I recently swapped a JDM B16 1st gen into a ef8 civic and the Vtec doesnt kick in. Instead of a boost of power i get a "Check engine" light glowing in my cluster. From previous threads i read about the faulty solenoid, and i was wondering if there was a way to check if the solenoid is busted besides finding a good solenoid and swapping it out. Or maybe it's another problem.

Thanks

you should pull the code and see what it says. more than likely it will just tell you faulty solenoid again, but its a start.

i believe the solenoid just works off a 5v lead, so get some batteries, wire them up to be ~5v, hook it up to the solenoid and see if it moves. the other thing to look at is the oil level. if its not high enough, the system will fail.

there are a million other threads on this, so search a little bit and see what you find.

the solenoid is 12 volts you can test it bu puting power to it and listening for a little click or you can see if the ecu is send ing power ar the kick in point 5600 rpm by hooking up a multimeter to the vtec wire and reving the motor to 56

do you even have it wired for vtec