Ok so I have been working on my buddies 93 civic. He originally had a Z6 bottom with a Y8 head that had a knock. We replaced it with a B7 bottom and Z6 head that was running fine when it was in my car. After a couple weeks it was running fine, then my buddie got a chip that was supposed to improve gas mileage and performance. It was supposed to be spliced into the "map sensor", but the directions told him to splice into the sensor on the intake manifold on the top right that has a dome cap thing on it. It started to run really rough shortly after, and the tach and speedo were jumping all over the place when driving and starting. When under load, we couldn't get a 3 grand before misfiring. I cut the wires to the spliced chip and nothing changed. I replaced the sensor and nothing changed. I tried a different ECU and still the same problems proceeded.
My other buddy and I came back later and tried changing the distributor and nothing changed. I later tried to get the car over to my buddy's house and on a hill, the car did not have enough power to make it up the hill. I decided to pull plug wires to see if all the cylinders were firing properly. Cylinders 2 and 3 had no affect on the engine when pulled. After I got the car back, I checked the plugs and my friend had Bosch platinum 4's. # 2 and 3 cylinders plugs were "sooty" while 1 and 4 looked like normal wear. I replaced the plugs with NGK's and the car wouldn't start. I tried another set of wires and still nothing. put the plugs and wires back and still not starting. Made sure the grounds were ok, no fuses that I saw were blown, but I still have to check under the dash. Fuel pump is working fine.
When I try to start the car the tach occasionally jumps and the CEL will flicker when cranking occasionally. Nothing seems consistent. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Will post the chip he tried using after I go back to the civic. Probably Friday.

 

bump

 

Those "chips" are nothing more than a resistor in a box. They dont do anything, and are a complete rip off. Sounds like he damaged his map sensor wires. Try removing that stupid chip, and also be sure to check that the distributor isnt installed incorrectly. It can be flipped 180 by accident and the car wont fire.

 

dizzy's right, already unhooked the chip. I'll try resoldering the wires, but I think there might be another cause that I can't seem to find.

 

it could have fried the wires all the way through the harness to the ecu

 

So I might be looking for a new harness then? I'll check the lines with a meter.

 

Pull the CEL codes and post them.

Check for spark at all four plugs. Spark should be bright white.

Compression test the cylinders.

 

CEL is not pulling, compression on the cylinders is 250 across the board, I'll check the spark.