A while back I found out that a previous owner hacked a bunch of wires going into the ECU. They respliced all the wires back together very poorly causing a lot of random faults like stalling, cutting out, etc. You can read about that here old thread. I fixed as many of the wires as I could, as best I could. It's really hard to solder stuff down there though, especially when previous modifications have left the wires very short.

Recently, my intermittent cutting out has returned with the same symptoms. I can give the kick panel a little kick and it'll cut out or get better. So I re-investigated to try and find which wire is the actual cause of my misfortune and I found even more bad wiring jobs. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. The wires that have heatshrink or black fabric electrical tape are ones that I've already messed with. I found both doors were taken off at some point and instead of taking it apart and undoing the connector they cut wires and spliced in heavier gauge wires. Also, I've found both cam position sensor wires and the oil switch wires tampered with (I fixed the oil and cam sensors a long time ago). I've come to the realization that this car was probably set up with big stupid audio junk because I've also found dynamat in the trunk and sheet metal screw holes in the trunk floor pan. But why would someone cut into the ECU wiring?

I'm just so frustrated with this crap. What are my options to fix this stuff for good? Majestic honda has the door harnesses for about $150 and they probably wouldn't be overly difficult to just replace. But things like the engine harness running to the ECU is quite a bit more expensive and would be a major job to replace.

part of the door wiring:




the other end:


I don't think the factory used duct tape on the harness and I'm afraid to look under it:


ECU wiring:




What are these heavy gauge wires spliced in here for? And why did they just cut them off?

 

I'm not sure without consulting a wiring diagram. Were you able to get answers out of him why he hacked up so much of the harness?

 

The woman I bought it from didn't seem like the type of person to mod. She told me there were 3 or 4 owners before her. I'm not mad at her. Heck, you'd have to do a really thorough inspection to know this was lurking underneath.

I just want my car to be reliable and trustworthy...

 

Later tonight if anyone hasn't chimed in, I'll check my service manual to see if I can determine what those wires are. What color are the wires they're spliced to and which pins do they run to on that connector?

 

Get a civic 96+ ecu plug
Depin some wire to replace the one that are to short on your harness so you can make a good splice connection

depin wire is in 2 step look here
http://honda-tech.com/honda-civic-de...plugs-2156228/

 

Heavy gauge wires are used for alarms. To correctly integrate your alarm, you must do that because your alarm will prevent thieves starting the car. Check a viper alarm thread in electronics for pictures. I believe that is the connector.

 

The older these cars get with more and more previous owners this is the type of non-sense you have to look out for before you make the purchase.

I helped a friend a year ago avoid a purchase of an S2000 because it was previously turbo charged. The give away was the oil pan return line was welded up and how all the hose clamps were clamped in different positions. It showed a bunch of stuff removed for whatever reason.

 

Agreed. I'm amazed at some of the hackery that's done to used s2000.

I say worse case scenario, just replace the harness.

The dash harness was $100 and $50 for both door harnesses, which were what I had to replace.

 

Dude...Just replace the harness. Not only because your is so hacked up, but I would not want to sell the car to the next buyer with a chopped up harness.

 

I would love to replace all of the harnesses that have been affected, at least the results part. The labor I'm not crazy about.

Here's a breakdown with current, new prices:
driver door harness: $73
passenger: $50
engine harness: $397

And I'm not really sure what others have been hacked up.

I'll try to get wire colors soon.

I should have taken pics from when I respliced those wires previously. Their splices were seriously amateur. Some of them weren't even soldered together.