97 EX Civic 2dr d16y8 vtech engine swap into 00 LX Civic Sedan d16y7 Body both A/T

so I have done a ton of reading up on the subject but am still confused. I have both complete vehicles but the 97 chasis is shot and the 00 engine bottom half is shot. So I now have my 97 EX engine, harness, and ECU inside the 00 LX body, but the wiring is not similar and Im not sure what to do bc everyone says something different.

Are the bottom halves of both y8 and y7 the same? I read somewhere that atleast the distributor and fuel iinjectors are different then someone said something about the cams being different but if I put the LX top half on the EX bottom half like one mechanic suggests would that matter? One mechanic says use the LX wiring and ECU on the EX entire engine and yet another says put the EX harness engine and ECU in and buy a jumper cable.

HELP!!!??? I really don't have money for a jumper but if that is the best way I'll find it somewhere

My options as I see them:
A.) find a way to make a 97 EX harness work with a 00 LX wiring (jumper?) Buy 4 dr ex exhaust for second 02 setup and route the wires to P2P ECU.
B.) put the LX harness on the EX engine and change the distributor, injectors, and what else?
C.) change the entire EX top half off for the LX with harness.
D.) swap body harness and fuse box

 

Ok... I'm going to attempt to help with this.

If it were me, I'd use the 00 LX wiring harness on the 97 EX motor. You're going to have to run additional wires for VTEC, VTS, etc... but that's it. You're also going to need an OBD-2B SOHC VTEC A/T ecu unless you choose to buy a jumper harness (OBD-2B to OBD-2A) and then you can use the 97 EX ecu. If it were me, I'd just buy the jumper harness. If the 97 EX motor runs strong, I wouldn't bother doing the head swap option; just swap the whole motor.

I hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the reply!!!!

ok ok that is the direction I ended up heading in. I put the LX harness onto the EX engine so that the LX cabin wire harness would be compatible as I am unsure that I can find or afford the jumper harness to take an EX engine and EWH ODB2a to fit my 2b CWH and P2P.... I am pretty sure I read somewhere on HondaTech that this pairing is just not compatible.

So I had to stretch, cut, pull tight the connections from the LX EWH onto the EX d16y8 engine but it mostly fits! I had two main issues - the distributor and VsS plugs are different between these models. My solution so far has been to put the LX distributor onto the EX engine so the LX EWH fits, then I put the EX VSS plug in place of the LX VsS plug on the EWH so it will fit the transmission that I left attached to the dy8.... plugged into the P2E ECU, filled up the fluids, sured up the connections and she runs so far!

Still in the driveway though as there is a new catalytic converter on it and Im thinking it is deffective because it is all sorts of smoking and maybe causing the power loss when i rev the engine. Atleast Im hoping it's that easy. Any ideas there? I read somewhere new cats need to be properly broken in but should a new cat cause power loss and even to kill the engine?

 

Update : pulled the exhaust manifold with cat and tried running it - no luck! It runs like ****! It dies even past a certain rpm completely. It idles like crap after I rev it. The timing is on good bc the engine was fine before i installed it. The only thing different is the ECU and the distributor, injectors, and vss plug. Could these be the culprits?

 

Update 2: swapped iacv - same plug, no change. Still get a decent idle to start but no power past 2krpm it just dies if I gas it past that. Then it gives an erratic idle.
Could it be the P2E cannot run the EX engine? The cam profiles i read may be different? Was it anything else I did or should do??

 

didnt read anything

i just know

97 EX vtec engine into 00 lx body:
complete ENGINE from 96-98 y8 into the 99-00
MUST USE 99-00 EX ECU OR run obd2b to obd1 Ecu jumper harness
MUST use 99-00 ANY dizzy non hx / si
MUST use 99-00 EX harness for plug and play (or convert 99-00 LX [iACV and wire in Vtec Plus Knock sensor<if using obd2b ecu y8>])

and i dont remember but there is something to do w/ 96-98 / 99-00 one or the other has air bubble holes in intake manifold while the other model doesnt

 

wholly crap! That is good info! I got some work to do then! And i gotta find some money! Grrrr...
are you sure about the conversion tho? I thought 97 ex is an odb2a and 00 lx is odb2b ?? Do you know where I can find the jumper? Maybe you have it wrong because the iacv plug was the same between harnesses.

So i have the 00 dizzy on, the 00lx harness on, if I get a 00 EX ECU will the 00 LX harness plug in or do I need a conversion then too?

If i get a 00 EX harness do I need a 00 EX ECU?

 

Update3:
I had the two round plugs on the throttle body reversed, so I fixed that and now the engine runs good except for a bad idle! One guy said clean the throttle body but that didnt help. Any ideas? Its giving the proliferate p0505 iac code.