Help me with my damn vtec
 

1) I bought my car with the vtec not working.
2) The check engine light was on, at the same time I did my gsr dash swap and the check engine light dissapeared on my new cluster (wiring fault)
3) It turns out that my O2 sensor was completely gone so I replaced that, they say thats the reason of the light coming on...

NOW

To get my vtec working I attached a wire to the + battery side and touched the single vtec solenoid plug pin....it clicked meaning it's not dead.
I then took it apart, cleaned it, put my oil to full, let my car heat up...Still NOTHING.

What's going on? Would the check engine light be on because of something like this? I might run a light from my solenoid inside and it should go on if it turns on. I can't hear the cross over at all. Its a stock D16z6 and I can't hear or feel it.

-Orest-

I think the Vtec kicks in around 5200. I used to have the same motor and it was very hard to hear, I could hear it more with an intake. How do you know for sure that it's not working?

check engine light should come on if the selenoid or anything else vtec requires isnt working properly.i think your expecting to much its not a B series, the crossovers barely audible especially if u have exhuast ect.

I thought I would hear it come on. But I've been doing some research and a lot of people are saying that you can barely hear it on a SOHC. I just want to know that my engine is working properly.
Maybe my engine isn't producing enough oil pressure?

Don't jump to huge conclusions, the chances your motor is not producing enough oil pressure is very small.

First of all.. you shouldn't of hooked your vtec soleniod up to your battery. Do you know how many amps your battery has?? Do you know what the soleniod is rated for?? For all we know you could of blown the circuit.

Chances are, if you have no v-tec related codes then v-tec is working. Vtec in a SOHC is very quiet, but a few things to check are your coolant level and oil level, if either of these are low then you will not engage vtec. There are obviously other inputs that are needed, but most of the other inputs would cause a CEL.

You can hear the vtec kick in more on the Y8 motors, but not so much on the Z6. And you won't really feel it kick in like on a b series or a k series.

yeah, I cant feel **** when mine kicks in, can hear it a little bit.

i find the easiest way to tell if vtec is workin on a SOHC is to unplug the vtec pressure switch and/or vtec solenoid do a pull and see how it feels, then plug it back in and do another pull. The only way i can really tell if vtec is working or not, is if its NOT working, it doesn't pull like it should above 5000rpms, when it does work, it pulls like it does through the rest of the revband. Like mentioned above, you can barely hear/feel vtec on a SOHC b/c only 8 of the valves are being affected by the vtec engagement, whereas on a DOHC VTEC all 16 of the valves are being affected, thats why b-series, h-series and k-series vtec engines pull so hard when vtec engages.