Removed Vafc, cel code 9, car runs terribly and vtec does not engage, sputters - Honda Prelude Forum

silverlude80 · 05-25-2010, 10:36 AM

Try to make this short as possible. I had a revhard turbo kit installed as well as a jdm 92-95 engine on my 5th gen 2000 prelude. I drove the car around with the newer engine and it ran great, perfectly smooth and great power. The turbo kit was installed by a reputable shop that specializes in hondas. Once I got the car back with the turbo kit installed, they had manually retarded the timing from the distributor all the way. The car ran pretty crappy, but it did boost. I went and advanced the timing myself closer to stock and the car ran a ton better on my obd2 stock prelude ecu. So I got a socketed and chipped p75 to run the prelude on a base map obd1 until I can get it tuned in a few weeks. None of the chips I got worked right, car was idling at 400 and would shut off but ran fine with stock ecu. I took the car to a different very reputable shop to have the vafc removed and test out the obd1 computer. Once the vafc was removed, the car started and idled fine but we did not test drive it. We tried the base map he quickly put together with the obd1 p75 and the car started and idled ok, not great. Once we took it for a test drive the car ran okay until vtec would engage around 5100 rpms and then it would sputter and act like it was hitting a rev limiter. I then put the ob2 stock computer back in (which worked absolutely fine before the vafc was removed). The car didn't barely run at all now with the stock computer, couldn't even get it going. They pulled the code and got cel code 9 cyp. They swapped the distributor and we had the same results. They mentioned it is probably the wiring on the connectors that the other shop rewired to make the distributor obd1 spec. I think they must have made a mistake when removing the vafc and hooking back up the stock wiring. Please advise, I am planning on taking it back to the shop that removed the vafc and have them check the wiring again. I asked them yesterday when they removed it if they could have made a mistake and they said it is only two wires. Having the engine, and turbo, and all of this stuff has been already a 1 month process, I can't get it in to be tuned until the 14th of june. I just don't want to ride around with my car in limp mode until then. Please advise.

Thank you

Kronn 98SH · 05-25-2010, 11:21 AM

This has FAIL written all over it.

TJ97SH · 05-25-2010, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by silverlude80

Please advise,

Advice: Get all your ducks in a row before you start a serious project such as going FI! You should probably check over everything. Figure out how it is supposed to be done to be correct, and make yours look like that. Best of luck to you.

silverlude80 · 05-26-2010, 05:42 AM

Hey guys,

thank you for the good wishes. I was able to figure out the problem. I exposed all the wiring for the ecu to check everything out and make sure there were no issues. As I was unraveling each splice and electrical wire one at a time, I came upon a wire that basically fell apart in my hands. I took some of the extra wire from the removed vafc and just macguyver style spliced them together and viola, car runs extremely smooth, vtec kicks in prefectly and it pulls very strong. I did in fat have the turbo and engine installed by a reputable shop as well as having the vafc removed. I am sure many people that do aftermarket work have learned as they went and had poor work done in the past that was never corrected. For example myself and friends working on the car as well as hacked wiring jobs. I have had no problems thus far with wiring issues and the many electronic devices that have been installed have lasted 8 years. Things happen especially when multiple people work on your car. Just be able to empathize with that as nothing always goes right with any big project.

Thanks