Okay, my brother has a 1997 cavalier, that he recently purchased. The car has a motor out of a 95 cavalier (2.2 liter). The ecu is the stock 1997 ecu. We are both completely new the the cavalier and working on it. The car is running like complete garabage. I am very capable mechanic, i have a 500 hp turbo honda hatchback that i built . I know that with hondas 92-95 hondas are obd1 cars, while the 97 and up or obd2 cars. To overcome this problem with motor swaps we buy obd 2 to obd1 jumper harness. My question is do the cavaliers work off the same principals and if so does this sound like the culprit of his horrible running mess, rite now. If any one could point me in the way of a comprable mechanic to help figure this thing out for him that would be awesome. Thanks for the read and the help
Brian
In the J-Body's 96+ are ODBII, pre 96 is ODBI. There is no jumper harness for J-body's between the 2. More info on your proble is needed. Truly this should probably be in the maintance forum, but to say it is running horrible is not telling us any. When did this start? How many miles. Have you changed anything yet?
FU Tuning
without your profile filled out we dont even know what engine were dealing with.
there are some differences in years that could cause some poor running conditions for sure. any check engine light?? what codes??
christopher nelson wrote:Okay, my brother has a 1997 cavalier, that he recently purchased. The car has a motor out of a 95 cavalier (2.2 liter). The ecu is the stock 1997 ecu. We are both completely new the the cavalier and working on it. The car is running like complete garabage. I am very capable mechanic, i have a 500 hp turbo honda hatchback that i built . I know that with hondas 92-95 hondas are obd1 cars, while the 97 and up or obd2 cars. To overcome this problem with motor swaps we buy obd 2 to obd1 jumper harness. My question is do the cavaliers work off the same principals and if so does this sound like the culprit of his horrible running mess, rite now. If any one could point me in the way of a comprable mechanic to help figure this thing out for him that would be awesome. Thanks for the read and the help
Brian
Kind of. But the thing you'll run into is that your OBD-II ECU in the 97 is actually in charge of a few more things than the OBD-I ECU is. So you'll have even more problems with things than just the engine not running well.
Part of the reason that your car is running like garbage is cuz you're using the 95 (MPFI) engine on the 97 (SFI) computer. It's most likely arguing because of things like that cam sensor not being hooked up.
