I have a 96 ek hatch with a d16y7 and i recently just blew a hole in the side of the block from sucking in water through my cold air intake. I bought a d16y8 for $300 with only 110k on it. the guy I got it from gave me the harness, ecu, and cluster for it. what I need to know is what Im gonna have to do to install it? I keep hearing so many different things about it from people. some say the vtec has to be wired, others say that a solenoid is gonna be different???? what do I have to do? only upgrades Im doin is a 4-1 header, cold air intake, and throttle body spacer.

 

Throttle body spacer is a waste of money. Yes - the solenoid will be different since the y7 has no solenoid You'll have to wire up VTEC which is 1 wire. It's really that straightforward, however where you might hit a problem is the IACV wiring. You need to know what the Y8 came out of (year and tranny).

 

I still have to wire up the vtec and ivac even though I got the Y8 harness and ecu??? and the motor came out of the same year car.

 

No you dont need to do any wiring, as long as the harness is for your trans ie 5spd trans 5spd harness. If this is the case then just pull the motor and trans with the harness still on the motor. Once out remove trans from old motor if you are using your old trans, the Ex trans is better if you have it use it, shorter gearing.Now it the time to do the clutch while the engine and trans is out and easy to get, as well as the timing belt and water pump, belts and tune up on the Y8. Do it now while it is easy and save some trouble in the future. Now that you have done all the maintenance plug in the Y8 harness to the Y8 motor ans what ever trans you use. Now just drop the new motor into the engine bay using all the original mounts, now is a good time to replace any bad mounts as well. Hook everything back up, fill with oil, coolant, trans fluid ect. Now you should be good to go, turn key swap in and out. With around 25 more hp and Vtec. The gauge cluster is a plug and play deal, just remove old one and put in new one.