pgmfi.org

hi everyone im new to the honda game and im new to this forum. im like at ground zero but sofar my research has brought me here. god i hope yall are still out there. anyway ill start with i have a 92 civic cx, im the second owner of this car its never been molested which kinda sucks but kinda cool. i have every intention of taking this car to far
so heres where the question begins
a few weeks ago i zapped my ecu and baught one off some dude on facebook
it works its a p05 as i need but inside it has a bunch of goodies
i have a cel and the shift light is going bonkers now
the dude swears the sst chip in there is blank
the car runs fine and ive been debating doing the paper clip trick to track that cel at least
i guess im kinda stand offish with that because the road to this ecu was painful
so the question is if it had a tune on there say someone added vtec or a turbo or just injectors to their car could these be the cel? if so am i gonna damage my engine running around like this?

thanks in advance
justin

Welcome. We are not ALL dead. Yet... We are like the cars themselves. Aging gracefully, finally being respected in life for being a survivor that has outlasted many others who seemed to be better at everything but now, they look like they're falling apart and dying...

Word of advice, don't use the term "Honda game". It makes you sound like a n00b.
To answer your question, you should not just run somebody's ecu. Especially not one that has some dubious chip installed within it, that may or may not be tuned or whatever. And yes if the ecu has a chip that's programmed to run a different motor, or if your ecu is simply messed up, you can cause damage to your motor. Anyhow, I'm just going to suppose that you're pretty young. If I'm wrong, don't be offended please. But If I'm right, just realized that people have been doing this shit for about as long as you've been alive, if not longer. So people are going to talk to you like they're your dad. Again, if thats not the case, don't be offended, it's just that your post is pretty ignorant. BUT a study was done years ago that said Honda owners are some of the nicest people on earth so heres another piece of advice towards your goal of tuning a 30 year old economy hatchback.
Don't use the term "paper clip trick" it's called jumping the ecu. Also, "READ EVERYTHING". seriously. Just do research and read. The internet is old. This website is old, and there is literally no other brand that has as much technical data floating around online as Honda. So you're in luck. But you have to do the research and the work. No one from this site is going to come to your house and build or tune your car for you. No one is going to hold your hand and walk you through some problem that thousands before you had and were able to figure out. Many of them without the aid of the internet. But I digress.

If you really need help, answer these questions as best as you can. I'll check back in a couple days.

What type of motor is in your civic?
Do you know anything about the motor and how it works?
How did you "zap" your ecu?
What reasoning led you to purchase that particular ecu?
Do you feel like your civic's motor is "happy"?
What are you using this car for? Like, is it your daily commuter?

i defiantly come off ignorant a lot or so i hear i apologize
the car has the stock d15b8 in it, yes i know what and how motors work though im no where near a mechanic but i love learning so... this is a win win for me
the zapping thing... trying to install a tach i watched one YouTube video and took dudes word for it... huge mistake. but its cool I've learned a lot and i mean A LOT. the reasoning: i applied what I've learned about a multi meter and chased wires around the car. yeah the civic is very happy other then the cel that I'm still scared to "jump" the car is my daily
since i last wrote I've discovered some of the other things in the po5 ecu like vtec is pinned... I've decided to try to repair my bad po5
thank you for the response

you should not have a fear of jumpering the service jumper to read the CELs. it's difficult to mess up, and has zero potential problems if done correctly.

if the chip in the ECU is blank the ECU will still run the car, but it will run very poorly with a solid CEL (ie no code)
IF the jumper to turn on the external chip is open or removed then it will run the car like stock using the internal maps.

could you damage things, of course. messing with how the engine runs always has a risk.
But if you take it carefully and have a fall back plan (ie the car will run on the stock maps if you remove the jumper OR you have another ECU to use) then you should be able to start on your path with minimal risk.