Hey gang. It's looking like i'm in the same boat as most of you except i'm the other way around. My sisters car flooded down in Htown with the hurricane and I went to JDM to get her an imported motor. I'm a domestic car guy not an import guy so I figured he knew more than I did since he was at the shop. I told him I didn't have a VTEC. 2003 Honda Civic 2 door (EX?) automatic and he said the VTEC would fit just fine. I took his word for it and did the swap. Car fired right up, except it idles something fierce and doesn't hold a constant idle. So...

Do I need to swap the ECU (and wiring harness?) to a VTEC ECU? Any specific part number i need to be looking for? No good deed goes unpunished. Tried to be a good big brother, swapped a motor and it still doesn't work. Ugh.

Any help is appreciated. Remember, i'm a old car guy so assume I know very little about computers and fuel injection and the like. Hell, I barely figured out how to get on this forum.

Thanks for the help everybody.

 

Is your sister's car an EX model? If so, then it had a VTEC engine to begin with and the factory ECU should be fine. However, depending on how submerged the vehicle was, she may have far more electrical issues then you may think. Any wiring run inside the car is not moisture sealed and if the water was high enough to cover the floorpan, its more than likely ruined. This is why pretty much all flood vehicles are salvage-title vehicles.

 

check for vacuum leaks. Maybe the throttle cable is sticking.

 

Thanks for the prompt responses guys.

The car is an EX. I realize I didn't mention that the VTEC that went into the vehicle has an EGR. The engine that came out of it did not. Is that a huge problem? And yeah, i'm pretty sure the car was in water above the floorpans.
And I did have trouble with the throttle. I thought I got it on right, but I kind of wondered if I fouled that up. I'm in DFW, it's in Houston so I probably need to take another day at it and pick through minor things.
So my to do list:
Throttle troubleshoot
Check for vacuum leaks

Then if that doesn't work?

Thanks again everybody.

 

exactly which engine went in and which came out ?

 

VTEC with EGR went into the Honda 2003 EX, and it's stock non VTEC non EGR came out.

 

I did this exact same swap on the car I’m driving now. The motor has an egr valve but nothing connected and I don’t have the same issues.

When i first bought the car I had kinda weird idle issues but it was caused by the throttle cable.

 

Do you have any weird Check Engine lights pop up with the EGR not having a place to go? You didn't have to swap the ECU?

 

No check engine light. The same Ecu and harness were kept. They were non egr so they don’t know to check for it.