I am in the middle of a mini me conversion on my 97 Civic Hatch. I purchased a sohc vtec head from a friend in my car club who was supposed to guide me through the conversion, but i'm not getting the info i need. The car has a manual trans, and i have added a Venom IM and AEM fuel rail, pressure reg, and timing gear. I need to know if i can use my stock ecu with a seperate vtec controller, or if i have to get an ecu from a Civic EX. I can't find an ecu anywhere and i have my first show in less than a week. If all else fails. can i simply not hook up the vtec until i find all the parts i need (ecu, vtec controller, etc...)? Also, i was told that the only "trick" to the swap was wiring the vtec... is this true or are there other "tricks" i need to know about? Thank you for your input!

Scott Massengill
http://www.onyxmobileaudio.com
Onyx Mobile Audio

 

well there are some trix to it. but being that this is your first post, i find that when i post i get faster and better answers, because i give all of the info pertaining to the post that i can give. so i take it you have the y7 block and y8 head. now there are a couple of different ways to hook up the vtec. 1. rpm switch 2. vafc: fields or apex 3. ecu. now going with the ecu is the best way to have it setup, the other ways are good but a little more ghetto. if you do decide to go with the vtec ecu, you will probably want to go obd1 not obd2, bc obd2 is more tempermental. but you can go obd2. to go obd2 you need to get the p2p ecu. obd1 you need an obd2 to obd1 conversion harness and a p28 ecu. i'm not sure if your block already has a knock sensor but running a vtec ecu needs aknock sensor. but anyways being that you are running the y8 head on a y7 block your compression ratio will go up, this could cause some heating problems. but that is a whole other post in itself. peace out