Starting my EFI swap today....

[Mike's89AccordLX]

Well I talked with my instructor at school and he let me bring the car and use the shop to do all I want to the car. I read the how to a few times (printing it off now so I can read it over and over). But what I thought of when I was driving the car to the school, it's an automatic and I have a 5 speed. Will I still be able to use the ECU, gauge cluster, and other things? Can I just swap my guages into that gauge cluster? And I read something about the sei wiring harness will have problems wiring up an aftermarket hu, and I would like to know more about what I have to do to have my kenwood hu in my car.

I will also be parting out the sei parts I don't need.

[SteveDX89]

You will have to splice the wires for the neutral safety switch and the reverse lights but that's it as far wiring except for the radio. The ECU is fine. Gauge cluster is fine, you'll just have one plug left over that you just leave lay there. You'll have to get a wiring diagram to figure out the radio wiring. Any other questions, let me know. It's still fresh in my mind.

[nswst8]

Nothing ever goes as planned, cool waves, cold suds and fresh babes is all it takes. :rockon:

[carotman]

The wiring should be a little more work since it'S from an auto SE-I (the best would have been a manual LX-I)

You will indeed have to splice the wires together near the shifter for the neutral switch and the backup lights.

The backup light wires seem to go all the way up to the front of the car... well they did when I picked up an auto engine harness from the junkyard to modify it to the B20A specs. There is a gren wire that just goes from ont pin ans is looped to another on the passenger side of the wiring harness (right next to the battery). I just cut the wire in half (this breaking the constant loop) and connected it to the backup light switch.

The radio is indeed a bit problematic. The SE-i unit only has low impedance outputs. The power and grounds are still there but you have to re-wire the speakers. I don'T know if the carb dash harness will be the same for the speed sensor and the PGM-FI light. I didn't want to check at that time and just used the SE-I dash harness. That won't save you from rewiring the radio since the cabin harness will not have the speaker wires either...

Glad to see you're going on the EFI side :D

[Mike's89AccordLX]

Hmm this kinda sucks I don't want to have to goto the junk yard and rip everything off to get a lxi wiring harness. I need to take both front fenders off? Oh well I guess I will find out tomorrow :)

[maka_RTH]

couldn't you just leave the wiring for the radio intact? not worry about having to redo all of it, just leave the wires for the speakers and everything there?

[carotman]

Don't even bother getting a cabin harness from the junkyard. It's too much work.

You have to remove both front fenders, the dashboard, the heater core, pull the carpet out...

You basicaly have to remove all the front part of the interior. It takes much time to do...

[Justin86]

You should be ok with a Lx dash harness, if you have the Dx, this is where you have to swap the harness along with the fuse box.

[Mike's89AccordLX]

So is Justin right? I don't have to swap out my LX harness? I'm not sure how that would work since it wouldn't have any of the wiring to have injectors and stuff...

[maka_RTH]

he said the dash harness should be ok.., ie cluster, climate controls, radio, etc..., if i understood right anyways

[SteveDX89]

The dash harness and the cabin harness are separate harnesses as with the engine harness. Does the CEL work if you have an LX dash harness?

[Mike's89AccordLX]

So I really wouldn't need to rip my dash out if I were to use my LX dash harness? I hope so b/c I'm not too thrilled about ripping 2 dashes apart. Plus my radio wouldn't be f-ed up

[SteveDX89]

I know you're not a newb so what's with the newb questions? The cabin harness runs behind the dash so you have to rip the dash out no matter what. Switching the dash harness is a 10 minutes process so I'd do it since it's already out.

[Mike's89AccordLX]

Holy crap we got a lot done today. The car is sitting on 4 jack stands b/c I'm gonna do the brake swap right after teh efi swap. Well I got the fender taken off. I also took the front bumper and hood off :) I removed all the intake piping, battery, battery tray, got basically all the 10mm bolts out of the stuff I need to remove. Man some of them wire connectors are a bi*ch! I got the thermostat housing removed, distributor removed, EGR pipe removed. Hey what's the deal did the SE-i not have an air suction pipe? The header only has the EGR pipe connecting to it. I was like wtf my pacesetter header has both inputs for them and the how to says there's suppose to be them on the header too. The EGR pipe had the 24mm fitting and I can't find the 32mm air suction fitting. I was like well I hope I run into it... Then I was like well if it didn't have one it will run without it since it didn't have one.

And I drained all the coolant and there's still a few connections I need to undo to be able to get the whole harness out. So tomorrow I hope to get the intake manifold out and have everything disconnected from the wiring harness. I haven't decided if I want to put cruise control back in the car or not... I took it out b/c I removed all the carb vac. lines but now I have a chance to put it back in. But I don't know if it would be worth it anyways. Probably won't work right and I would be pissed that I spent time hooking it up.

Man those aren't newb ?'s. Newb questions would be about hey where can I get a big tip for my muffler? Or how can I make my car fast with $100 ??? hehhehehe I don't think I've done a project this big to my car so I'm just anxious that's all :) I think what I will end up doing is using my lx dash harness so I won't have problems with my stereo. If I use my LX dash harness will I still need to redo the back up lights and clutch switch? No biggie if I have to or not I was just curious.

Thanks,
Mike

[Bryan]

Do you think that it is at all possible to get the swap done in one day?

[Mike's89AccordLX]

Uhhh no.

[Bryan]

Even if you worked for like 12 hours on it?

[maka_RTH]

i'd say a day on each vehicle. like, a day to pull all the stuff off the parts car, then a day to put it all on the car gettin the swap. and that's a full days work on each one(don't take my word for it, having never actually done it)

[Mike's89AccordLX]

Well 12 hours is a half day and there's no way you would be able to. Something would go wrong or you would run into a problem and be stuck. I'm only working on it at about 4 hours a day and I haven't even got all the stuff out of the engine yet and that's about 8 hours so far. I'm just taking my time since I'm in no rush but I still don't think you could do it all in 12 hours since you have to remove everything from 2 cars and then install the efi stuff into a car still.

-Mike

[maka_RTH]

Well 12 hours is a half day and there's no way you would be able to. Something would go wrong or you would run into a problem and be stuck. I'm only working on it at about 4 hours a day and I haven't even got all the stuff out of the engine yet and that's about 8 hours so far. I'm just taking my time since I'm in no rush but I still don't think you could do it all in 12 hours since you have to remove everything from 2 cars and then install the efi stuff into a car still.

-Mike

Ha-ha! i beat you by seconds! i clicked submit reply or whatever, and as i saw mine yours was there too! but mine was first ;) lol

[Bryan]

Alright. :pc:

[SteveDX89]

No way it can be done in 2 12 hour days. It took me several days to get the parts car apart since I hadn't done it before. Don't rush this project. It will take some time.

[carotman]

I think it took me around 40 hours so so to do it..

Like it's been said, you need to remove the guts of 2 cars then reinstall the EFI stuff on your car...

[Mike's89AccordLX]

Hey guys I didn't get the intake manifold removed :( but I did get all of the connections for both harnesses disconnected in the engine bay excluding the alternator and starter. Should make a little better head way tomorrow and friday. I just put a bunch more stuff up for sale in my for sale thread too.

-Mike

[Mike's89AccordLX]

Well I have some bad news I think the EFI swap is going to be delayed for a long time or I might just sell all the parts efi parts to someone. My instructor is being a big HOMO! He told me today that I need to get the car out of the shop. I was like I have the ticket that you signed saying I could do these swaps you can't just tell me I can't do it half way into it. I was like now the car doesn't run and the pedals are off and the steering column is off so I can't drive it out so I would have to have it towed or find some way to haul it somewhere. I'm almost done with the efi removal too... I just have to take the intake manifold off and pull the wires from the cabin into the engine bay. And I need to remove the fuel lines and stuff too. but I mean the hard part was the fricken dash and all the black plastic boxes under the dash. I was so pissed I took my 3 foot pry bar and ripped out those boxes b/c I was having problems with them. There's no damage to the wires I was at least careful in my rage.

He said the stuff I'm doing is not educational. I said wtf? I'm tearing apart two cars and converting 1 car from carbed to efi how is that not educational? And I had to diagnose the fi system so I knew what was wrong with it. And I told him that I was going to swap the brakes to and that I would probably need to rebuild the calipers and turn the rotors and bend new brake lines. I think its b/c it's a honda and I'm pissed. It's only been in the shop one week and there's been this GEO in there for over a month and I don't see him bit*hing at that student that hardly works on his car.

-Mike