stupid question... simple answer

We may earn a small commission from affiliate links and paid advertisements. Terms

seanjuan

seanjuan

Senior Member
Ok, I feel pretty dumb for asking this as I have read alot about swaps and done quite a bit of research in the last year or so but I still have this question.

I'm planning on swaping a B16a2 into a 92 civic LX and having my independant hometown mechanic do the work for me.

my question is about the vtec wiring. If the engine is coming with a new ECU, P30 I believe, do I need to add any wires anywhere for anything?
It seams like if I'm getting a Vtec ECU then I won't need to do anything except pull the old ecu and put the new one in.... right?

please point me in the right direction, my mechanic is doing this for pretty cheap so I don't want to give him any headaches because I doubt he's done a swap like this before... he's not exactly into the import swap scene.

thanks
Sean
 
you will need mounts, shiftlinkage, axels, and with the wiring just add the few wires for the knock sensor and the vtec sensors, right into the ecu plugs, you may need to add some pins and what not to the ecu harness, but i do not know about the 5th gens...
 
92 civics are pre wired for VTEC
whether or not you need a knock sensor depends on the ECU you use
 
I'm not worried about the hardware, the place where I am getting the swap from is sending everything I need to mount and start it. I just want to know about wiring....

Everywhere that is says "you need to add this wire to this pin...." what harness are they talking about?

someone tell me if the following statement is correct.

the engine computer is located inside the car on the passenger side. when i get the new motor and P30 ECU I will use the same wiring that goes from the computer inside the car to the engine. so I need to make sure that the vtec wires are there to go between the engine and computer.

again, thanks and I'm sorry
I feel pretty stupid for having to ask this
 
Basically, using the pinout guide for the ECU, located HERE,make sure there are wires coming from the right spot in the ECU, then trace them (they are color coded) to the engine bay. There might be some color changes at the cabin junction, so you want to have a manual that has these changes availible. Find them in the engine bay wiring harness, and tap into them at the plugs. Or you can forgo all that, and run hardwires through your firewall, and tap them into either the ECU directly, or the wires that go to the corresponding pins on the ECU.
 
I printed off that wiring link and I will check my car today after work.

Most likely though since my car is a 5th gen I won't have to worry about vtec wiring?
 
here's another stupid question
what is the deal with the knock sensor?
shouldn't this allready be on the motor and wired into the ECU?

If I'm getting the SIR2 straight from japan with the original ECU and everything I guess I'm just a little lost on exactly what I need to do

thanks
sorry I'm not smart, I'm trying to be
 
the vtec wiring is not on the engine harness itself. its only in the harness that connects the engine bay harness to your ecu. you will need to run the wires.

when i did this same swap, i just used the harness that came with the engine as a guide as to which wires went to which slots in the harness connectors.
 
-Sixty,
when you did the swap you had to add wires? I don't understand why some peopel say the all 5th gens were prewired for vtec then.

did you put the motor in yourself or have it done somewhere else? what else have you done to the car? enjoying it?

thanks
 
What sixty is saying is this: the 5th gen civics all have a MAIN wiring harness that connects to the ECU. This main harness ends in the engine compartment. The engine has its own harness that can be removed from the car with the engine. If you look under your hood, right next to the firewall behind the top of the struts, you will see where the engine harness plugs into the main harness in two places. What you will need to do is add the vtec wires to the engine harness, and a knock sensor wire. Pretty easy if you have the ecu pinouts. I didn't have to run the vtec wires because I had an EX that already had vtec. Also, since I only ran 93 octane in my car, I just added a ring terminal to the wire for the knock sensor on the ecu and grounded it. No more knock sensor. If you really want to make life easy for yourself and don't mind spending a little money, call a junk yard, such as www.sohfast.com and buy a 92-95 EX/Si engine wiring harness. It has vtec already and just plugs right in, but you may have to extend a few wires, as the B16 is bigger and the wires may not stretch far enough.
 
the engine that I am getting comes with an engine harnes so that should be ok. I will just need to check the harness that goes between the engine bay and the ecu located inside the car to see if the vtec wires are there and also add a wire for the knock sensor.
-5gen, you said that you grounded the knock sensor wire? could you explain more about that. I will probably run 90 octane gas... would I be able to just ground out the knock sensor as well.

also, I'm going to have the motor shipped to my mechanic and drop my car off when the motor gets there. he isn't a big honda guy and I doubt he's ever put a b16 into a 5th gen before.
If he needs to get any parts for the motor can I just tell him to get parts for a 94-97 del sol vtec (for example, radiator hoses)?
 
if the motor youre getting is jdm, the harness that comes with it will be completely backwards, so its basically only good for extra wires and a reference as to which wires go where.

only the 92 5th gens are pre wired for vtec, if you look at the passenger side harness you can see that some wires are missing on the front clip that are present on the rear clip.

i put it in myself and i loved it for about the first month. just not fast enough. so i purchased a gsr block, crank and rods, and some ctr pistons. im in the process of rebuilding it right now.
 
I think that there should be vtec wires coming from the ecu, but it never hurts to check.

Most of the time when you order an engine, they will send the harness with the engine, but it is from a right-hand-drive car and is usually cut, so it won't work in your car. You can still use the harness if you need any plugs, for example to add vtec to your old harness.
I don't think that your engine has vtec so there aren't any wires for vtec. You will need to add 2 wires for vtec. The first one goes to the actual vtec solenoid, the second goes to the oil pressure switch on the solenoid housing. Sometimes the JDM b16s don't have the pressure switch on the housing, so if it doen't don't worry about it, the ecu won't look for it if it doesn't. As for the vtec solenoid, it looks like a little metal cylinder. It and the housing are located right where the distributor is on the intake cam, except that it is on the exhaust cam.

As for the parts, yes parts for a del sol vtec will work, just make sure he orders parts for the DOHC del sol, most parts guys in my area won't send the right parts unless you hold their hand and tell them DOHC 5 or 6 times. They have no idea what vtec is. When I got my b16 and before I put it in the car I replaced the water pump, timing belt, plugs, wires, radiator hoses, and the head gasket. The head gasket doesn't really need to be replaced, but I wanted to see what kind of condition the engine was in, and I already had the timing belt off so I replaced it.

I guess I have also ran 91 in my car, with the knock sensor grounded and haven't had any problems. What I did was find the wire coming from the ecu that should go to the knock sensor and grounded it to one of the bolts that hold the ecu down.

If you need anything else, PM me.

Actually, just like sixty, I didn't think it was fast enough so I took the head, sold the block and built an b20/vtec.
 
well I'm not a racer by any means, this is still just a daily driver/commuting to work car. I think the extra 70 HP should tide me over for a couple more years.

I'll check all the wiring tonight.

the whole right hand drive wiring is starting to worry me now though.
will I be able to use the engine wiring from my D15 on the new engine? or am I going to have to get a completely new engine harness?

I told my mechanic this was going to be a snap to install, I hope that is right or it might end up costing me more than I expected (which is usually the case anyway)
 
use the d15 engine harness. add two wires to the engine harness for vtec, to match the car harness's vtec wires. Your mechanic should be able to do this by looking at a wiring diagram and tracing the wires. Ground or add the knock sensor. the knock sensor plug, and the two vtec plugs can be taken from the right hand drive b16 harness. Everything else plugs right in.
 
excellent!

My mechanic wasn't too fired up when I told him that the engine on its way was not the stock engine because he was worried about wiring issues and I told him not to worry I'd take care of it.

I don't understand why all the local "speed shops" charge so much for doing a swap. maybe it's just because swapping is popular and they know people will pay for it.

anyway, I'm getting pretty damn exited
 
ok, I checked the wires coming off my ecu and the vtec wires are there.
is there a sheet/diagram that I can use to check where the vtec wires should come out in the engine compartment?

thanks guys

Sean
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top