Civic EG

what controls the VX shift light? im robbing my dead VX for parts for my new to me 92 4dr. I put the gauge cluster from the VX into the 4dr and realized the plug thats non existant in the 4dr is the one needed for the shift inidicater. wondering if the shift indicater is part of the VX ECU? or if I can make it work properly on a non VX? I kinda liked it *L*

i would like to know this also going to swap soon and i wanna keep the shift light

I am pretty sure its part a VX only option, So you need the VX harness(or run wires) and a VX ECU. Only problem is if your not running the D15z1 Vtec-E Engine, the VX ECU wont run your engine well.

I am sure suspended Hatch will be here to confirm this soon.

you also have to be running the 5 wire O2 sensor, the o2 sensor on my vx is bad so the shift light doesnt come on, but with my new sensor it does.

I have heard of people using vx clusters and wiring that light up as a shift light on non-vx cars

stock gauge cluster with a shift light..... gangster. didn't know they had that

According to the manual it was an option on 5 speed EX's as well. Though I've never seen/heard of one.

Many VX's lack the shift up light. I think maybe it only came on federal models. My VX is a federal 1992 and it had it.

Your VX will have a small white plug on the back of the cluster with a pink/grn wire (also red, red/blk, blk, yel). Cars with cruise control have the same plug but it's green and it has a blu/red wire in place of the pink wire. So cruise control is not compatible with the shift light interestingly enough.

But anyways that wire goes directly to the ECU. The ECU monitors several sensors (most likely TPS, Tach, MAP, VSS) and sends the signal when the conditions are met. It wont tell you to shift up if you're heavy on the throttle or your going uphill (or both). You absolutely need a VX or EX ECU from a car that has a shift up light. And of course you need the cluster and you'll need to run a wire to pin D18 to swap this into your car.

You could easily emulate it with an RPM switch, though it wont be as useful. You might as well just watch the tach and judge when to shift up based on how much throttle you're giving it.

For best fuel economy, you leave a stop with about 80% throttle and shift early. You always want to shift early even if you bog the car slightly, so much as it doesn't bog the car too much.

Oh and it wont work if you're in limp mode, ie a bad O2 sensor or unplugged EGR.

My civic has the vx cluster in it, but the previous owner wired it to light up when you hit the brakes. really dumb.

i'm about to pull the cluster out now to fix the short. no back lit dash lights. i'm gonna pull out his wiring stupidity, and that will hopefully be the fix.

hey xangerissuesx,
i'm about to pull the cluster out now to fix the short. no back lit dash lights.



9 out of 10 civic's w/out back-up lights in the cluster is due to the dimmer switch being bad. 3 out of 5 of my past eg's had the same problem.

good luck.

thanks man. they flicker on and off. not good for night driving. lol. what am i looking for when i check it? i pulled it out just now (dimmer switch) and it looked like it had good connections, no visible shorts or breaks, nothing. so i'm guessing its gonna be an internal thing huh?

my friend has that problem too

and i guess ill just make the shift light to a vtec light or something

fyi the shift light is also on the CX model also.