CEL light came on friday night. Had just put in some fog lights and hardwired them to the battery. Didn't move or touch anything else in the engine bay. It didn't come on right away, I was going from a friends to home... about 4-5miles. It was snowing pretty heavily and very icy, so I was going very slow. It's an auto so I have D4 D3 2 and 1 for gearing choices. Most of the time I had it in D3 for the ride home... about 3 times I dropped to 2 for about 5 seconds and once dropped to 1 for abour 10 seconds. RPM's weren't really high, never past redline.

First noticed the CEL about 1/8th mile from my place. Everything seems to be running fine. Any idea if it came on because of the gearing I was choosing or if it's something else? It was wet/snowy/icy/freezing... perfect combination for anything to go wrong.

I know that if you short 2 pins... on the ?ECU? that the CEL light will blink the number of times to show the code. Is that right? Can someone give me some more detail on how to see what code it's giving? I'd like to try and fix this myself instead of giving $150 to the local dealer just to have them tell me it was nothing.

 

http://www.c-speedracing.com/faq/06.php
^do that, see what code(s) you're throwing, and then go from there.

 

That good for my 96 prelude too? I looked once and didn't see it as described. I checked the driver side too. I'll go look again after taking a better look at the pictures.

 

It should. Sometimes the service connector is tucked behind the kickpanel.

 

damn, I can't find what they are talking about. Lots of wires and connectors but I can't find any with just 2 wires. Least I found was with 3. Guess I'll have to have a shop do it. I sure was hoping I could at least be going into the dealer/shop with an idea what was wrong. Maybe next time.

 

I found it
behind the center console

 

sweet, I'm assuming it's the one on the left with the two wires...and you get to that from the passenger side?

I recognice that big ugly yellow one from when I was under there.... but I think it went from one side to the other. I'd go check it now but I should have been asleep over an hour ago. 6am comes early!

 

Ok, I looked on the passenger side.... didn't see it. Found something that looks very similar on the drivers side. The connector on the right was grey, not blue and the wire colors going into the connector with 2 wires was brown and green.

I shorted it, tured the key 2 click and the CEL light blinked once. That was it. I let it sit there for a min, nothing. Just the one blink nearly after all the other lights went out... and then it was just steady on. Did I short the wrong one or is that a valid responce from it?

 

I don't know if it's worth noteing... since the check engine light has come on... the car has more power it seems. More "push you back in the seat" type feel than before. This link shows that a code one could be an Oxygen Sensor (that is if that really was a code one and not just a fluke). Could that actually be the code and could that be why it seems like it's got more power recently?

 

You probably shorted the MES connector, which is part of the SRS system. If you had shorted the service connector, the CEL would blink out your codes, and then repeat itself over and over.