So first of all, I have an ek 96dx honda civic coupe. It came stock with the d16y7 motor. I snapped a head stud on the intake side while putting on a zc manififold, found a d16y8 head for cheap so decided that would be easier. Boy was I wrong. Replaced head gasket, torqued everything down correctly. But has issues. I have not wired up vtec yet. And i did not rewire the iacv to the back of the manifold. i reused the d16y7 throttle body for the meantime ( just for transportation) but had a real high idle about 3k+!! I could possibly have a vaccum leak but not 100% sure, due to the fact that my car is in New Mexico, and I am in maryland for the summer. So this is just for information purposes, this is the first time i've messed around with a 4 cylinder. But when I was messing around with it when i used the ex ecu that came with the d16y8 head it put the car in like a "limp mode" idiling at 2K, but when i gave it gas, it would die out. The same thing happened when i tried using a gsr throttle body with either ecu. The car runs at 3k with the dx ecu.
I'm really just trying to get some ideas so when I get back home I know what to expect.
The main questions I need answered are: Do you HAVE to have a vtec distributor with the vtec head? I assumed the d16y7 and d16y8 ones were the same.
I know that threre is Vtec and Iacv rewiring to do on the ecu and I have a printout for this at home.
Do I HAVE to have a Knock Sensor? I know the d16y8 block has one but the d16y7 does not. So that being said. Should i switch to obd1?? With an obd1 distributor?
Also i do have the gsr throttle body which is obd1 i believe, and i inttend to use this once the car is running well.
I am also running after market header and exhaust if that makes a difference, i'm only using 1 02 sensor.
Try to get back to me about this if you have done this before, time is not an issue. Thanks, Brendon Bond

 

the issue you said with it idleing at 2k and when you give it gas and it die's out. i had that problem when i swaped non vtec to vtec come to find out my harness plugs on manifold were plugged up to wrong sensor. switched plugs and it worked great.
the plugs that i had backwards were on the intake manifold one of them i rember was the tps senor and something else they have same type of plug.

 

Yeah a major runnability issue like that I would look for sensors miswired like 94 said. Vacuum leak will also cause a high idle. It should run perfectly with a VTEC head yet all the old non-VTEC components except the head. Other than that of course the VTEC will never kick in...

 

Tps and map sensors have the same plug also what helped me was pperfecting my timing and a new fuel filter and I had to match my dizzy with my head but if yours line up it should be fine