my friends got a 00 civic si and we've noticed that everytime when he gets an oil change, his vtec would work.. until a few days after, then it just fades away.. basically vtec only works right after he gets his oil change (synthetic) and it dies away.. i heard it was something to do with oil. what do you guys think?

 

he's losing oil somewhere. VTEC only activates when oil is there!

Check if hes leaking oil..first..

 

check the filter in the solenoid

 

probably not losing oil, just pressure... check the vtec pressure switch and the solenoid filter as stated above, thats where your problem has to be.... unless you are missing the giant cloud of blue smoke behind the car...

 

when we installed his headers, i noticed that his oil pan looked in pretty bad shape.. told him about it but he doesnt think thats it

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by andysila &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">when we installed his headers, i noticed that his oil pan looked in pretty bad shape.. told him about it but he doesnt think thats it</TD></TR></TABLE>

Maybe it's shaped in such a way that it cannot pick up oil efficiently.

 

It's recommended to replace your oil pan if there are any dents or dings AT ALL because the pickup is so close to the bottom of the pan. We've all heard stories of guys who bottomed out and dinged their oil pans which caused oil starvation.