Hey guys,

Need some help on troubleshooting my Vtec. I have a '92 Lude Si that I put a JDM H22A in about 8 months ago with a P13 ecu. Up until recently when the car hits 5K on the tach after the car has been driven for 15 minutes or so the vtec is not engaging. Why I think its not engaging? At 5K it usually gives a loud noise and sudden boost of power which isnt happening all the time now.

Sometimes it will engage after the car has been driven for a while and sometimes it wont. It is very intermittent, but it seems to always engage during the first 10 minutes or so after the temp gets up to 1/4.

Sometimes it will enagage at 5K, clank for a second like vtec was about to engage and then just go back to normal and continue to accelerate without vtec engaged.

Knowns:
Fresh oil change, oil is full
Temp guage on dash is at 1/2 all the time
No CEL on dash
Good wire from solenoid to ecu.
Solenoid clicks everytime when supplied with +12V

Thanks for help/hints.

 

maybe bad oil press. do you have a good guage? or the oil passages might be clogged. or it could be a loose wire. my friends moms cd changer would only work when you hit the brakes hard as hell cuz of a loose *** wire. it was funny!

 

No, i dont have a oil pressure guage. How much are they? Where can I buy one? I guess this would screw into the block in place of the oil sending unit?

What oil passasges are you referring to? Is there an oil passage at the Vtec solenoid housing that can be manually cleaned?

The next thing I will do is put a test light or voltmeter on the Vtec solenoid wire to see if its getting +12V. It should be getting a constant +12V correct?

 

take out the vtec solenoid and clean the screen, then if you want you could hook up a light to your vtec sol. wire to see if it is working when you are driving, checked wiring?grounds?
have you checked your thermostat?

 

Can you explain more about that vtec wire to the solenoid? Should it be getting a constant +12V at all times or just when the vtec kicks in?

Also, about taking the vtec solenoid out...how to do that? I have an old pic here that I took a while back. Do I take the 3, 10MM bolts out on top and just separate the halves?

Thermostat is brand-new OEM...put it in when I did the swap.

BTW, thanks for the help!

 

OK,

I checked the voltage at the vtec solenoid wire while the car was running...it was 2.5 Volts. Is this right?

Any suggestions on how to clean that screen?

Thanks!

 

This weekend I hooked a voltmeter up to my solenoid wire so that I could watch it while I was driving. The Vtec would engage everytime during the first 15 minutes or so of driving and the voltmeter would drop to 0 when it engaged every single time, the voltmeter would also drop to 0 when it was supposed to engage but didnt engage. So that proves that the solenoid is getting the correct signal when it supposed to all the time.

Next, I took the solenoid off and looked at the screen. It was clean as a whistle. Not one single piece of debris at all.

What else can I check?

I dont have a oil pressure guage :/ If I were to buy a guage, which one should I get and where would I tap into the oil line on the engine?

 

just to be sure, are you sure you have enough oil in the engine?

 

Oh yeah, I am 110% positive that oil level is full. Just for kicks and giggles I will change the oil tonight. I was under the car this weekend soldering a small hole in the radiator seam and looked at the oil pan, there are no dents there.

How would I go about seeing if there are any soft codes in the ecu?