Rep Power: 381

Ok here's the scoop. My head is ported, poshished, and decked. Honda doesn't reccommend over .08 thou. This head is at .10. No interference, still running great on 87 octane. The problem is this: I keep getting the P1259 VTEC SYSTEM MALFUNCTION code. The car has addequate oil. And I seem to burning a little oil. I think the head is from an 01 and I put it onto my 03. I went to hondaautomotive parts and it looked like the 01 had a different part number for the head gasket than the 02 and 03's. The car ran perfect for a day and then the issues arose. I can drive it now but because the ECU goes into safe mode, I'm stuck under 4K. Head studs didn't seem to bottom out and I torqued to 51 ft lbs on all of them in the correct sequence. Everything was done according to the Service Manual directly from Honda. The screen on the vtec solonoid looks great too. Fortunately I got to race a early 90 Prelude dropped with mods and hung with it perfectly the night before. Def. a change in performance. Now I just gotta figure out these hiccups,

 
Rep Power: 381

Oh and a Compression test read 190-190-195-200
So compression should be perfect.

 
Rep Power: 813

I believe the heads are all the same for 01-04. I know when I got the dh work, they just sent me a random head and it worked fine. So did you use the right gasket for your year? But then the compression test is good, so the gasket and port work should be fine. Very strange. Are you sure you just didn't forget to plug something in? We didn't change any of the vtec solenoid gaskets either. Have you found out what that code means. Maybe the manual has something to test it with.

 
Rep Power: 298

i have an 01 using an 04 head with an 03 gasket.... so you should be fine.. like gearbox said.. its probably some connection

 
Rep Power: 298

hey.. you know what.. just thoguht of it.. reset your ecu!!!.. then see what happens

 
Rep Power: 298

oh yea.. my head is decked to .12

 
Rep Power: 381

Cool. Yeah I didn't think the bolts bottomed out at all. Especially since the car is running fine on 87. I went to Hoda today and the gaskets ARE all the same. So I'm OK. Maybe the burning oil is a valve seal. I've reset the ECU so many times though. Today the CEL light stayed on but it's letting me go past 4K. WTF? I'm gonna go to AutoZone again and have them read it. I hooked it up to a PGM yesterday and got the same VTEC system Malfunction code. I just copied the entire VTEC repair chapter out of the service manual so I'll start there. Might be the VTEC Oil pressure switch too. I had the old VTEC switch from the spare head on the car when I installed everything. Last night I swapped it out for the one that came with my car and the same issue occured. We'll see I guess.