///Mo-betta

I have a 94 Accord that originally had a F22B1 but I bought the car with the engine blown so I went the cheapest route and bought a JDM F23A off of Ebay for $400 shipped. Well I finally got around to performing the swap yesterday with a friend/coworker. We had the old engine out and the new engine installed in a matter of hours. New engine started up first crank. Great right? Well you couldn't be more wrong.

It starts almost every time first crank, but unless you press the gas pedal, it eventually dies. On a couple occurrences, the idle stayed at 1,200 RPM and the engine stayed running but once it got below 1,000 RPM, it eventually stalled out. Most of the time, when it starts, the idle just stays around 300-500 RPM and sounds like its only running on a couple cylinders. If I increase RPM to 1,500 or higher, it runs better but just feels a little rough. Also, when you slap the gas pedal, it will climb quick and smooth but it will die once it reaches idle.

As far as the swap goes, it was pretty much plug and play for most of it. I used the alternator from the F23A and just wired in the plug onto the F22B1 harness. I used the F23A intake manifold but used the F22B1 throttle body to keep the IAC and FIT valves. I used a Rosko Racing IACV adapter. Swapped over the distributor from F22B1 to F23A. I also had to use the injectors off of the F23A which are peak and hold, so I deleted the resistor box and spliced the correct wires to each other.

I was getting a 2-2 fault but its because I forgot a sensor. I installed the sensor and the CEL went away. Checked again for faults just incase, no faults set.

The car sat for about two months before I did the swap. I did start it on bad gas but after it didn't run right, I drained the crap out then put about 3 gallons of premium in, which is all I had on hand at the moment. I replaced the fuel filter after I drained all the old gas out. Started it and It was doing the same thing. I removed the plugs(which are brand new) and the injectors to clean them from possibly getting fouled and clogged from the stale fuel. Put them back in and started the car, same thing. Runs, but still stalls when the idle drops on its own.

I obviously have air, I have spark, and I have fuel. The only thing that I can think is that the old fuel gummed up the fuel pump but I'd appreciate some input until I can remove the pump tomorrow. I have a video but its not showing that its unloaded to youtube yet. Once I see the video, ill post the link.

///Mo-betta

I have the video but its crappy quality and its hard to see what is actually going on. I started the car and I tried to keep it running but I slapped the throttle a little too hard. You can hear that at 1,500 RPM its running but pretty crappy. At the end, the engine died, I did't turn it off. Also, in the beginning, it was hard to start. It only does that after it dies and I try to restart, adding to why I think it might be the pump. If i were to let it sit for a few minutes, it would start right up, no steady cranking then fire.

MAD_MIKE

What do the spark plugs look like?
Is your base timing correctly set?
Not sure if hte F23 has the same lower timing cover as the F22B1.
Did you redo the timing/balance belts?
Check that the valve lash is correct?

If the replacement engine has a dead hole it will never run right.

///Mo-betta

Mike, I did check timing as soon as the engine arrived. It was a low mileage engine and the belts looked brand new so I didnt change anything. After I ran the engine with the bad gas I pulled the plugs to clean them and they were pretty fouled. Cleaned them and made sure gap was still good. I didnt actually check valve lash but I felt it by hand and it seemed good. I know thats not good enough of a measurement but ive adjusted enough valves to know when one might be too far out.

///Mo-betta

Thats what came out of the fuel filter. Just came out. I didnt blow it out or anything.

///Mo-betta

If it'll help, when I drained the tank, no fuse or contamination came out, just old gas. I was doing a little research last night and found out that you have to drop the tank to remove the pump so that might have to wait until this coming weekend. I started the car this morning and it stayed running on its own and the idle was at about 1,200RPM then a slightly raised it to 2,000RPM then let it decrease on its own. After it decreased, it started acting up again. Was at about 500 RPM and sounded like a Harley Davidson. I helped keep it alive by slowly bringing the RPMs up to 3,000 and I could hear a miss but it slowly went away after about 10 seconds or so. I dropped the RPM to 1,500 then back again to 3,000 and the miss returned.

I have the injectors wired right. It revs fine when you slap it but when you slowly try and increase RPM it just sounds choppy. I might try and remove then injectors and let the tips soak in our injector cleaner to see if that helps. Its a concentrate that's supposed to injected in-line after the filter but I don't have the correct tool to do that on this car.

I've double checked all of my sensors and I just can't seem to find where I could have connected something wrong.

I guess next on the drawing board is to see if I'm getting too much or not enough fuel to the rail.

///Mo-betta

After a little research, I'm thinking the EGR might be stuck open.

///Mo-betta

EGR was the culprit. Put the F23 valve on there and it runs great. F22B1 EGR diaphragm was too weak to hold again the pressure of the exhaust so I guess I'll be running without an EGR.

NerfGunner420

maybe you just need a new f22b1 egr.

///Mo-betta

I stated that in the previous post, a little confusing I'll admit. The diaphragm was too weak to hold against the exhaust pressure, indicating that its old and needs replacement. Thank you for your input.

myEKsedan

iTrader: (1)

Got it purring? No mo dying cheetah?

Lost Again

Just me and my take on this. The F23 is controled by electrical and the F22 is controled by vac.

So I'm going to guess you have the two vac lines that run "over" the belt end to the egr solenoid switched......meaning you have constant vac to the egr.

#16 vac line goes to the valve from the solenoid.....#24 is connected to the block on the end of the plenum.

Check the vac lines......a .25 cent cup of coffee says you got them switched where the green arrow is in this pic.

///Mo-betta

Thanks for chiming in but when we first started installing the vacuum lines, we noticed the diagram on hood and we swapped those vacuum lines thinking the same thing but we had them installed correctly.

Ceedee5

hey sorry for bringing up an old post but I figure I'd message you directly, I have just did the same swap but used a f22a4 head and its doing the exact same thing, did you ever fix it? If so what did you do? Mine will not stay running but will stay running for a bit if I give it a bit of gas .. please lmk 🙏