My friend recently bought an h22a swapped 94 accord. When he bought it ran excellent, got it home and the issues started. I've been working on it for two days straight now trying to get it running strong again. Replaced the whole cooling system down to a new radiator which was installed today. I've been through the entire vaccum system and the rpms still fluctuate at idle. I've tested all the relays, fuses and connections for the cooling fan, they all tested good and the fan works but wont come on when the car is running. The guy who did the swap has a temp sensor shoved in the strut bar bracing with a ground wire wrapped around the sensor threads and grounded to a bolt on the thermostat housing with a single green wire running into the fire wall (im guessing its connected to the ecu someway). Long story short I need help, I'm stuck and need some suggestions. If there is anyone in the Orlando/Altamonte area who is familiar with this swap I would be willing to pay for you to come look at it and tell me what you think needs to be done. Also any suggestions from anyone on here would be most helpful.

 

are the temp sensors on the head and thermostat housing hooked up?

 

1st thing remove that sensor and the ghetto wiring job. replace temp sensor with new correct one, rewire correctly as to helms or other accord/h22 swap wiring guides. i had same issues with idle and fans not coming on. fan was temp sensor on back thermostat housing. idle was iacv check and clean. GL

 

He has both sensors connected. One sensor is in the back of the thermostat housing and seems to be wired into the harness. The one that he has shoved in the strut tower bracing is also connected but seems to be on a stand alone wire (green/white stripe to solid blue before firewall) running into firewall by itself. The harness has all kinds of connectors that are just hanging not connected to anything which I'm guessing are all the ones from the accord harness he didn't need. But short of cutting the harness and starting over I have no clue what is supposed to be where... to me it looks like a wiring nightmare and wiring isn't my strong point to begin with. Hence why i was trying to get someone to look at it. I'm a quick learner and if you guys wouldn't mind walking me through some of this mess I would be more than willing to put in the time. Thanks for all your help so far.

 

the temp sensor on the thermo housing is connected, there is one on the head also? I'll look at some diagrams and see where it's supposed to be so I can trace the wires to find out if its connected too.

 

okay so the stand alone sensor is wired into the ecu and grounded to a bolt on the thermo housing, starts at the sensor with a single wire (other wire is cut at the connector (red wire) and not connected) it gets tied into a solid blue wire and then tied into a blue/red stripe wire right at the ecu and seems to be the only wire connected to that specific pin (i think). The other sensor i located under the distributor in the head (one that controls the temp gauge on the dash), single wire connected and spliced into the harness. The other sensor is in the back of the thermo housing also connected and spliced into the harness. Don't know if any of this info helps but I figured the more details you guys have the better you can make more informed suggestions. Thanks again.

 

Gonna go clean the IACV and see if that fixes the idle issue.

 

Okay so I traced that sensor wire that's just shoved in the strut tower bracing to pin D3 on the ecu so I'm guessing it's a knock sensor... how can I mount/clean up the wiring and where does it need to be grounded to? the engine? any place specific? it looks horrible where it is. So i guess it wasn't a temp sensor like I thought, it just looked like one. So if the fan isn't coming on I'm guessing its a bad temp sensor on the back of the thermo housing?

 

so its a stand alone knock sensor but i found a knock sensor in the engine next to the temp sensor under the distributor but it doesn't seem to be connected to the ecu but it does run into the harness and is connected at the sensor... what is up with this?

 

sounds like you need a factory service manual with a wiring diagram. if it was me i would go pick up another accord f22 vtec harness and start from scratch, and make that new working harness fit the engine.

the ONLY extra plugs there should be would be if the car was an automatic prior to having an h22, and those extra plugs would be near the transmission.

the sensors on teh h22 are almost all the same as the f22. under the distributor there are a single wire and a 2 wire sensor, if i recall correctly that is temperature for your ecu and for your dash, then in the thermostat housing is the thermo switch, you got the same map and tps, same for injectors, you got an iat on the manifold, you got the egr valve, if its an ex accord you got the same vtec sensors, even the same oil presure sender, the only additional plugs will be for the knock sensor which is mounted to the back of the block above the oil filter and the iab which hangs under the intake manifold and those. the knock and the iab aren ot present on the f22 so no extra plugs for that you have to add them.

 

ah, so instead of wiring it up like its supposed to be he went the easy route and bypassed it by throwing it in somewhere and grounding it to the engine... that sound right? The car is way too low for me to jack it up and get under to look for the knock sensor on the back of the engine. But this sensor he has shoved in the strut tower bar brackets with the wire in the D3 pin on the ecu and just grounded to the back of the thermostat housing via a bolt and small ground wire. So if I got it in the air I could locate the knock sensor and extend the wire where it needs to go, then just run it straight to the D3 pin on the ecu? But for now so it runs decent enough to get it to a lift does the sensor he have absolutely have to be grounded to the engine or could I ground it to the body/frame or anywhere else metal for that reason?