Lucky-R

fellas, pls help a fellow member out if you can. i'm helping my buddy install a 98 stock GSR motor into his 98 CX EK hatch and this is our first swap....we decided to use it as a learning experience and try it ourselves rather than spend $500 for a shop to do it

anyway, i've spent the last few days searching and pouring over HT's archives and getting bits and pieces of information about doing the swap and what we need, but i still have some questions about the wiring. since this is the first time we are even fooling with the electrical part of an engine, all the terminolgy and definitions like obd2a, obd2b, jumper harness, "p28" etc. are all pretty new to me and still a somewhat vague. i hope some members can shed some light and explain it in simple terms for a newb hybrider like me.

at first, i thought we could keep it simple since the gsr motor itself was stock. we had planned, and it makes sense in theory of course, to install the motor, use a stock gsr wire harness and finally hook it up to the stock 98 gsr ecu. nothing fancy, just use what was in the teg and swap it in.

to my surprise after doing some reading in here and chatting with some helpful members, this set-up actually "would not work" from what i understand, we'd need to find a 96-98 civic EX wire harness, a p28 ecu and finally a obd2a to obd1 jumper harnes....meaning that the parts we had already stock wouldnt work.

can someone here in simple explanation pls tell me why the gsr harness and ecu wouldnt work with our swap and how the p28 and obd1 would be better? i want to be able to explain this to my friend also who has other people on his side saying that what we have will work. as of right now, the parts we have are the stock gsr ecu and no wire harness (we do have the stock cx harness and a 99 Si harness our other friend let us have if we can use it...we didnt get the gsr harness with the swap). i gotta help find and buy the parts we need asap so we can get the thing running, but before i do i have to know what to buy for sure because it isnt my money after all.

is there another way other than a p28 and obd1 conversion or can we salvage some parts we already have? i'm sure everyone can appreciate trying to save some time and money, but if there is only one ay to do it right, we'll follow it.

its hard in the beginning, but everyone has a first time and i'm glad to get my hands dirty with a do it yourself project to help learn about a car better. thanks fellas.

locash

You do not need any ecu adapter if you want to use the stock 98 GSR ecu. It will plug directly in. To make your life easier, you could obtain a 96-98 Civic EX engine harness, put in on the motor, change the CKF plug, change the IACV plug and repin it at the ecu if it happens to be a 3 pin one on the harness, add the IAB wiring, and you're done. If you want to use the CX harness, you will need to change the CKF plug, change the IACV wiring, add the VTEC oil pressure, VTEC solenoid, Knock sensor, etc, and then you'll be good to go.. I may have left out a few wiring changes, but that happens when I'm not working directly on a harness and just quoting from memory.. The GSR harness will not work, as the 94-01 Integra engine harness only runs from the shocktowers, whereas the 96+ Civic engine harness runs directly from the ECU to the engine.. The 99-00 Si harness will not work as it is not compatible with the 96-98 Civic's (ECU plugs change, body harness plug is wired differently, etc..

Lucky-R

thanks locash...glad to hear a new perspective on it. i might actually print this thread out for my friend if a few more kind people chime in with their experience. thanks all.

EE_Chris

The bases have been covered by locash (he's been doing this for a looong f'in time).

For more info on OBD2 swapping - there is a nice thread from user Katman (though I think he changed it to something ghey - no offense K - to something like K@man) - so do a search for both.

EDIT - yeah, its under K@man - LINK

Lucky-R

thanks chris-badass thread man