2003 Acura CL-S 6spd
So a couple of weeks ago I had my engine swapped with a lower mileage one. I had 116k on the original engine and it started running veryyy sluggish and throwing codes even during light acceleration. The car was barely driveable and felt like it had 100hp less than what it should. A year ago the stealership did some engine work to it (resurfacing heads, realigning valves etc) and they wanted to do it again when I brought my car in for the aforementioned problems. Needless to say I wasn't going to let them do it again since it obviously wasn't worth it.

Long story short, I got an engine with about 20k miles on it and had a performance shop install it. Everything went smoothly but when they went to start the car it wouldn't start. It has power and cranks normally like it's going to start but it doesn't. They replaced the Fuel Pump Relay fuse and still no dice. Tried hooking up some tool to it, and only got it to start when that tool was hooked up. It did something where it applied ground or something to the ecu. The car runs fine while it's running, you can even rev it and it sounds perfect. Got another ecu from a junkyard to see if that was the problem and no dice. Had it towed to the stealership and after two hours of diagnosis they still had no decisive cause to the problem. They put in an ecu they had lying around and no dice, but they were able to communicate with the ecu finally. Something about no signal from the alternator or something so they're going to try to replace the alternator and see if that's the problem. Any ideas? Seems like we've tried everything and the car still wont start normally. The shop that did my swap sounds pretty knowledgeable. They put in a new clutch set, had the flywheel resurfaced and put in the innovative mounts while the engine was out. I do have an aftermarket alarm (Compustar) w/ remote start, but they didn't have to remove any of that stuff during the engine swap. Any help you all could give would be veryyyy appreciated.

 

sounds like a nice bill from the stealership to come once its done. How much did the whole swap cost with labor? you should have invested in the 3.5 if that was in the budget.

 

Got the motor at a steal at about $1500 and the labor from the performance shop was only $1000. I strongly considered a 3.5 build and was going to go for it but I would've been doing so on an engine that only a year ago had valves aligned and heads resurfaced. I didn't think the motor was strong enough to invest $1500-2000 parts/labor into which is why I just got it swapped.

Any ideas on the starting problem, anyone?

 

bump

 

What ECU are you using? The 1 that came with the car or another one? You need to use a 03 6MT ECU. Anything else will not work.
What "tool" did you hook up?
If you have spark & fuel then it's going to be electrical. It may be the Transponder system(chip in key)
What year/model was the new engine from?
Are you sure the new engine was in running condition?
Is the shop sure they connected everything correctly? They need to double check all connections.

 

So far, 3 different ecu's have been used including the original one that I already had. I'm not sure what it was they hooked up to it to get it started. The dealer did use some kind of expensive scan tool though to get the codes from the ECU. The engine was from an 03' CL-S and it was in running condition. Tried two different keys and still nothing

 

Now was the motor from a auto or manual? If its not from the manual you need a few different sensors.

 

It was from a manual. Had a flywheel and clutch and everything...

 

Have you had the/A mechanic try swapping the crank position sensor?

 

fyi...it turned out to be the ECU. Not sure how or why it went bad but the car is starting fine now and I'm picking it up today. Fresh motor, new clutch, ecu and inno mounts. Ahhhh, I can't wait...

 

I was going to suggest the imobolizer, but it seems like you found the issue.

Which brings me to my question. If it was the ECU, how did the other 2 ecu's not work? Was it because they forgot to have the key programmed to the new ecu? (imobolizer is integrated to the ecu so there's no way around it but to program the key to the ecu)

 

One of them was my original one with 116k on it, the other was one we picked up from a junkyard so no telling what kind of condition it was in. The one that worked was a new one. I'm still not sure why the others didn't work, I'm not sure why circuitry would go bad unless it was banged really hard.

 

all you need now is a blower

 

Still waiting on you to sell me yours How's everything been? Did you get the UR Pulley installed yet?

 

John,

btw, One 6 sucks. They had my car for 3 weeks and did very little and didn't seem very motivated to do anything anyway. I took it to Suja 1 out in Carol Stream and they were

 

oh really...damm sorry to hear that..one6 use to be really good, guess the original techs left or something....you know any place that will tune and dyno...we gotta hookup soon Brian

 

so what was the end cost of getting the car to work period?

 

My response above which was about $2500 + $500 for the ecu.

 

Yeah I was so frustrated with them, it was like they didn't even want my business. Dropped the car off before I went out of town for the weekend and they didn't even touch the car. Let's hookup sometime next weekend.

Jason from Suja 1 can do dyno tuning. They'd have to schedule it with a dyno. Have you gotten a piggyback yet? I got dyno'd at P&L Motorsports in Franklin Park a while back. They said they could tune but it's a subaru/vw/audi shop. They seemed pretty competant though so they should be able to tune for you. I got the boomslang harness but haven't ordered the Neo yet.