Hey guys i have a 1992 prelude with a JDM h22a, 5 speed. im running a p13 ecu but didnt have the vtec wiring harness so i wired it up to a toggle. it worked great for over a month untill one night i raced my buddys wrx all the way back to my house and left the vtec toggle switch on all night while my car was off. i woke up the next morning and realized this so why going down the road i cut the switch off. when i did the cold air intake got extremly loud (never happened without vtec before i hooked toggle up) and it started blowing black smoke when i rev it up hard. It has absloutly no power without the vtec toggle on and it doesnt run worth a **** unless it is on. I thought maybe the pins were stuck between the rocker arms. I have the Cams out and everything and the only thing stuck between the rocker arms are these little gold pins. Are they suppose to be there? what are they called?
im in a real mess especially since im new to imports. Please let me knw what to do and what to check. only CEL codes are throttle positioning sensor and spool silinoid, and they have always been on. spool silenoid because it isnt wired to ecu, idk about TPS. PLEASE HELP< ANY RESPONSE IS APRECIATED!!

 

pictures of said gold pins??

 

I think I know what your talking about I have my gsr head off right now in the garage.. I can take pics of it. And I think the little pins your talking about are what connect the valve adjusters or followers..I'll post pics of what I have

 

My guess is that it was more work to run that stupid toggle switch than it would have been to run the two easy wires that you needed to run to the ecu. Odds are that your car was running in limp mode. You coulda burned up the solenoid or the switch. You really shoulda just ran the wires correctly and picked up another solenoid and pressure switch(assuming it didn't run correctly with simply the wires ran) and seen what happened then before pulling the head.

 

Yeah, solenoid is probably burnt up, that small electromagnet is more than likely melted inside from the heat of constant current being run through it.

All you had to do was google it, there's a retarded amount of info on wiring up the VTEC, in a 4g Prelude the wiring is actually already there for the solenoid, a single wire plug on the passenger shock tower. The oil pressure switch wiring is already on the main dash harness from ecu>connector next to fuse box, it just has a blank spot on the engine harness, wire is light blue.

 

If the silenoid was burnt up it wouldn't worrk. It works just fine

 

Does the solenoid still click when you activate it with the car off? Take the solenoid apart and make sure everything looks good.

When you activate that through a switch and not through the ECU you arent getting the proper ignition timing or extra fuel associated with being on the high cam. Its essentially the same thing as putting a large cam in your car and not tuning it. Yes the high cam lobe gets activated, but its still running on the low cam fuel and ignition settings. That alone is enough to cause major engine damage.

 

Yeah, do a compression test to check for engine damage. I really think you may have been overreacting tho. These things run really rich in vtec. Add to that that the ecu wasn't actually engaging it and you just had a bad mixture.

 

Wire it properly and ditch the toggle switch. Then see how it runs.