Let me preface this by saying Im a shop manager and mechanic trying to do a favor for a good customer. His motor blew up and he picked up a ZC for cheap. Manifold, Dizzy, crank position sensor , ECU, and harness are what I can tell are my hurdles. I'm sure I could absolutely piece this job all together over time but my time is LITERALLY money. I just need someone to help me figure out what I need to get this customer up and moving as quickly as possible.

From what I can tell Rywire has a $(500-$1000) OBD1 to OBD2 harness, however I'm not sure if that's better or worse than a ($140) jumper harness that plugs right into the ECU. What distributor and manifold do I need to use? The stock mani and dizzy or keep the ZC stuff?

Also what ECU do I need to run to get the ZC working good but keep the original d16y7 auto trans going? I haven't checked for standalone TCM'S on a d16 but this kid is young and doesn't have a lot of money, I'm trying to pull a hail Mary and help this dude. I'm sorry for all the questions, so much poor info out there misleading everywhere, I appreciate every little bit of help y'all can provide.

-Nick

 

I would bolt the entire intake manifold from the original engine to the replacement ZC engine... and depending on what year ZC the customer has acquired, the original distributor may swap over. If not, you can purchase a distributor plug conversion sub-harness for cheap online and use the distributor from the ZC engine. The oil pump on the ZC will also have to be changed to one that will accommodate the CKF sensor - you will have to swap the lower timing gear and belt followers to make it work as well. The factory ECU should run the engine reasonably well assuming that you have a non-VTEC ZC engine.

 

JRCivic1 is correct. Most ECUs will run within a good level of performance. The only thing is if the engine is VTEC and the ECU is not, that function will stay inactive.