I own a 2003 civic lx, sedan. Transmission was starting to give so I decided to swap during this time of the pandemic. Bought a d17a2 motor and a manual transmission from "Sunshine State JDM". About 50k miles on 'em. I took everything apart and took the old trans and motor out. Now i'm just waiting on a manual subframe because I had no idea that the subframes were different (I'm cleaning and repainting my auto subframe so let me know if you need one for cheap). Set up my pedals and shifter and now its just a matter of mounting it up, plugging everything back in and dealing with ecu stuff. If anyone has questions on this swap let me know i'll do my best to answer. As far as my questions go; I bought a 02 ex manual ecu that came with the key. As far as I know, that key won't work with my steering column. I also have my old key and asked the dealership if they can reflash the ecu to my key and they said the entire car would have to be there. So, that would be fine b/c I can just tow it over there but it would be pretty weird to do a first start on my build in the Honda dealership. Does anybody know anyways to get past the immobilizer or have some instruction on how to proceed, please let me know. And Is there anything else I have to worry about as far as vtec goes? If I have the right ecu, the timing and everything should be good right?

Thanks, Mark Alekseyev

Here's a picture of before I took the old Motor out. A picture of what my car looks like now and a picture of what I kind of want my car to look like. (I've taken those awful fender flares off)