carb -> FI, FINALLY!!!!

[Vector]

not quite but i got everything today to do it now, took about 7 hours but i managed to get:

head and everything bolted to it.
return fuel line with hoses and fittings.
fuel filter with hoses and fittings(looked new, so what the hell)
fuel pump.
all wire that covered front half of vehicle(hands hurt alot at this point).
ecu
fuse boxes (engine bay and underdash)
misc relays and controllers (probably windows and locks, sunroof).
cluster panel.

front drivers side of the car was mashed pretty good so it took sometime getting it apart, non of the wiring in that fender apears to be damaged and looks to be unscaved.
i'm going to make the EFI stand alone from the rest of the vehicle stock wiring. should take about a week to figure it all out all the electrical and prepare it, then about a day to install everything. i feel it would be more simple this way to tweak down the road and prevent me from damaging, losing any parts along the way lol:)

should give the car alittle kick in the nuts anyway once this is all in instead the carb.

[BITESIZE]

Way to be!

[MessyHonda]

thats cool...are you going to make a how to tread? hope it works...how much power do you think you will get out of it?

[Vector]

i will try on the how to for the stand alone stuff for sure.

i hope i have it all together anway to do this.

as far what i'm expecting, i would like to see whatever the diference is between the carb and efi version of my engine, probably around 10hp over stock kehlin carb, if i'm lucky. i want to move toward boosting my car, and so far so good, i'm shootin for may that my car will be ready for boost once i work all the electrical out 100%, then just see how long 309,000k engine lasts on stock internals untill it needs a rebuild hehe.

i dont want to go more than about 5-8 psi probably rip a turbo out of a geo or somthing to start with.

[89AccordResto]

Awesome. I might do this this summer when I put in a new engine. Would it be easier to do the EFI stuff off the car, then install it all at once?

[Vector]

Awesome. I might do this this summer when I put in a new engine. Would it be easier to do the EFI stuff off the car, then install it all at once?

i would, nothing bugs me more than putting everything in, then nothing works, ofcourse i wouldnt actually install the ecu and wiring till the car was actually running, i just need to find the wiring schematic of one 89 EX-i then i can proceed to modifying the wiring specifically for the engine and ecu only(i think i have them here somewhere, i'm still lookin).

i think i'm going to have to do a how to on this as it will probably save everyone huuuuuge amounts of time on installing it.

[Cheeseburger]

sweet bro. and good luck andtake pics wOOt

[A20A1]

Awesome!

Wiring? hehe I'll keep my carb.

[Vector]

Awesome!
Wiring? hehe I'll keep my carb.
hehe why do you think i'm not touchin the dx wiring, just incase somthing doesnt fly, or catches on fire. i can always revert easy!

so i go through the manuals that are/were provided here online and i cant seem to get a clear layout of the ecu, anyone got an idea on where i can get such a page?.
maybe i'm not looking at the right section of the manual?

screw it, i will just go buy one lol.

[89AccordResto]

Get the manuals from paul's site. It's all you need to know.

[Vector]

Get the manuals from paul's site. It's all you need to know.
i think the site is down, i tried lastnight, i found i have a bunch of manuals, but only some parts of the ecu are discussed. mainly troubleshooting.

[89AccordResto]

I can send them to you. Do you have instant messenger?

[Vector]

I can send them to you. Do you have instant messenger?
i have msn: [email protected]

also i will put up a section on kelownaimports.com for all the technical, and manuals and such as soon as i can and then add it to a sticky or somthing

[89AccordResto]

Does it allow attachments greater than 10 megs? Because hte PDF is 34 megs. :|

[Vector]

biggest file i sent through was about 108mb at one point, so ya you should be ok, 34mb eh, i might have that already, whats the name of the file.

EDIT: MY BAD, I FOUND THEM:slap: here @ http://www.3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?t=185

this will be easier than i thought, i should have EFI on my car by the end of the week. all i needed were the pin out for hte ECU, i will form the wire to work with what i have now, thanks, i will come back with pics and maybe even video.

[89AccordResto]

Good luck! Please post any updates on errors you found in the how to, or hints or tips or whatever. I want to do this this summer. :)

[Vector]

hi all, i havent really been keepin this thread up to date, i do have pictures i would like to show my project but all in due time, i will put it all together when i have the vehicle running.

currently i have seperated all the ecu/engine wiring from the main body wiring harness. i'm eperienced in electronics so i'm also building a secondary relay for the ecu's power as well as converting my ignition start system to push button. (eyes are falling out of head from schematics:rant:)

if i'm correct these are the components i need to make the car run without ALL of the wiring

distributor (tdc,cyl sensors).
injectors, fuel rail, hose fittings,lines, fuel pump.
iac, engin temp, atmosphere sensors.
4pin alternator regulator.
engine -> ecu wiring only.
oh yea, kinda need the ecu.

i have fabbed up my wiring harness to only accomodate these sensors and a few others that i dont know what they do. i am not bringing the black box over with this mod, i can if needed but i dont see a reason to. with iac the engine technically should run without that extra crap.

i'm going to convert the secondary butterfly in the throttle body to electronic

fuel regulator will stay vacumm driven unless i decide to convert that as well as a later date.

am i missing anything?

I have most of it together and shold have it running tomorow.
i will get some vids together once i do so.

[Immeraufdemhund]

which Intake manifold do you have that has a secondary butteryflY? and second how do you make it electric instead of vacuum?

I was working on doing the same thing for making a 3g acclude. I think i'm just going to fab up some mounts and make the engine fit and wire it up. I just have to get the car and go from their. Props on the carb->efi. It's a bunch of work, but i feel it is deffinatly worth it. It always feels like more power usually cause the carb is dead, but it's just more fun with efi.

If i recall correctly you might not even need to make a special wire harness for your alternator, but can just splice into a particular wire and run it to the injector box...or were ever it went. just a thought though if you haven't tackled that project.

good job and good luck

[HondaBoy]

hmm, sounds like you have a fun project there. i wish i had the resources, a junk yard, to do the FI swap. only thing is i cant find complete cars, if i do the parts are crap. so i'm probably just sticking with my carb. good luck on that, and show us some pix or something.

[Acid X]

If you want all the power of the EFI you'll need the pistons too. EFI has higher compression than the carb'd cars.. I think its 9:1 for efi and 8.8:1 for carb...

I think the cam is different too.

[A20A1]

9.1:1 carb 9.3:1 efi

[speedpenguin]

Hey, good job, bro. And yea, hurry up with dem pics, we're all waiting.

[Vector]

haha ya, i'm workin on it, i'm gonna make another run tomorow and get some more crap since pick and pull has a 50% off sale.

once i get the car running, i'm going to do somthing complete nuts and mate b series head to the a20 block hehe:blah::blah:

anyway i will reply tomorow on the status of my car, if its not running tomorow i'm not going to be happy lol

[b8er]

hey bro good to see this is running along nicely for yea, about the bseries to a series, i belive its been done and doesnt work, aha. just wanna try and save you some money and time, take a search on the site here, you'll find what im talking about

[Vector]

update: had some major problems over the weekend

1. distributor is screwed, return spring for the vaccum advance is broken and rotor shaft is very loose?! (i also tried it with the carb and still no go)

2. finalizing fuel delivery plans kinda went to hell as i didnt have all apropriate fittings to fully install into vehicle ( ran pump in a bucket of gas for engine test, used short piece of braided fuel line)

i reverted my car back to carb so i can finish working on other aspects of it, i'm going to buy aftermarket steel braided fuel line (costs about $7ft) so i need to let some of my funds build up.

well theres my update for now, right now i have it up as a easy bolt on so maybe next weekend i will giver another shot if i can get another distributor.

[89AccordResto]

It sucks that it's such a bitch to convert to efi. I wish my car was EFI, but man after you're having so much trouble I don't think I'd try it. Think it's possible to get done in 1 weekend?

[speedpenguin]

It's doable.
Just do a lot of research and make sure you have ALL the parts you need.

[Hash_man_Se_i]

Good luck... That looks like a shit load of work... hopefully everything goes well.

[Vector]

alright, today i did a cr test, and all my cylinders are around 7bar/100psi.

thats pretty low if my guage is correct and due for a rebuild, i say this is a perfect time to toss in some efi pistons and do alittle na tune on it.

what you guys think?

i read that some people bore these engines out .20, if this is so i might even consider that depending on how my funds treat me over the next little while.

its to bad, if that reading is correct, maybe i will just race it the way it is untill it breaks :Owned: then rebuild it.

[89accordex4dr]

sorry to jack the thread, but when we are talking 9.1:1 carb and 9.3:1efi, is 9.1:1 a A20A1/2 and 9.3:1 a A20A3?

[89accordex4dr]

thanks cke :cheers:

[Vector]

I think the cam is different too.

can anyone shed some light on this?

yea its abit strange i think, because the car still goes pretty good think.

i did 3 runs 0-60mph today for the hell of it and ran 8.5s - 9s avg with a stop watch. hell maybe i even did that wrong, lol. what?

well in between all this thats going on, i'm going to start weight reduction on the inside of my car.

remove anything that can be pretty much without having to cut.

canadian tire has a sale on some ractive seats, 199/piece with basic harness so i might pick couple of them up to since mine dont hold anything around corners.

hate to be a tool, but i sent my extra cam off to a machine shop for grind and what not.
i was thinking a 272, can anyone get me more specific specs other than the paeco sheet, i gave that to them but they siad it wasnt enough info??

efi's on hold till i can get more parts :(

[Vector]

all right, time to wakeup lol....

all my efi stuff i got a while back wired up on the bench and did some tests with it(powered up ecu, tested injectors by givin the distributor some turns, and they click like they are suposed to in order), aside my task of getting fuel to the injectors, its ready to bolt on pretty much. i will have picks and a vid of the car running with minimal wiring(and no blackbox hopefully) soon providing there is nothing actually wrong with the distributor(still cant believe how loose it is).

this is soooo sweeeeeeeeet.:bong:

[bobafett]

good job man! im glad to see ur progress!

[Vector]

gonna run down to the wreckin yard today and pick up some extra fuel lines for under the hood that i can butcher for my testing before i finalize it all and put it in.

[Vector]

IT'S ALIVEEEEE!!!!!!!1!!11111111
i will get a vid of it running tonight, kinda half installed it to see if it was going to even work. man does it rev like a raped ape!
i've worked on this kit for about a week straight and very relieved to see it run!

heres the vid

http://3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?p=631861#post631861

[speedpenguin]

man does it rev like a raped ape!

Wow, that's the most ahem "interesting" analogy I've heard in a long time :lol:

Good job with the install, though!

[Vector]

Wow, that's the most ahem "interesting" analogy I've heard in a long time :lol:
Good job with the install, though!

i was overjoyed at the moment.

[Whistler225]

if I might ask, about how much did it run you total to do the swap? I may think about it if it's cheaper than just buying another 3G with EFI.....

[Vector]

less than $300 with taxes and stuff. and i had to get another distributor.

[Vector]

well, another update, the car is back together and runs, after solving some electrical problems. the first problem is the way i was powering the ecu, i was tapping into an existing acc ignition power outlet from the dash to power the ecu, turns out it wasnt providing enough juice, only took a few minutes to figure out.
second problem is, i'd thought i'd be a nice guy and change my alternator with the efi one i got from the wrecking yard, and turns out my battery is not charging now, so i can only blame the alternator i put in and now have to take the intake off to put the 3 wire one back in. other than that, once i fix the alternator the car will be drivable.

not bad for only 2 days work in total

i will update more tomrow or sat with some pictures.

[carotman]

Cool.

You can use the old Carb alternator and only switch the voltag regulator from the EFI one. That's the only difference they have. I suggest you change the brushes at the same time.

[Vector]

the doner alternator which turned out to be a bosch for the efi car appears to be only 4-5 months old, i just replaced my carb'd alternatorl couple months ago.

either way i figured out my problems,first the battery wasnt charging because the 1 of the screws came loose inside the alternator that are suposed to make the connections from the the reguator to the alternator.
second problem, i am using the now ignition feed to the coil to power the ecu now, works hella much better.

once i had figured those out, couple more problems arose, but i took care of those.

map sensor, in the black box, YOU NEED IT!!!!!:Owned:(probably the one i was thinkin of the other day when i thought it was the atmosphere one)

and atmosphere sensor, i hooked up but didnt seem to change how the car runs.

anyway, with everything hooked up the ecu doesnt flash anymore, just a constant light, i looked for a littlebit around, could find much detail on that so i just assume everything is working accordingly.

i have autox this mornin at 9am i should have some pics of my run and some of the car, not so much the interior becuase i'm lazy and still havent put anything back yet besides dashboard and cluster panel.

[theDougler]

haha ya autox was pretty sweet eventhough they didn't really let me race:rant: but oh well. gotta ride in chris's hatchie anyways. runs awesome for all thats running on it. good job. i think your fastest time today was 49.6 but i could be wrong on this. well hopefully you can get it running better

[Vector]

yep that was about it, it was less than 1 sec faster than the rsx that was running, and it had mods!

[carotman]

Hmm if you have a constant light, it's not a good sign at all. Try to reset the ECU.

[Vector]

Hmm if you have a constant light, it's not a good sign at all. Try to reset the ECU.

i was doing 13 flashes before i hooked up the atmosphere sensor, then after it just went solid.

and on the page that gives the description for the amount of flashes doesnt show or maybe i'm just dumb its probably the first one that says ECU.

should i get another one?

[thegreatdane]

If it's lit up constantly the ecu is probably in limp mode, which will make it run like crap.

So did you try resetting it yet?

[Vector]

my car doesnt feel retarded.

i just disconnect ecu memory feed for like 10 seconds or somthing right?

[thegreatdane]

yes just disconnect the power for the ecu for about 10-15 seconds.

[Vector]

ok i will try this after work.

[Vector]

well, i reset the ecu and no change, as soon as i turn the ignition to the on position, the led comes on instantly, no blinks, just solid red. i think the ecu is fubard.

ecu also isnt letting the secondaries open at 5k.

still running vacuum for the diz adv and the secondaries. i've tested the vac solenoid valves and found that the one that controls the secondaries to be dead. so i routed to the egr solenoid to let the secondaries open.

to solve the advance problem with the secondaries, a friend hooked me up with a tac that has a shift light on it with a variable knob from 2-10k rpm, i added a relay off the light to control the secondary solenoid. so now i can just dial it in when i want them to open.

but about the ecu, should i just get another one and try it in hopes that the problem goes away, or should i not bother with it.

i've checked, doubled checked all my wiring and sensors and i have:

air intake sense.
atmosphere sense.
map sense.
tps.
ecav.
ect sensor.
alternator rf feed.
o2 sensors.
egr sensor(no vacuum to it tho, just did this so it wouldnt bitch at idle).
diz(tdc, angle).

there are some extra wires comming off of it, but according to the manual they are for auto trans, cruise, and ac, and some other thing to do with the power steering(i think).

if i disconnect any of the sensors, then the led blinks accordingly, like when i didnt have the atmosphere sensor connected, it threw a code 13.

car seems to start find, warm or cold. and drives fine, has power altho there is some hesitation which i think might be a timing problem, which i did set, but maybe i did it wrong(disconnect vac advance, then set to tdc).

other than that, car seems to run great and i'm fairly satisfied with it.

ps. just remembered somthing else. i didnt connect the starter feed to the ecu from the ignition. could it be posible that for some strange reason or another the ecu needs to be told that the engine is cranking?

[Vector]

i went back to the basics on the ecu like it was when it was out of the car when i powered it up to see the flashing led, how ever, this is still not the case, i did find that a couple wires where mashed together on the fender section of the wire (this is where the doner car was hit pretty bad), wires were vcc from cpu and resistor box power, my understanding is the vcc only carries 5v to power sensors like map, atmos, air intake, maybe few others.

so i still havent changed the ecu due to poor time management, will do it tomorow for sure since i autox that night.

did i mention the car runs really rich? maybe i have 2 bad o2 sensors? lol

[Vector]

it was the ecu, i replaced it and now it throws a code 17 instead of a solid red code 0:

17 LED FLASH(s) 88-98 Accord
VSS (Vehicle Speed Sensor)
defective circuit or unplugged / defective sensor

which is fine, atleast i know the ecu is working better, oh and you's guys were right, more power and now my car doesnt run uber rich.

by the looks of how the diagnostics work on these ecu's is it looks like it checks everything in order by the number of flashes so 0 is ecu and 17 is vss, if you unplug your atmosphere sensor then it will stop at 13 till you fix it. it would be confusing as hell to flash them all in order lol, then it will continue till the next one is bad/not connected.

[Vector]

can anyone elaborate on what the power steering switch pin does on the ecu, does it disable the ps?

if it does, then i'm up to replacing that as well with the power steering pump that has it out of the doner.

[Strugglebucket]

can anyone elaborate on what the power steering switch pin does on the ecu, does it disable the ps?
if it does, then i'm up to replacing that as well with the power steering pump that has it out of the doner.
it's supposed to be hooked up to a sensor on the p/s line. when the line pressure is high and your engine speed is low (like when you're parallel parking or something) it switches on so the ecu can bump up your idle a bit. the only thing that disables the power steering is the vss sender and it does it mechanically when your final drive spins it past 15mph or so.

p.s. i noticed on your list of sensors that you didn't list the ect sensor. is it hooked up?

[Vector]

Fuck power steering. Use that upper body strength and save a few horsies.

hahaha, i tried that at an autox event, just took the belt off for the hell of it to see how the car drives without it..... never again on such a tight track.

[Vector]

p.s. i noticed on your list of sensors that you didn't list the ect sensor. is it hooked up?

oh ya, no dont worry its there lol. i forgot to list it, thanks for noticing that.

[Vector]

got second o2 sensor installed, then somthing went wrong, car seriously ran like crap, no power was gutless around 3000 rpm, after about 30 minutes of messing around i discovered that i had the o2 sensors mixed up.

i reversed them and now aside the vss and the ps sensor, the car engine wise is done, now all i have to do is put the vents in the dash and find a nice spot for the ecu, i'm thinkin behind/under the glove box, what ya guys think.