Earlier this week I had the car in to replace a faulty brake sensor switch, which is apparently part of the VSA system, and this afternoon, on the way home from a lunch meeting, dove into my favorite sparsely populated ninety degree right-hander a little too aggressively (the meeting went well; I was feeling expansive), but not too much more aggressively than usual, and got on the throttle in the apex to exit the turn, as usual, when WHAM, the motor died momentarily, just like hitting the rev limiter, I strained forward against the cinched up shoulder-belt, and then just as I thought "WTF?," it roared back to life and pulled the rest of the way out of the turn.

Unsettling.

I didn't notice if the VSA "!" flashed at me during the turn, but then my eyes weren't on the dash. Nevertheless, I assume what I just experienced was the VSA doing its job.

I've taken that turn more or less the same way dozens of times with this car (I may have been a little sloppier today than usual) and hundreds of times in our old MY04. Now I'm wondering if the VSA was malfunctioning or inoperable up until this week's brake sensor re-do.

So. What have you done to provoke the VSA and what did it do?

 

The same thing. Felt like no fuel and the brakes were dragging.

 

That sounds pretty sh!tty!

You can turn it off though right?

 

is it COMPLETELY off when its turned off? or is it like the 350z and g35 where you turn it off but it still comes back on after it senses your being an idiot?

 

Its completely turned off and never comes back on even if the car is seriously out of shape. It comes back on when you restart the car.

notyou: that doesn't sound like VSA to me. The way you describe it is way WAY too obvious. The system is extremely subtle in the way it goes about its business.

Did the tail slide out on you? If it did you'd have detected some slight braking at one of the rear wheels and the car would have straightened itself out. The whole process shouldn't have taken more than 0.5 seconds and the VSA light on the dash would have blinked a few times.

Sounds to me like something else might be the matter with your car. Just to be sure, try to provoke the VSA in a SAFE environment, and see whether the light blinks and the car behaves like you described it did this afternoon.

I can provoke the system but jabbing the throttle just at or after the apex of a turn, interntionnaly upsetting the balance of the car.

 

Yeah, nothing subtle about what the car did this afternoon. Like I said, it felt just like hitting the rev-limiter, but I don't think I was in VTEC at that point, much less approaching the redline. I didn't feel any oversteer, which I expect in that corner, but I did feel some understeer as I throttled up (also expected).

I'll take your advice and see if I can find a safe place to duplicate it this weekend.

 

Was the car warmed up? That really does sound more like a rev-limiter. Specifically, it sounds like the "no VTEC with a cold engine" rev-limiter.

 

I've had my vsa light on a couple of times, just a flicker or two, and very, very subtle correction of the cars attitude.

Willinathen

 

If the car wasn't warmed up, it wouldn't be the rev-limiter he was hitting. VTEC wouldn't "engage" if the car wasn't warmed...

 

[QUOTE=Luder94,Jan 5 2007, 08:23 PM] If the car wasn't warmed up, it wouldn't be the rev-limiter he was hitting.