I've got a 1999 honda civic dx sohc 1.6l with a d16y7 and the stock automatic transmission. I baught the car and made it into a fwd dirt track race car and I noticed that pretty much every one I race against has there car tuned. So I found a guy that would tune it for me but after telling him about my car and the set up he said that the obd2 ecu was not tunable and he said I would have to get a obd1 ecu with I figured I would have to do anyway. He also said since I and running a automatic transmission that even after I got a obd1 ecu it still wouldn't be able to be tuned because the automatic transmission runs of the obd2 ecu and he said I would have to ether 5 speed swap it of find a separate tcu. My question is how do I find a separate tcu that will work for my car because I dont want to 5 speed swap it because I only run in 1st and 2nd gear so there isn't really a reason to 5 speed swap it. I dont know if I can use a different year tcu or what. Any information would help thanks.

 

I've not found any information on tuning an automatic obd1 Honda.

If you did get an OBD1 Automatic ECU you could swap to an OBD1 Automatic transmission. But the tuning aspect may be challenging as most tuners only want to work with manual cars. OBD1 automatic, the TCU only controls 4th and torque converter lockout from what I understand.

To put an OBD1 trans in the car you would also need to change the throttle body to one of the automatic throttle bodies so that the provisions for the cable is there to the transmission.

It would be much easier and provide you more flexibility if you went 5 speed. You could then easily change your final drive ratio as well as your gear sets to better align to your application.