, new rear bumper, get the molding holes welded up and ill plastidip the car. Still considering a color. The car has a few different whites at the moment. I have painted the rear deck and front bumper cover and will most likely paint the rear bumper. The car was originally red, then silver then white. The drive side door i replaced was green, the passenger fender i replaced was green, the rear deck-lid was that silver blue color. When i got the car the hood was faded black primer, found a good replacement at the pick your part, one multicolored fender, the original front bumper cover was black primer. haha. Definitely a project car.
She's looking nice, the wheels look good, you just need some bigger brakes in there. FFC TL 4-piston brakes maybe... ^_^ You have a clean engine bay, the fender washers are a nice touch, though the red clashes with the valve cover...for now at least. How are those ebay rad fans working? (I'm assuming ebay because of the color.
I personally really like the wheels. I was looking for rims and couldn't find any I liked until I saw someone use these on a prelude. I wanted the grey coated ones but I found these and it was a deal that was too good to pass up on. Had to do the 5 lug swap but it was worth it. The 5 lug swap parts I got were very rusted so it took a while to restore them and then paint. The paint did not hold up unfortunately. Next time powder coat all the way. The front calipers are the prelude ones. The front brakes are bigger than stock, so replacing them is pretty low on my list at the moment. The car is pretty dirty, my wife was driving it for a while, I did her b20 swap into the EG then again into the EK, now she is finally driving her own car. Ill take it and get it polished up pretty soon.
The engine bay is... not really that clean, I try but there isn't too much I can do. If I could get the paint situation sorted it would be alright but honestly, ill worry about the outside paint first or at least at the same time. The engine bay has red, then black in the front then white on the driver side fender and green on the passenger side fender. Its a rainbow. I got the fender washers when I replaced the radiator support, there were soo many different types of 10mm bolts on the car I wanted some uniformity. The red doesn't really bug me, but I did put them in with the stock engine so there was no blue at the time. Actually there was a lot of red with all of the MSD stuff, but I threw that all in a box because it was hurting more than helping.
My stock fans were about to kick the bucket so I got the new fans and radiator. Yea they were from ebay but then again... what isn't now a days. The fans work great, I wouldn't say they lowered the temps but I never had any cooling issues. I did break off some of the grill from both fans during the install so I was worried I would need to replace them but no issues. The H23A does run hotter than the F22b2. The F22b ran at about 180 while driving and would creep up to 220 I think and the fans would kick on dropping it to around 200. But once moving always at 180. The H23A has been at about 200, I do have a coolant leak and may still need a little bleeding so we will see what happens, its definitely not overheating, the fans still come on at 220 and drop it back to 200. I was hoping to get my stock gauge hooked back up and working so I could see in the Honda hot/cold scale where she is sitting. I'm guessing around 1/3-1/2 on the stock gauge.
There is also the grounding kit I build for the F22, it matched up better with the F22 and was a little more useful but I put it back on anyway. I had ignition problems that I was trying to fix at the time, ended up with ignitor dying(again) bad optima battery, MSD coil dumped and the alternator was dying. Got a free replacement on the battery, got a new alternator, replaced the ignitor, ended up picking up a dist from the pick your part with internal coil and just swapping it over so I didn't have to rewire, removed the MSD Coil, cap rotor and wires because they were all giving me problems. After that she ran great for quite a while until the transmission dumped.
The H23A is higher compression than the F22B, both in actual compression ratio and probably because it has less miles on it as well, so I would expect it to generate more heat. It sounds like the controls are taking care of it so it should be an issue.
After driving the car some more and replacing the leaking hose it looks like she likes to sit around 190. So far it looks like the thermostat opens around 200 and fans kick in around 215. I may need to bleed the system one more time but it looks pretty stable.
Car is running great, I think I need to get it to a Dyno and tuned. Normally I wouldn't bother with the tuning but I'm worried about the pherable.net basemap. Should be great but I just want to make sure I wont do any damage.
What should I prep before getting tuned. I already added the bung for wideband. Do I need to get the data cable for the ECU? I was thinking about getting (Innovate Motorsports (3796) DB RED Wideband Air/Fuel Gauge Kit includes LC-2 & Bosch LSU 4.9) but that will be in a few months most likely. Maybe I should skip the tune and get the wideband first? I'm not really sure how to move forward at this point. I'm more worried about reliability than performance at this point. I'm pretty happy with the power already.
You can get the wideband just to keep tabs on things. From my research, even though the MTX-L does have a narrowband emulator output, its just better to keep a fresh oxygen sensor in there. That said, it's a nice piece of equipment for $150 on eBay and its convenient for the tuner as well since it has two 0-5v outputs built in.
I got the second o2 bung so I could run both sensors. I'm just torn on if I should get the wideband first or get it in to tune first. I stared looking for a local tuner today without too much luck. I just want to make sure it's safe.
Well, Any tuner is going to have their own wideband, it just theoretically makes setup a bit easier.The basemap is most likely going to be conservatively tuned just because it is a base map. If you aren't having any luck finding a tuner, then a wideband might be better just so it can tell you what condition the air/fuel ratios are, to see if its safe to run-out the engine like it was designed to be. At least until you can find someone local, or even plan a bit of a road trip.
Yea that sounds good, I think my next step will be the wide band and the data cable for the ecu so I can datalog as well. I work from home and don't really drive too much. I need to take care of some other things financially and the $2500 I put into my car was an unplanned expense. She runs good and I am pretty happy at the moment. Ill give it 2 months and if there are no major unplanned expenses I should be able to pick those 2 things up. But then again... I am curious what she will put down on the dyno. haha. Maybe I should keep my ears open for a dyno day.
I finally got around to sorting out the vibration issue. I don't drive much so I have only put about 250 miles on the car since the new engine. I decided I would go ahead and install the balancer belt and see if that took care of the issue. I got the covers off the timing belt and it felt very tight compared to how it was when I tensioned it. I guess I should have spun the motor a few more times when I did the belt change. I went ahead and loosened it a few turns and fired it up. The engine was much much smoother. I decided to leave the balancer belt off since the issue seemed resolved. I put the car back together and fired it up again and its smooth. Hopefully my issue is resolved. I kinda thought it felt like a belt that was too tight but no one seemed to agree with me. Ill try to drive it tomorrow and ill confirm the fix with a quick post. I also installed the new Knock sensor as well and zip tied a few wires while I was under the car.
Engine now feels perfect. Smooth. I can still feel the engine but that's to be expected with the balancer belt removed and energy suspension inserts in the front. No more rattling car or vibrating steering wheel.
I have not updated in a bit, car still runs great. I have still have not done the tuning, been working on other projects. I have the cable for the ECU along with the extra chips and burner. She is still running 10-13 on the wideband so it really worries me when I drive, I do hear a pop in the exhaust once in a while. I only drive this car when for some reason my Civic or my wife's Civic isn't available. I drive less than 50 miles a month generally so its not an issue. I'm seriously thinking about putting the balance belt back on and maybe removing the front Energy inserts. You can really feel the engine until about 2-3k then its perfectly smooth. Its not a bad feeling but not a feeling that a non car person would feel is ok. I have been running with proper Vaccum so my idle is super low, it drops down to near stall, it may be because the car is really rich so I decided to work on the tune before raising the idle.
Car runs fast, its hard to drive without stepping on it so its best I don't drive too much until the tuning is better.
04-12-2016, 09:22 AM
Re: 94 Accord H23A Vtec Swap Thread
