Hey everyone, thanks for taking a look. So I copped a 1996 civic CX hatch. Previous owner had the car for 10 years and for the year Of the car, outside looks mint. He did a b16a2 swap. But for the last few years he hasn’t had the car registered, and hasn’t touched the car other than starting it every now and then. So we tried going over what has been done to the car. I see a MSD distributor box with cap. Apexi vtec airflow controller wired into the ecu. He doesn’t remember if the injectors were replaced with ek9 injectors. He seems certain.

I guess what I want to know and need advise with is, should I just leave the vtec controller in? I don’t know how to use it at all.. should I leave the MSD in? I know it is for better ignition but wouldn’t stock be just fine? The car is also running RICH, and will be checking the timing soon but also wonder if all controller or msd would contribute that. I’m not trying to make power, not trying to track. Just want a reliable daily. And I feel stock should be enough. If MSD won’t affect, then perfect. Please give your opinions. Let me know if you need more info

 

Remove all that useless crap and sell them on CL or FB.

 

Perfect. So, would it be easier to get a new engine harness. Or try to figure out all the re wiring that would need to be done. The vtec controller is wired tough to the ecu. And I think the msd too

 

It really depends what direction you want to go with the vehicle.

The engine harness in the car could be modified to run an obd1 distributor to an obd1 ecu. If your goal is modification it may be less of a pain to use the harness already in the car

If you get a new harness you may find that you need a new distributor and new ecu.

 

The MSD dist cap and coil is usually over kill. If its working then it wont hurt to leave but it shouldn't be hard to swap back in the stock cap and coil and un due the wiring, I had one years ago but it was useless other than for looks imo.

The Vtec controller will deff be the issue with why its running rich, Those are very old school piggy back EMS and if you don't know exactly what your doing you can blow the engine easily with the wrong AFR. I would get rid of it and run a stock obd2a B16 ecu or get a obd1 chipped ECU with a stock B16 map added! I had a GSR engine blow when it was tuned on one of those vtec controllers over 15 years ago. Then I switched to Hondata which is also an option next to the chipped ecu option.

Find out what ECU you have so we can determine if its the correct ECU to run the B16 swap. Also if you don't know what size injectors that can be a big problem, having injectors bigger or smaller than what the ECU is programed for can cause rich and lean conditions! Also you should be obd2a so finding obd2a B16 injectors shouldn't be hard at all!

As long as you run a B16 ECU, injectors and have your 02 sensors connected you should not run rich and you should have optimal MPG using the correct stock ECU and injectors.

 

^^

 

so the car starts, runs with no CEL. It has the proper ecu P2T-A02. I just want everything to stock, but now want to know if it would be easier to swap out the harness. If I find an SI 99-00 harness it should just be plug and play am I wrong?

 

Makes total sense. Yea I’ve avoided driving the car for this issue that I don’t know what it has and trying to get a much information from the previous owner, but given the fact that the mods were done years ago is tough.

So sounds like I should start with new injectors, new dis cap and coil and rippin our that vtec controller and the msd.

 

Theres a difference between obd2a and obd2b.