I have a stock b18c1 in my 93 cx hatch running open header. i put the engine in and wired vtec up and car ran fine for about three weeks or so. I raced a 88 si hatch with a gsr and beat him by 3 car lengths. The following weekend the guy with the gsr wanted to race my friend's h22 prelude. so i race my friend prelude to see where we stand. here's where the problem comes. from the launch the car is fine, then once i shift to second there is a slight bog but it picks back up then i go to third and the car begins cuttin back really bad. so i change my spark plugs and wires and car runs fine again. no boggin, no breakin up. i decide to race a eg hatch with a gsr in it....same thing happens again that happen when i raced the prelude. after that i take the car to the shop and get my engine light off because it has an o2 sensor code. my mechanic drives the car and it runs fine again..pulls strong. on the way home from the shop i downshift from 5th to 4th and punch it...car seems to have a complete fuel cut and it stalls and backfires..causing my header to crack a little. next day i wake up, car pulls strong again. after bout 3 passes, car begins to sputter at around 6k rpms. Eventually, the car doesnt past 7k like this is me rev limitor and the check engine light comes on. i turn the car off and sit for a minute, turn it back on and engine light is off and car pulls strong again. so i swap my friends ecu in it and car pulls stong again for a couple passes and then goes back to sputtering at 5k to 6k rpms. What could this problem be, i have a brand new distrubitor, spark plugs and wires on it. It doesnt run bad when i regular drive it, besides a slight miss. but its really bad when i go full throttle and take it up into the rpms.

 

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I'm just going to let you think about that for a second. It's got a slight miss and you're beating the hell out of it anyway.

Ok, first things first. Why are you running open header on the street, and what makes you think that it will run properly on the stock tune without the rest of the exhaust attached?

Second, do you have the knock sensor wired up?

Third, what ECU are you using?

Fourth, did you do anything about the O2 sensor code or did you just figure it was nothing and then ignored it?

Fifth, did you try a different distributor yet? That sounds like you may have intermittent crank position sensor problems. That might explain the slight miss also.

Sixth, do you have the IAB control wired to the GSR manifold if you're using the GSR manifold and GSR ECU?

 

And for future reference, leave out your bullshit street racing stories. They don't contribute anything to solving your problem, no ones cares to hear them, and we don't have a very high opinion of street racing around here.

 

If i was just driving the shit around from day to day then i could care less what the hell is wrong with it. i want the shit to run right when i do race the hell out of it. Its I'm running open header until my exhaust comes in, and its a chipped p72 ecu.Dont knw what kind of chip it is. knocked sensor is wired up, as far as the o2 sensor there isn't one on it at all. so basically i ignored that. Other than that, thanks for your input. I will try out these few things and see what happens from there. haven't tried a new distributor and it does have the oem manifold on it.

 

Yikes. Well, you have a few things to do while you wait for your exhaust to arrive.



You need an O2 sensor. I'm surprised it runs very well any of the time if you're not using an O2 sensor. That sure explains a lot though. The lack of O2 sensor is the reason it misfires just driving around. There is no closed loop engine operation without an O2 sensor, and you should be throwing a CEL most of the time for the O2 sensor. That makes me even more scared of whatever unknown kind of chip that is.

If you don't know what kind of chip it is, don't use it. You don't know what engine it's for, what it's tuned for, or anything else about it. The chip is the reason it's not behaving under load (the O2 sensor isn't used past a certain throttle percentage). It's easy to return the ECU to stock without removing the chip socket or anything (there is a jumper which can be cut), so you can use the chipping mods later if you get tuned.

You should have the secondary butterflies control (IAB) wired up to that manifold, or else you'll be losing some power in some areas of the load/RPM range. Basically you aren't even going to get the same performance as stock without that butterfly control wired up. Who knows though, it's possible that your chip is for a different engine or a different manifold so who knows if the IAB output is disabled or not anyway.

 

Guess they're just explaining when the problem first occured, that just happened to be what was going on at the time

 

If it doesn't run right when you're NOT racing it, it's not going to run right when you DO race it.

 

you say the plugs and wires are new, but what brand?