My son bought a 97 Civic Cpe Automatic 1.6 vtec i believe. Anywho, we had to replace the engine. What we got was a 98 D16 Vtec out of a manual vehicle. We had a check engine light and car would stall out with loss of rpms so any time you slowed down or stop. We took it to ted weins and they said it was the distributor. We have an OBD2 converted to an OBD1 distributor. My husband gutted out the new OBD2 we bought and replaced the innards with the current converted distributor. We have more power now, no check engine light but after a bit of driving once the rpms go down vehicle starts to and eventually stalls. My husband did time it. He is a mechanic of 20 years but the vehicle our son bought was modified so we are just retracing steps to learn what it needs. What am I missing? My husband was wondering if anyone knew if there were a difference between the obd1 and obd2 when it comes to the teeth on the gear inside of the distributor? My husband works all day in the mines, my 20yr old son is an iron worker who works all day as well. This mom/wife just wants try and help.

 

There should be no reason to convert to obd1.

You should have replaced the long block but left all emissions and electronic components the same as the original.

 

Don't buy car already modified. I assume that it had a blown engine when you got it, so you don't know if it was set up to run right-- and you should assume that it did not. The thing to do here is to identify all the parts you have and strive to return the car to stock condition with a matching set of parts.

As Caoboy said, the 97 auto EX and 98 manual EX have the same engine as far as the head and the block go (OBDIIa D16Y8), so you should be able to make this engine work with that car. Make sure you don't have any HX parts (D16Y5 engine). That's a whole different ball game with the VTEC-E instead of regular VTEC.