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Old 05-06-2011, 11:33 PM   #1 (permalink)
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Rostra Cruise on Civic VX motor problems

Well I've installed 2 audiovox cruise units, and a rostra electric cruise unit on my 97 civic hatch.

The rostra has always performed flawless. I swapped in a d15z1 motor from a Civic VX and the rostra just doesn't like holding the speed for more than a few minutes.

It will set and maintain 70mph for a while and then it just stops holding MPH. Curious, I tried it at 45mph in 5th gear and 4th gear and it wouldn't hold in those gears or that speed either.

I'm going to try playing with the cruise dip switches for the "gain", but man, i'm worried that the VX motor with lean burn, and the odd transition off lean burn at speed is causing the rostra unit to stop holding speed.

Any body have experience with aftermarket cruise and the d15z1?

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Old 05-07-2011, 01:24 AM   #2 (permalink)
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UGH! I spent the last hour troubleshooting this thing and I'm almost out of options.

My settings for the DX motor was mid gain and low engine/setup timer,

On the VX engine I tried extra low, low, mid and high gains on low engine/setup timer, and also tried mid gain with high engine setup/timer (which is the middle of mid, high and extra high).

I tried disconnecting the alternator in case it was causing some voltage dips or spikes, nothing, tried moving the cruise unit in case it was too sharp of a angle for the cable. Neither of these had any effect.

Now i'm just down to some weird glitch in the distributor or the VSS, because those are the only 2 things that have changed from DX to VX motor swapping. Also the throttle linkeage/geometry was different so I had to re-mount the cruise cable a different way. So I suppose it could be that as well.

If all those things don't work then I don't know what I'm gunna do. Anybody know if I can use a non vtec d series distributor on the d151?
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Old 05-07-2011, 10:48 PM   #3 (permalink)
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Anybody know if the civic VX came with cruise as an option?
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Old 05-09-2011, 04:02 PM   #4 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by steffen707 View Post
Anybody know if the civic VX came with cruise as an option?
I've personally never seen a VX with the factory cruise installed by the dealer, but user DeSchlong has a great and detailed DIY to install factory cruise into a VX: HERE
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Old 05-09-2011, 06:15 PM   #5 (permalink)
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I think i'm going to have to follow that thread and install factory cruise, because I just can't get this rostra to work correctly with this d15z1. It worked just fine on the DX motor previously but not now.
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Old 05-13-2011, 07:03 PM   #6 (permalink)
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UPDATE:

I played with the Rostra for a few more hours and tried every single setting I could and it just didn't want to hold speed properly. The unit kept kicking off.

So I visited the pick and pull near my city and luckily they had one EK civic. I took the clutch switch, brake switch, on/off switch, set/resume switch, pedal assembly, cruise module and cruise actuator as well as all the connectors and as much wire as I could.

When I got home I swapped the pedals. It wasn't that hard to do, and I was able to do it without dropping the whole steering column. I did have to lower the rear 2 bolts that hold the column up, and then pull the steering column shaft from the other bracket thing that then connects to the steering rack. (sorry for the lousy description). This gave enough clearance to wiggle out the pedals.

It looks like the gas pedal and brake pedal are seperate; however, Honda decided to put 2 small welds on the brackets to tie them together. I think 2 Bolts could have secured the gas pedal just fine, but i'm sure they had their reasons.

After hours of reading over the schematics from my Honda manual and running extra wires I thought i was ready for a test run. IT DIDN'T WORK.

Back to the garage and I go through the step by step chart in the manual and test every wire to the control box to see that is has the right resistance or continuity or voltage, and everything checks out, except I didn't try the VSS.

So I decide to test the actuator, and you ground 3 wires and supply positive to another and its suppose to pull in with vacuum. Well it did but not as much as I thought it should. So i pulled my crv actuator off and mount that in the car, and decide to go for a ride with one wire going to the battery and one wire to the actuator. Get it up to speed and connect the wires, and what do you know, it pulls on the gas pedal, to WOT like it is suppose to.

Curious, I go home put the used actuator back in and try the 2 wires and that works! So what the heck is causing this to not work. The manual says faulty module if all things check out, when it dawns on me, I was doing so much other work with the other cruise I hooked the VSS feed wire of the module box, to the tach signal. UGH.. I stop in a parking lot and run it to the right VSS wire on the ECU. I'm all set, get up to speed and IT STILL DOESN'T WORK.

Swear words later I decide to just try another module. Go to another pick and pull yard, find the only civic they have and steal the automatic cruise module from it. Plug it in, get up to speed on the highway and push the set button. IT DOESN'T WORK. I'm just pissed off and driving home about ready to give up, when i feel the car accelerate. HOLY CRAP IT WORKS! I was just impatient and the new module actually was controlling the gas pedal, just had to give it some time.

HECK YEAH!
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Old 05-13-2011, 07:08 PM   #7 (permalink)
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This setup seems to work well but the onset of the cruise is much slower than my CRV, i'm wondering if this is the module, the actuator or differences in the motor?

I was going to try putting the crv actuator back in my car with the new automatic civic module I have and see if that operates the same. Maybe I have a lazy actuator?

It works so much better than the Rostra unit does. It is very good at holding speed and staying in lean burn. Like it knows when its just on the edge. If I do go up a hill or something it will start to lose a few MPH but stay in lean burn, and if I wait like 5mph it will finally pull the gas pedal enough to kick it out of lean burn.

I've also found that if it loses a few MPH, I can just tap the gas pedal a tiny bit and it will kick out of lean burn right away and go back up the few MPH it lost. Its kinda nice from MPG standpoint, because its like the cruise knows I want lean burn and will sacrifice some speed to keep it. But if I want it to speed up, i just tap the gas pedal a bit and it accelerates back up quickly.

Now I have to put the interior back together, loom up my wiring and mount the set/resume (didn't feel like messing with a new steering wheel and airbags, ect. ect. to get the factory set/resume location).

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