My 1996 is apparently a early 1995 as it has an OBD1 port rather than OBD2. I got a check engine light recently and I am trying to get the code. Online it says to short TE1 with E1 but clearly from this picture you can see TE1 has no electrical connector so how do I short them? Thanks in advance.

 

So I found the port under the hood but there was some kind of electrical grease in the terminals. I cleaned them off (picture is before) and shorted the two pins, turned the key to ON but nothing happened with the check engine light.

 

For the grease in the engine bay port - you can still put a wire in there with the dielectric grease and have contact. The grease is there to prevent corrosion in the electrical connector. If you've removed it, I would suggest to put new dielectric grease in its place

Since your car is a 1996 model year manufactured in 1995, there should be an OBD II connector under the dash on the driver's side. I would think it would be possible for your car to only have OBD I if it was a 1995 model year manufactured in early 1994 (but I don't think this was the case and have never seen a 1995 MY car without OBD II).

What are the origins of your car? Is it a USDM LS 400, or was it imported from another region like Canada, Australia, Europe, Asia? Is it a JDM Celsior?

 

As Celsior said, if it's a second gen USDM LS400, then it will have an OBD2 port in addition to that one you took a picture of.

My old 95 LS I had years back was manufactured in October of 94, which was the first month of the second gen production, and it had an OBD2 port

 

Yup, you're missing something somewhere. My '95 has an OBD2 port right there next to the OBD1. Incidentally, my very old scanner will connect to either. Bought it WAY back when, came with all the cables and connectors.

 

Thanks. I should have been more persistent on searching for the OBD2 - found it. Got a P1600. I tried resetting but it came right back. I did just recently replace the car battery so I will check to see if I damaged anything around the connector.

Fortunately the car is running fine. Everything I am reading online indicates an impending ECM failure so I will likely get a used one off of ebay.

 

Glad you found it! Before you purchase an ECM, I would try to diagnose it if you have the time & tools. P1600 indicates your ECU is getting power even when the ignition is off.

If there is an actual problem with your wiring harness for the ECM, then I would imagine the problem would continue with a new ECU.

I would suggest to review the attached diagnostic steps for 1996 USDM model year:

 

I had a p1600 code that was cleared by having my ECU repaired (leaking capacitors replaced and damaged traces repaired). Dealership said in their experience, maybe 80 percent of the time p1600 is caused by ECU going bad.

There’s a ton of diagnostics you can do with various wiring to try to catch the cause of the p1600 but I would think about it this way - if the ECU in your car has not been rebuilt, it should be, otherwise it’s a ticking time bomb with the leaky original capacitors. A used one will have same issue unless it’s been rebuilt. In my opinion only reason to get a used one would be if your original is beyond repair. Otherwise have it refurbished. Premium option is probably Relentless Motorsports in TX. I had mine done by ecmguru on eBay but didn’t know about Relentless at the time. So far so good with the work by ecmguru however.

And then if the ECU refurbish doesn’t clear the code, the worst case scenario is you’ve addressed something that needs to he addressed anyway, asap.