OBD1 Swap EJ9

Swapping your D14A3 or D14A4 ECU to an OBD1 type

This article describes what I did to go from SFi (Simplified Fuel injection,
almost like DPFi (Duel Point Fuel injection)) to MPFi (Multi Point Fuel
injection). Specifically this article goes into the details of the ’96-’98 era pre-
facelift Civic with chassis code EJ9. There are other chassis which are
practically the same. But there are also the MA/MB chassis Civics with
D14A7 and D14A8 engines for instance and the OBD2b EJ9 facelift Civics
to name a few. Similarly these Civics can very probably be converted to run
an OBD1 ECU in a similar fashion, but the details may be (very) different.
Please consult my other pages and especially the pinout pages on this
website and see if you can work it out. Also if you have information about
such conversions I am very happy to share that information here on this
website.

The OBD1 conversion can practically only be performed if the IM (intake

manifold) is already swapped for a sideflow IM (or do it simultaneously),
see my article. This is because the RACV (Rotary Air Control Valve) on the
TB (Throttle Body) cannot be controlled by the OBD1 ECU and therefore
has to be replaced by an IACV (Idle Air Control Valve) on the IM (a.k.a
EACV).

The reasons for doing this swap are easy:

Reason 1: you get 4 separate controlled injectors instead of 2 pairs of
injectors, so it may improve overall efficiency of the engine. (On the stock
D14A3/A4 engine injectors 1 and 4 are connected together and 2 and 3
are. That is basically what makes it SFi).
Reason 2: nobody I know knows how to reprogram the stock D14 ECU, but
the OBD1 ECU’s are very well known. So adjusting the engine
management will be easy and you do not have to piggyback it (which in my
opinion is the bad way of getting some hp). Reason 3: adding VTEC in the
future is easy.

Note: before doing the OBD1 swap you need the IM swap!

Extra note: ok an OBD1 swap can be done without IM swap if you really
like to know. I did it once on an EJ6 in 2014, the in-its-time-pretty-famous
Jamex Turbo Civic. The IACV was placed on the original TB RACV position
using a custom flange I made.
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Jamex Turbo Civic build around 1998 by Henk v.d. Warrenburg and OBD1
swapped by me around 2014. In this picture a hardly visible Garrett turbo
was fitted (replaced now).
Ok, lets get back on track to OBD1 swapping. There is a hard way and an
easy way to do the OBD1 swap, most of this article is about the hard way.

I will try to tell every detail of this swap at the moment. However, I might
have missed something. So far I know I am the first to have done this swap
(and had a good result). Since I was the first to do this correctly, I had not
all information there is today. In retrospect, I did it the though way. But at
least I understood the complete wire loom of my car’s engine. For
everybody having an interest in the EJ9 and how I converted it to OBD1,
read the entire article. But when you have low skills on wiring and you are
in a hurry, scroll way down for the incredible easy and not so expensive
method to do it OEM style plug and play.

Parts required:
– Distributor of a D15B7 engine (TD-41U).
– IACV a.k.a. EACV from an OBD1 engine if you did not have it on your IM
already.
– P06 ECU preferably (with stock 190cc injectors chipping is required).
– Custom conversion harness (see instructions) or at least a set of OBD1
ECU connectors to repin.
– Make sure you have extra wires and connectors for the distributor and
IACV.

Optional:
-240cc injectors to replace the 190cc stock injectors, 240cc injectors might
run well with stock P06 ECU but better have it chipped and tuned right.
– Throttle body without RACV. Not really sure which ones are the best fit,
but they do exist.

Notes:
This article is based on the conversion harness I made. It has an extra 10
wire connector for the 2 extra injector wires, 3 extra heated lambda wires
and 5 extra distributor wires. Yes 5 that is, so you need actually to run 10
extra wires through the firewall? No, 2 are already there, the injectors. And
the heated lambda is not strictly necessary. You can keep the stock lambda
but the ECU must be reprogrammed for it or it will throw a code 42 and it
will run in safe mode. AND that SUCKS! I can tell from experience.

Conversion harnass:
Below the ECU pinouts of a standard OBD1 sheme is shown and the
pinout of the D14A3 and D14A4 engines are shown, P3X and P3Y
respectively. The OBD1 and P3X/P3Y pinouts vary between engine and
year of build in colors or functionality, but the vital information is there. For
the record, there are more cars over the world which incorporate the
P3X/P3Y type ECU, so for those people the pinout may work as well.

For a more comprehensive list of all OBD1 pinouts that are possible
(including IAB for B18C4 engines) please refer to my other pinout pages
for OBD1 and SFi.

The A and D connectors for both type of ECU’s are the same. However, the
way the pins are numbered is different! I think it has to do with the transition
from OBD1 to OBD2a. Furthermore, the fact that the connectors are the
same also suggests that all pins can be relocated between connectors A
and D to the OBD1 positions and the B connector from OBD1 can be
added to the system to make a complete OBD1 conversion. Indeed this
can be done instead of fabricating a conversion harnass. First I started with
the harnass so errors could be traced and reversing the process was quite
easy when it would be a total failure. After a few months of driving
succesfully with the harnass I wanted to clean things up a little and instead
of using a harnass I relocated all the original pins (sometimes pin sizes
differ and a bit cutting and soldering is needed, you’ll find out yourself).

Common OBD1 pinout. This layout is based on European P06, P28 and
P30 ECUs for D15B7, D16Z6, D16Z9 and B16A2 engines.
Nomenclature OBD1:
ACC – A/C clutch relay
ACS – A/C switch
ALTC – Alternator relay, not always present
ALTF – Alternator switch
BKSW – Brake switch, not always present
CKP – Crankshaft position, Pulse or Mass, gives multiple pulses during
each cam shaft rotation (20+ pulses)
CYP – Cylinder position, Pulse or Mass, gives 1 pulse during each cam
shaft rotation
DLC – Data link connector
ECT – Engine coolant temperature
FANC – Radiator fan relay, not always present
FLR – Fuel relay, 1 is usually present, 2 is joint with 1 if present
IACV – Idle air control valve, controls 2 wire type valve
IAT – Intake air temperature
ICM – Ignition firing pulses, 1 and 2 are joined if both are present
IGP – Battery feed, active when key is turned, 1 and 2 are joined
INJ – Injector, the number refers to the cylinder number used (1 is on the
side with the belts)
LG – Grounded shield, for CYP, TDC, CKP and PO2S wires, 1 and 2 are
joint
MAP – Manifold absolute pressure
MIL – Motor indication light, provides the blinking light (CEL) signal
PCS – Purge cut-off solenoid
PG – Ground circuits, 1 and 2 are joined and connected to chassis at G101
at the thermostate housing
PO2H (HTCNTL or O2SHTC) – Oxygen sensor heater control, connects to
battery to activate the heater
PO2S – Oxygen sensor signal
SCS – Service check connector, short to SG2 to read CEL codes
SG – Sensor circuit ground, 1 is for MAP circuit, 2 for all other sensors
STS – Starter switch
TDC – Top dead centre, Pulse or Mass, gives 4 pulses during each cam
shaft rotation
TPS – Throttle position signal
VBU – Back up battery feed, always hot (unless battery is removed)
VCC – 5V sensor feed, 1 is for MAP circuit, 2 for all other sensors
VSS – Vehicle speed sensor
VTM – Oil pressure switch
VTS – VTEC solenoid, only present on VTEC equiped vehicles
Pinout of the P3X and P3Y ECUs used for D14A3 and D14A4 engines.
Nomenclature D14 (OBD1):
ELIMA (ELD) – Electric load detection, not always present and can be
ignored
IACV – Idle air control valve, controls 3 wire type valve, Negative
and Positive, for the 2 wire type valve conversion keep IACVP and discard
IACVN
IGPLS (ICM) – Ignition pulse, identical to ICM from OBD1
IGR – Ignition pulse return signal, not used in OBD1 for the ECU
IMO – Immo system, not available in OBD1 (!)
INJ – Injector, the numbers refer to the pair of cylinders connected (1 is on
the side with the belts)
O2S (PO2S) – Oxygen sensor (lambda sensor) signal, identical to PO2S
from OBD1
PSPSW (PSW) – Power steering switch, identical to PSW from OBD1, not
always present and can be ignored
TDC – Top dead centre LED sensor instead of coils, gives 4 pulses during
each cam shaft rotation, can be used instead of TDCP from OBD1 but
misses shielding
TXD/RXD (DLC) – Data link connector, identical to DLC from OBD1

Making the conversion work:

The basic of the conversion is very simple, relocate the wires with identical
functionality from the original position to the OBD1 position either using a
harnass or by repinning directly. Signals not supported by OBD1 can be
removed. For ¾ of the wires this process is straight forward. However there
are 4 issues that require more attention. These issues are injectors, heated
lambda, ignition and idle air control respectively. Those issues are
documented further on.

For the conversion harnass it means that an extra connector (or at least
some wires) is needed for the following signals which are not supported by
the original D14A3/A4 engine harnass:
1: INJ3
2: INJ4
3: CYPP
4: CYPM
5: TDCM
6: CKPP
7: CKPM
8: PO2H
9: additional IGP2 (split!)
10: additional SG2 (split!)

The splits mentioned above at numbers 9 and 10 are needed for the
heated lambda sensor. For information on this sensor, see a few sections
below under ‘heated lambda’. Here I set out why and where these splits are
needed. In all 6th generation Civics, one or two big splitter plugs resides
under the IM. In these splitter plugs, several circuits are split into multiple
wires. Circuits IGP2 and SG2 are splitted there, as well as some others.
Since the heated lambda sensor has 4 wires of which 2 from splitted
circuits, cars equipped with a heated lambda are likely to have an
additional IGP2 and SG2 split under the IM, which misses in our EJ9
looms. Therefore, we have to construct our own splits. Personally I prefer
splitting near the ECU so you can make sure the correct wire is splitted.
My prototype harness was build from yunkyard parts, I was very lucky to
get my hands on a free D14A4 ECU that had been flooded (thnx CRX2).
The harnass is now located somewere in France -Thomas, I hope you still
enjoy it- and looked like this:
P3X/P3Y to P06 conversion harness I custom made once.
Without the use of a conversion harnass you should work like Leo, here
you see his OBD1 conversion re-pinning connectors A and D and adding a
‘new’  B-connector.
OBD1 conversion done by Leo.
Starting:
To make work a bit more practical remove the engine wire harness from
the fire wall. There have to be 8 extra wires pulled through the grommit
shown in the picture. Three of them are for the heated lambda I used and
the other 5 are for the ignition. Use different colors if possible, at least mark
all the wires. Hopefully looking at this mess don’t get confused. I am just
trying to tell were to add the new wires to the engine wire harness under
the battery. I did remove the stock grommet and stuffed al extra wires
through it without cutting. In a later stadium (not needed for this OBD1
conversion) I even pulled through a Zeitronix lambda wire through there,
but cutting the grommit was required this time.
View of the grommit and splitter. Splitter normally sits under the glovebox.
Injectors:
The injector connections are different as follows, the engine has 4 injectors.
The stock SFi ECUs have only 2 signal wires going to the injectors so
injectors have to be fired in a paired fashion. A ‘normal’ OBD1 ECU has 4
separate signal wires, one for each injector which enables to control each
injector individually.

On the stock D14A3 and D14A4 wirelooms the 2 wires from the ECU are
spliced in 2 pairs making eventually 4 wires to 4 injectors. This splicing is
done in the so-called splicer (or splitter), found above the passengers feet
(LHD car at least, RHD I do not know). A very dark picture of my splicer
during the process is shown below:
Splicer under glovebox, color described here is for orange splicer. Other
colors may occur (i.e. brown), but those have a different layout. Stock those
splicers are taped to the loom and may be hard to spot.
The injector splicer works as follows; sets of 3 or 4 wires are shorted with
eachother internally. See the red boxes below indicating which wires are
shorted to eachother. For the injectors the splicer splits the INJ14 wire from
the ECU into INJ1 and INJ4 wires to injectors 1 and 4. Similar INJ23 is
spliced into 2 wires for injectors 2 and 3.
Splicer diagram, red boxes indicate which groups of wires are shorted
together inside the splicer. Diagram only valid for orange splicers.
So from the splicer, 4 wires already run to the engine and no additional wire
has to be pulled through the firewall for the injectors. When building a
conversion harnass, I suggest the following to make it work:

– Connect OBD1 INJ1 (Brown) to the original D14 wire INJ14 which runs to
the splicer (Brown/Yellow) on position 14.
– Connect OBD1 INJ2 (Red) to the original D14 wire INJ23 which runs to
the splicer (Red/Blue) on position 4.
– At the splicer, disconnect INJ3 (Blue) from position 6.
– At the splicer, disconnect INJ4 (Yellow) from position 16.
– Now connect OBD1 INJ3 (extra wire No. 1) to the disconnected INJ3 wire
going into the engine bay (Blue).
– Now connect OBD1 INJ4 (extra wire No. 2) to the disconnected INJ4 wire
going into the engine bay (Yellow).

This way should give you 4 good running injectors. The wires left on the
splitter should be insulated or they could trigger spontaneous fuel injection,
unlikely but don’t take risks. Teh splicer schematic is now more like this if
everything is done right:
Splicer diagram after the modifications.
Heated lambda:
The difference between the stock 1-wire and OBD1-type 4-wire lambda is
the heater. The heater generally improves accuracy of the lambda and
therefore fuel economy in my experience. When at full throttle the lambda
sensor is not used, so the maximum performance of the car is not
influenced. Most ‘normal’ OBD1 ECU’s require a 4-wire lambda, or they will
give error codes. This can be omitted if the ECU is chipped, but I advise to
install a 4-wire lambda anyway.

The following 3 wires have be pulled through the firewall:

– PO2H (extra wire No. 8), activator of the heater element
– additional IGP2 (extra wire No. 9), feed of the heater element
– additional SG2 (extra wire No. 10), ground of the lambda sensor

Lambda’s with 1-wire use the exhaust as ground, 4-wire lambda’s feature a
separate ground and are therefore also more accurate. The signal cable
(PO2S) of the 4-wire lambda is connected to the original signal cable
(probably White) of the original 1-wire lambda. So this gives 4 wires total
(PO2S, PO2H, IGP2 and SG2) that have to be connected to the 4-wire
lambda.

The following common 4-wire lambda sheme’s are known to me:

-OEM lambda; PO2S (White), PO2H (Black), IGP2 (Black) and SG2
(Green)
-Imitation lambda; PO2S (Black), PO2H (White), IGP2 (White) and SG2
(Grey)
-Imitation lambda; PO2S (Blue), PO2H (Black), IGP2 (Black) and SG2
(White)

Make sure to connect the correct wires with each other and you should
have a working 4-wire lambda. The PO2H and IGP2 wires from the lambda
always have the same colors and it does not matter which order this pair is
connected since it is a simple heating element that just needs current to
flow through for it to work and heat up..

Distributor:
So let’s continue to the distributor. The stock distributor has 7 wires. Only 4
of them can be reused. To get the new distributor with 9 wires running, 5
new wires have to be added. That means 5 wires have to be pulled through
the firewall. Those five are already mentioned, I will repeat them here:
– CYPP (extra wire No. 3)
– CYPM (extra wire No. 4)
– TDCM (extra wire No. 5)
– CKPP (extra wire No. 6)
– CKPM (extra wire No. 7)

Honda usually shields all 6 CYP, TDC and CKP wires or the three P
variants at least in later models using the LG circuit. I have not used
shielding at all but do advice to use it if you can. I expect it just improves
the quality of how the engine runs by having a minimum of electro-
magnetic interference on the wires. The stock D14A3/A4 distributor is
shown in the following picture and diagram.

D14A3 and D14A4 distributor D4T94-04 connector pinout.

D14A3 distributor and 5 new wires are waiting to be connected.
The wires that can be reused are:
– 3 TDC (becomes TDCP)
– 5 IGPLS (becomes ICM)
– 6 IGR
– 7 IG1

The D15B7 distributor I used is shown in the following picture and diagram.
The wires with black fonts can be connected to the old D14A3/A4 wires.
The wires with green fonts and an asterix* should be connected to the new
wires pulled through the firewall.
D15B7 distributor TD-41u connector pinout.

New D15B7 distributor nicely connected.

RACV to IACV:
First of all the RACV is useless anymore, so disconnect it. You could use
the TB from an OBD1 engine but for me it was pointless. I do not want to
have the cold idle valve system at all which is on those. Later I learned that
there are OBD2 engines with throttle bodies that would have been a perfect
and clean fit without any appendages (I have been told D16Y7 TB but the
once I have seen/owned all had the RACV, anybody who knows more is
welcome to clarify).
The OBD1 IACV on the manifold will have two wires. You can use the old
RACV wires, the connector with 3 wires should be replaced by a connector
with 2 wires. You need to throw away one wire of them, I recommend
throwing away the orange wire and connect the black/blue wire to the
OBD1 IACV signal. The yellow/black wire goes to the yellow/black wire of
the IACV. See also my EACV page.

TB with 3 wire RACV.

TB with RACV removed and closed.
Almost there:
The wiring should be ready by now. Put everything nice in place. Swap the
injectors if needed. Connect the ECU and see if the car gets running.
Put the grommet and the wires where they belong.
When the battery is placed almost nothing can be seen of the extra wires.
Conversion harness connected, ECU is upside down because 2 wires were
too short by accident.
Nothing to see, only one of the two plastic screws will not fit anymore.
The engine bay, you have to know these engine to see the things going on.
And the result finally came in, 116.4bhp@6648rpm and 142Nm of torque at
the bottom… (nice results yes, but later I found out that the timing of the
cam was 1 tooth advanced… with an adjustable cam gear and some
testing on the dyno it might have scored 120+ bhp I assume, but now I am
typing this text the engine already is much more powerful due to the VTEC
head I installed quickly after.
Results after IM swap and blind tune with a lot of guesses in place got me
to 116 bhp.
Tuning your OBD1 swap:
Getting the best out of your OBD1 swap is done in my experience by the
following. Start out with P06 base maps; those originate from the 102 bhp
D15B7 engine. You or your tuner should fit the car with a wideband lambda
sensor. The fuel maps should all be approximately around AFR 1:12-13 at
wide open throttle (WOT). Most Honda engines are not really sensitive to
the fuel mixture in that region, and it gets about the max hp. Don’t be
surprised if the fuel values end up higher than the stock 1.5 litre maps, you
also have more hp to burn them for! This happens since a good upgraded
1.4 engine breaths better than a stock 1.5.

Leave the ignition maps stock. But adjust the ignition timing to 16 deg

BTDC, since this is the normal timing of OBD1 engines. The marks on the
D14A3/A4 crank pulley are 10, 12 and 14. So you should time the ignition
(using a stroboscope) a little bit before the 14 deg mark passes. Only (fine)
tune the ignition maps on a dyno please, it’s not worth street tuning ignition
maps on the road since only very small changes from stock are needed to
get maximum performance in general. And in the case of higher
compression ratios and the loud exhausts found on many Civics, it is hard
to hear detonation inside the car. It costed me a mini-me once…

The incredible easy and no so expensive method:

Nowadays some very large shortcuts can be made by throwing away the
original EJ9 engine loom. Instead search for an EK3 OBD2a engine loom
(Civic VTEC-E 96-98). This looms fits on our engine and interior plugs,
comes with VTEC equipped and after market conversion harnesses can be
bought for it. So the section called ‘conversion harness’ till ‘RACV to IACV’
can all be skipped as far as the electrical wiring goes. As a bonus you
could use D15B7 dizzy or even go for the EK3 dizzy. The last will fit straight
away, but the first one can be connected with a dizzy conversion harness,
readily available these days. That is awfully easy compared to the rest of
my write-up.

Just ask anything you need to know and I might help you out or improve
this article.

Not all possibilities that come with OBD1 swap teritory are covered in this
article. For VTEC on a D14 see D14 VTEC and for wiring VTEC in general
see VTEC connectors. IAB (for B18C4 engine), alternator variations and
working with A/T versus M/T enginelooms will be added as seperate pages
soon. If you have questions on those latters subjects, contact me and I’ll
directly let you know or speed up the process to have the pages written.