94 Accord LX With F23 Installed

Hi everyone. I'm new here and new to Honda. I apologize for the length, but i am a details person, so here is everything I think of. Hopefully there is someone out there who can help.

I got a good deal on a 94 Accord a couple of days ago. Seemed like a sweet deal: new engine, new tranny, new brakes all done in the last 6 months with a clean title. Suffers from some of the common accord problems such as the odo and trip don't work. Gauge cluster is heading to a speedo shop to be fixed. Not too brilliant driving around not knowing when to do maintenance.

I looked at the engine swap paperwork from december. The paper work shows a 2.3L vtec F23, not the stock F22B1 the car came with and the emission stickers say belong in the car. After some research I found out the engine blocks are virtually identical except for compression and displacement, and the f23 is potentially cheaper, explaining a lot. Also explains why the Accord went like a bat of hell when i stomped on the gas as part of the test drive. I used to drive these cars around all the time as a lot porter, they all weren't this fast without mods.

Based on WA emissions web site, I may end up having to go test for emissions. Besides that, I want a car that runs good, not like crap. At idle the car randomly feels like it's choking itself to a stall just to come back to life. Other than that the car runs fine. Before anymore driving, or emissions, I wanted to fix that. The first thing I did while waiting for the shop manual to download is start looking around the engine bay for obvious problems. I found two.

Here's the questions:

The ignition coil is not even bolted to the engine. I cannot figure out how the coil mounts to the engine, but I see picture of it mounted, but not in the detail i need to figure out how to mount the thing. There is nothing that leads to an obvious location on the car. Now that I have a different engine block that may be causing the mounting problem, how do I mount the coil? Just sitting on a bunch of wires against the distributor, like it was, is not good repair work and doesn't fly with me.

The second problem, and another example of why i don't let anyone touch my cars, is there is a sensor/solenoid (sensor from now on) that has a cut wire on the wiring harness side of the plug, not the sensor side of the plug. The sensor I am talking about is between the distributor and the intake manifold and has a single green/yellow (may not be correct colors) wire coming from the wiring harness to the connector on the sensor. For location reference, all of the F22B1 pictures I can find with the ignition coil mounted will have the sensor under the coil. I have tried looking for this sensor in the service manual, but can't find it. What is this sensor?

The ignition coil I am talking about be seen here: http://www.justanswer.com/honda/1ji97-son-1996-honda-accord-ex-cyl-won-t-start.html, the black and white picture with the person holding the wiring harness that connects to the coil.

Thanks for the help.

I made a trip to the wrecking yard and explored a 95 wagon the yard just dropped for pulling apart. I stripped the entire interior and grabbed as much of the odds and ends in the engine bay i can eyeball. Also took a look at how the sensor was wired up. Well, my car doesn't have the wire, so no need to worry. After checking with the dealer, I confirmed my car came with the F22B2, so the sensor just needs to seal oil passages. Solves that one.

The ignition coil was easily solved. The F23 block doesn't have mounting points. I tore apart the original mounting bracket for the f22 engine and used a piece of the bracket to mount the coil. After fixing some more simple and basic issues a so called ASE Certified wannabe mechanic didn't take care of during the engine swap, I have an excellent running engine. With some good gas, I'll have the engine running smooth as silk.