inspection
 

For all of you that don't know, we have a thing called emission inspections here in the state of North Carolina. Recently i've had to take my car to a mechanic to get it inspected. My car is a 97 Civic HX with a JDM 96 GSR. Its only throwing one code for the oxygen sensor which is 41. Well I should be gettin ride of that code pretty soon. The only question I have is, when they go to hook the inspection machine to the connector under the driver side dash to check the emissions, the machine doesnt read anything. Im still using the JDM P72 ecu, the mechanic told me the only way I could get it inspected was to use a US ecu, why wouldnt the machine read the JDM ecu, or do I really have to use a US ecu? The only problem with using a US ecu is that its gonna throw a crank sensor code, cause with the JDM it doesnt need the crank sensor so therefor no use for it. If anyone could tell me some more info on this I would appreciate it...

:madfawk: thanks for the help guys :sqfawk:

sorry the reply is slow, life happens. :D

it really depends on which scanner they use. Some will actaully read the version/model number of the ECU which will say that it's a JDM ECU, and some (if it's a generic one) will not know the difference.

Yeah well you didnt read the post very well....it wont read anything at all

A friend of mine has a similar setup.... '97 JDM B18C(GSR) running off the JDM P72 in his '96 hatch. The scanner at emissions testing showed "communication error". After looking around around under the dash we found out that the place that did his swap simply didn't hook up the wires to the port. If that's what you meant by "doesnt read anything" then I'd check that first. A simple test light will show you if that's the problem. After we connected the lines to the ECU he went back to testing the next morning and passed with no problems.

There is also another possibility.... (if you read between the lines a little on my post) if the scanner can tell that it's a JDM ECU it may be programmed to block communications or simply not work. (ie "doesnt read anything") To make sure that JDM ECUs can not get through inspection.

Autozone and places like it offer a free diagnostic check, which can be sued to confirm your port works. Better to go that route than to fail testing again. I know around here emissions testing gets more difficult and can result in your being tested more often if you fail more than a few times.