DanielmMX

Hey Guys.
Im new, Im Daniel and I live in St George Utah and love it here. Just signed up and looking for advice right off the getgo.

So I bought me a 99' Prelude SH.
I know first mistake but I got it for $500 bucks with a blown engine.
Ive converted it back to base.
Interior and exterior in mint condition.
I rebuilt entire motor.
I went with a full Skunk2 Valvetrain except titanium retainers since ive heard bad things about the Skunk2 Retainers failing so those are Brian Crower Retainers. Also valve guides are BC as well. I have Stage 1 Cams also Skunk2.
I have stock crank grinded and clean and Eagle Rods and Type S Pistons. And to top it off a Cometic Head Gasket.

Doing research, correct me if Im wrong I want a p28 ecu?
I spoke with F.N. Werks in Vegas about tuning and they said I need a p28 ecu. So what chip and/or basemap do I need to run the new cams and or type s pistons. CR should be 11.5 give or take. Also F.N. suggested the p28 because they use hondata for there tuning. Also stock injectors unless i need to upgrade. This is gonna be daily driver and to be honest to show off a little bit with the ladies.

Daniel

Sparksman

Hey man Welcome to Honda-Tech!

Sounds like you have a decent build going on, and yes you will need a tune able ECU for the car. ECU's come with codes, like P28, PO6, ect.. Any OBD1 5-speed Civic or Integra ECU is what you need. They all share the same circuit board, and once chipped and socketed are exactly the same other then the letter and #'s on the case.

You can buy a ECU thats already chipped and socketed, or source a virgin ECU for cheap and have chipped and socketed.

Once you have the ECU thats chipped and socketed, you need to decide on what program is in your budget. Most tune shops can give you a tune/chip that will run it. But not to the car true potential for like $50. You want to have them street-tune the car which is a few hundred $'s on CHROME and burn a chip for your socket.

You can suck it up and get a tuning program with a data-logger like a Neptune RTP, or Hondata which is between $400-$500 bucks but well worth the investment. Some shops are specific to brands, so call around and ask.

I would suggest bigger injectors, especially with cams. You didnt say stage one Street or Pro?

DanielmMX

They are Stage 1 Tuner Series cams. I was gonna get stage 2 cams (not really a difference in price) but want this to be a daily driver for the next 10+ years. Not making a formula one car, but just wanted more than stock setup. To impress the co workers and friends. I actually rebuilt the top end and drove it for 2 weeks and bottom end started knocking so I tore it apart and one of the connecting rod bearings was close to spinning. Had crank grinded and got acl bearings. UPDATE: Got the entire bottom end put back together except tranny. Im waiting on my stage 3 comp clutch. Should be here Thursday. Already got my fidanza flywheel installed. All in all I think I have around 4k between top end and bottom end invested in so far. Havnt actually kept track of how much Ive spent. Money isnt really an issue. With that in mind Im not trying to make a 500hp beast daily driver. Im leaving frm sleeves alone. Multiple people told me not to hone it if they are fine. They sexy as hell no scratches. Didnt notice any blow by from oil on rings or any indication of it. Have brand new Type S Pistons for h22a and nippon pistons rings. These are the Nippon Type S Pistons from ebay. Ill let everyone know how they work out because there doesnt seem to be many people on any honda forums that have used them. I do hear though of other friends of friends that claim no issues with them. fyi I emailed seller and he stands by them being nippon japanese type s pistons that would have gone in h22a's stock and are frm compatible. p5m 10.0:1 to p5p 11.0:1

sublimeluder

Hey guy sounds like u got a pretty nice set up. I have a 2000 prelude and will be rebuilding it in the next few months. I've been looking at the Nippon type s also. Do you have type a or type b bores? I have the type b 87-87.010 I think is bore size. I'd hate to get them and they not fit. Could u measure these pistons and let me know? Good luck on build it sounds pretty awesome

sublimeluder

As money isn't an issue I'd recommend getting a ecu with Hondata s300 preinstalled. Then get a dyno tune. You should be 200+ with good header and exhaust.

DanielmMX

You know Im not afriad to admit it, but im not entirely sure what your talking about. I believe its Type A if Type B is bigger because my old pistons were almost exactly the same as the new ones. They were 87mm. To be honest theres very little difference between the too. not even .010 thousands. I do know that when i stuck the new pistons in they fit the same as old ones. and the old ones had 215k miles on them. My crank spins freely albeit being a little tight to turn but far from seized. On a side note a lot of people ask about the floating wrist pins and Ive talked to a lot of people and only the H22A1 engine had pressed wrist pins. The H22A and the H22A4's have floating. So Type S pistons out of a h22a will bolt right up to a h22a4 rod. But why would you put type s pistons in without changing rods while your at it. Nice new rods are only like 4-600. You could get Scat,Manley,Eagle,BC and many more. In fact many forums have swore that scat rods are made by same manufacturer as eagle. Eagle doesnt make there own. They just throw there name on it. As for my ecu, yes I was planning on getting a p28 with s300 on it and I have a shop in vegas that will tune it for $450.

sublimeluder

Lol I wish I had 4-600 to spend on rods. I just started my own build thread titled a poor mans h22 build. Im saving for a house do my funds are very limited. I may have to get a loan to get pistons n cams im wanting. I believe I read most 5th gens are type B. Your old pistons should have a b stamp in the casting dot in the center of the piston top. It so is stamped on the top of the block. It's kinda hidden on the timing side back corner. It's kinda hidden but you can still see it with the head on. Hell yea im glad yours fit good this gives me hope. I may gettem good luck with your build and keep us updated.

DanielmMX

So I got my car running. It runs like crap. Probably likely cause of ecu. I drove it to work today and Ill tell you a Stage 3 Clutch is hard to get used to. The car doesnt have any umphh or get up and go at all. People tell me the air/fuel ratio is to blame. My new ecu is here, i bought it from diytuning on ebay from vegas. It got here in 2 days. He chipped it and tuned it to my build spec. I am still waiting on obd2a-obd1 conversion harness. Should be here tomorrow or wednesday. While Im here I was curious will I do any serious damage to engine if its running a little lean. It seems to run perfectly fine if im not doing 0-60 record runs. Stays in cruise just fine on freeway at 75mph. Now going up hills sucks horribly also probably due to ecu. It will probably be just a few days at most until i get my harness..
Daniel

sublimeluder

It can do damage if it's to lean and your really giving it he'll. With that been said it sounds to be ok for regular driving I just would keep it below 4,000rpm. Hell yea im glad to hear ya got it going keep us updated. I probably be getting those pistons as well I hope they do good. Im sure ya know but your.just running lean cause cams and comp bump. Just stay below vtec until ecu install

DanielmMX

Ok.... I have everything to switch ecu. Contrary to what a lot of newbs say, you DO NOT need to switch injectors or distributor or anything! Just ecu. If you have base model it as simple as switching ecu's with the obd2a to obd1 jumper harness available everywhere for like $20 bucks or less. I got my ecu from ebay from diytuning and paid less than $200 for a p28. So far hes been very helpful with tech support. Now if you have the SH Model with the ATTS like ME! there is no way to convert to obd1 without losing the function of the atts. Only way to get rid of atts light on dash is to unplug the atts ecu next to main ecu. So theres a 50lb plus hardware of dead weight weighing you down unless that doesnt bother you. One last note on ATTS the hardware within the ATTS can only handle about 260-270 max whp if you go over that you risk throwing out the gears in it. I heard somewhere around 300ft lbs of torque was max for it. Also there any many guides around internet on how to convert the SH Model back to base but you need to fabricate a small simple bracket out of steel. Most machine shops will do this very cheap. This so called bracket will just mount where the atts was and the half shaft mounts there. with the conversion in mind you do not need to get rid of SH Tranny But you will need half shafts from a base model. So back to me. Im hooking up this ecu in like 10-15 minutes. Ill get back to you all later to let you know how it went. Also next year im planning in this atts removal conversion. Hopefully what ive done to car wont put me over 270hp or i may need to convert sooner.

Daniel

sublimeluder

270whp that b a nice problem to have lol. What's your exhaust set up

DanielmMX

Exhaust is stock except i removed catalytic converter. Going to replace entire system when i get more money.


So.... I put in p28 ecu and started it and it idled at like 500-600 rpms and threw a cel. Wasnt sure what was happening so i shut off car and replaced the ecu back to my stock ecu and it ran fine. I contaced the seller and awaiting a respose. Meanwhile just going to run on stock ecu and be careful.

Daniel

sublimeluder

Hopefully the tuner can offer some insight. I wonder if it has anything to do with atts? I'd plug it pack up and go have cel checked if tuner can't help. Good luck

thirsk66

iTrader: (2)

Your car idling at 500-600rpm has nothing to do with the ATTS system. Did you let the car warm up to operating temp and go drive it around?

DanielmMX

Stock ecu idles at 950-975 rpms. with p28 ecu it idled rough at 500 rpm and a cel light turned on. exhaust smelled really bad as well. Replaced stock ecu and it was fine hummed like a kitten. sounded like a sick wilderbeast with p28. I dont wanna do damage so just waiting to hear back from seller. When a car gets up to operating temperature the idle drops. More than likely if I left the p28 running assuming it wasnt doing any damage, it would probably die because idle drops when it reaches operating temp. Gonna jump sevice connector tomorrow and see what cel code its throwing.

Daniel

thirsk66

iTrader: (2)

Yeah you never know what basemap they gave you and how they set u up unless you pull it up on a laptop with tuning software. You have a decent amount of upgrades on your engine why not upgrade the injectors and make more power when you go to tune it? 290cc stock injectors are great but I think going bigger is a better idea in your build.

DanielmMX

Im planning on injectors full exhaust cold air intake and tb this xmas. Im going to retune it in the spring or when i get this all done. My busy season at work is from october thru march, roughly 90-110 hours a week.

DanielmMX

So diytuning on ebay gave up and refunded me my money for the p28 ecu. I only paid $150 for it anyway, however im keeping the ecu. I have an appointment tomorrow with ldl speedshop in Vegas. They gonna charge me about $460 for a full tune with s100. They said s300 is also available but almost $500 more and it would just give me the ability to tweak the tune later on which im not going to. Just hit 600 miles on the rebuild and Im changing oil. I had full synthetic napa brand in it for the break in and Im replacing it with ames oil. Ill let you all know how the appointment goes.

thirsk66

iTrader: (2)

Damn all you had to do was complain about the chip on the ecu and they refunded you plus let you keep the ecu. They must really care about customers then, lucky you on that one.

sublimeluder

That sucks ecu didn't work out and costing more. But im sure you'll feel a lot better by getting an actual tune. I know it would worry me running a map that was sent to me by mail.

DanielmMX

I hear you sub. So went to ldl speedshop on saturday and they couldnt tune it with the cel 9 on, well they could of but vtech wouldnt engage. Decided not to tune just yet. Thru many hours saturday when i got home and today, Ive come across a few posts on this forum and other sites from 7 years ago that one of the solutions I can try is putting a obd1 dizzy on to get rid of cel 9. rywire makes the dizzy conversion harness. I guess they wouldnt make the harness if it wasnt a high demand item. Apparently the obd2a dizzy has a square wave pattern and the obd1 dizzy has a round wave pattern and the p28 doesnt like the cyp/tdc wave from the obd2a dizzy. The reason why a obd1 dizzy works is because the cyp/tdc sensors are in the dizzy but on obd2a on the 97-01 sh preludes the sensors are located under crank at bottom of oil pump. So we will see how they work out I have both the harness and obd1 dizzy ordered should be here thursday next week hopefully sooner.

dizzy

harness
OBD2 USDM Prelude to OBD1 Distributor Adapter

So according to tuner at speedshop there probably isnt anything wrong with the p28 i got off ebay or the basemap tune on it, but since it has that cel 9 its in limp mode and wont run right or engage vtech because the p28 is looking for the cyp/tdc sensor in dizzy but its not there.
Searches on google reveal that hundreds if not thousands of people have had this same issue converting a 5th gen lude to obd1 escpecially if its vtech and sh but no one has really come up with a solution in 16 years. Everyone usually builds b series cars and civics shells but not many luders out there. I will definetly write up a guide to convert a 5th gen lude to obd1. hopefully this will become a useful info thread for many more people to come. Why honda needs to have dozens and dozens of dizzy's is a mystery. the 5th gen lude came with two different dizzys. the td77u external coil and one with internal coil. cant find info on internal coil part number probably td76u

Heres a definitive guide link to dizzy's. Its an encyclopedia of well youll see.
Honda/Acura distributor codes - CB7Tuner Forums

DanielmMX

Heres a thread from 2003 on here honda-tech.
For anyone that needs info on ecu's
Not sure if its in top threads or not.

thirsk66

iTrader: (2)

I have a TD77U (obd2 Prelude distributor) and a chipped p28 ecu it has no issues whatsoever, so I don't know where you are getting your information from that the p28 doesn't like the obd2 distributors. The p28 still gets the proper reading or voltage from the crank sensor down on the oil pump, its the same as having the obd1 distributor with the TDC sensor inside of it. Those Rywire distributor adapters are for the people wanting to go obd1 or just have their JDM engine swaps easier on them without having to switch over the oil pump with crank sensor.

DanielmMX

Is yours a base or type sh. Whenever I hookup p28 I get cel 9, indicating a cyp sensor issue. If you check out those links it explains it. With stock ecu there's no cell's. Also is yours a auto or manual.

Daniel

DanielmMX

We also tried 3 other p28's and all got same cel 9 and a p72 ecu and same cel.
Any ideas you have I'll look into.

Daniel