hello. i have a 97 base prelude. i recently swapped out my stock cams for crower st. 2 racing cams along with crower titanium valve springs and retainers. also, i put in a set of prelude type-s 11:1 comp. pistons with eagle h-beam rods. after i got the car back i made a horrible discovery: NO VTEC! I immediately took it to the honda dealer and they ran some tests and tell me after a $90 labor charge that for some reason my car does not get enough oil pressure to change the pressure switch to the vtec solenoid. where do i start to resolve this problem? the dealership thinks that i blocked off an oil line from the block when i reassemled the motor but i highly doubt that because i've taken my head off once or twice before. also, i broke my knock sensor when replacing my camshafts and have yet to replace it. the weird thing is is that vtec worked after i assembled my car after the new cams, so i dont believe its the knock sensor. in addition to no vtec, my car stops revving at about 6800 rpms. please, im really at a loss here. any advice as to what could be the problem and what i could/should do to fix the problem would be greatly appreciated. thanks guys.

 

did you assemble the motor?

 

side note:

fix what you know is wrong.

and do you have any tuning done?

 

a more experienced friend assembled the motor while i helped him disassemble it and do most of the easy stuff. and no there is no tuning done.

 

do you have any other check engine codes besides the knock sensor?

being that its untuned and not running a knock sensor, the engine is going to run like complete crap.

what kind of break-in did you give the new rings?

 

its not issuing any other codes besides the ks. and i dont follow what you mean by break-in. if you mean how did i drive the car after the new pistons were installed, then ive been driving it like a baby pretty much since i dont have vtec .

 

read this:
http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

and this:
https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=830163

 

wow, thats interesting. but ive already read the "Why VTEC Doesn't Work Thread" and it doesnt really help me at all.

 

When I did a h22 swap a couple years ago I had to rewire to the knock sensor and my buddy didnt. turns out after all my troubleshooting and weeks of the motor running limp mode it was the knock sensor. Fix that and you should be good. Motor will run in limp mode till then.

 

Stop driving your car right now, driving around trying to hit vtec on a p13 setup for a stock 10.6 compressions h22 could have severely damaged your new motor. Also was the person who put your motor together pretty experienced ? Did he also set your valve clearances ? Anyways find a p28 or p72 and stick hondata, crome or some form of aftermarket ecu chip into it and take it to an experienced tuner and have it tuned before you drive it again. Also you don't need to replace your knock sensor those things break if you look at them wrong, just have your tuner check the box that eliminates knock, then your ecu will not check for it.

 

^ you do know that the p13 is the stock ecu right?

 

Sure do, thats why I stated driving around on the oem p13 setup for the stock h22 is not a good idea, he needs to get some form of aftermarket ecu setup and have it tuned to run on a map thats right for his setup.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Slow_BB6 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Sure do, thats why I stated driving around on the oem p13 setup for the stock h22 is not a good idea, he needs to get some form of aftermarket ecu setup and have it tuned to run on a map thats right for his setup. </TD></TR></TABLE>

what are you talking about?

how is the ecu that is made for the h22 going to cause damage? that makes absolutely no sense at all.

 

i think he means since its running a higher compression it MAY hurt the motor... i don't see .4 of a compression bump will hurt anything... but getting it tuned would free up some ponies your missing

 

The guy didn't just bump the compression he also said he put stage 2 cams in it and different valve springs/retainers, What I am trying to say is you don't want to be driving around on a P13 with fuel maps for 10.6 compression and oem cams when he just stuck 11.1 compressions pistons in it and some Crower stage 2 cams.

 

It does sound like an oil problem... same thing happened to me .... turned out that i was 3 quarts low on oil...