Snowblind113

Hey everyone,

I recently purchased a 1996 Honda Civic DX with 192,000 miles, I got it at an excellent price and my 2door rx7 just wasn't cutting it with the mpg and increasing gas prices. Since owning the car I have cleaned the IACV, replaced the battery, changed the oil, replaced the gas cap, and cleared most of the trouble codes. for the past 2 weeks however I have had one CEL giving me constant problems.

Symtoms:

-CEL light was coming on intermitently until 2 days ago now is constantly on
-A/C does not work when this CEL is on
-Stuck in Limp Mode, can hear the ECU make an audible "click" noise when the CEL comes on.
-Will not rev past ~2500rpms (no tach)
-High idle ~1200
- Will not go faster than 55mph because of rev limiter
-sluggish acceleration
-Brought to Autozone and they were getting a "connection error from the diagnostic unit.


Hope someone can help, loving the gasmileage so far.

Herman Wiegman

I think the answer to this ECU problem is covered in an other post on these forums.

332229-2001-civic-lx-lots-problems

https://www.civicforums.com/forums/3...-problems.html

I am not quite sure if this is the same issue as with the 2001-2004 civics, but it could be.

You can also check out this post/tread.

https://www.civicforums.com/forums/3...u-problem.html

HLNW

FrankHondatech

Hmm the clicking noise you are talking about is totaly normal it the relay receiving power from the ECu to power the CEL.

If there is a communication error with the OBD plug there a huge probleme.

But You can still be able to read cod using the Old methode with the Flashing Check engine light but its a bit complicated to do and I don't know the exact procedure for this.


There is probably a probleme with one of the captor signal if the engine doens't want to go over 2500Rpm.

I will try to look for some Service Bulletin from honda for you maybe I can find something about this issue.

Aetoc

iTrader: (1)

I'll bet you anything that you need a new ecu, and need to check all electrical grounds in the car. As soon as the ecu won't communicate with a code reader, you can pretty much call it dead. I had the same problem, replaced the ECU, and its back to it's old self again. You just have to make sure a bad ground or alternator isnt the reason it fried, otherwise the new one will blow up as well.

FrankHondatech

I never seen a ECU completly dead. Most of the time its a part of it like Injection part of it or Idle control,

Even on a Dead injection part of the ECU the OBD can normaly still communicate wth that part but value will make no sense and they cannot be reset.

Aetoc

iTrader: (1)

Well that's true, my ecu wasn't completely dead, cause the car still ran, but part of the circuitry was severely damaged, enough that the ecu wouldn't connect to diagnostics and killed half the gauge cluster. I figured it's not worth it to attempt to figure out what part of the ecu was fried and order the components to re-solder onto the board.

FrankHondatech

Well you can buy a new ECM they are really cheap now on ebay about 35-45$

corolla82GL

I had the same trouble before, thanks to google I found the youcanic site, which helped me solved my limp mode problem.