schwett

last night on my way home from dinner with some friends, i'm driving up a fairly deserted city street. it's somewhat hilly, not in the best condition but i know it well.

i opened it up a little bit from a roll in 1st, shifted into 2nd just before the limiter, was accelerating in 2nd for a couple seconds at most, when the engine SHUT OFF COMPLETELY. the tach and speedo went dark. the idiot lights all came on. i put my foot on the clutch and off the gas, put the car in neutral, and rolled to the curb. not sure if the EPS was working, but i think it was.

when the car stopped, i tried to start it. nothing. i got out, looked around, no oil, nothing amiss in the engine bay. tried again. nothing. took the keys out, looked again, waited a minute, and it started up.

i believe what happened is that i lost traction over a change in grade or pavement, and the engine revved to the limiter without much load... but instead of just bouncing off the limiter, which i try to avoid (have probably done it a half dozen times in 15,000 miles) the car just shut off. could it have stalled due to the fuel cut?

it seems to run fine, but i'm a bit concerned. any suggestions?

ADAM_ROB_UK

This has happened to quite a few people. To my knowledge no one knows why the car sometimes does this ( it is very rare I have only heard of 3 cases ). Seriously don't worry about it unless it happened again.

And about your theory it does not work my friend. You can bounce the revs with car in neutral no prob.
Bouncing off the limiter does not damage the engine. But becarful you don't over rev with a down shift.

schwett

exactly, i have hit the limiter before, as i'm sure all of us have, and the engine does not shut down normally! wierd.

twohoos

No check engine light afterwards? No indication at all of anything wrong after the incident?

schwett

nothing at all. no CEL. sounds normal. no new valve noise. power seems fine, but i haven't pushed it >6000 since this happened. i have gone >6000 and the big lobes definitely engaged. it was very odd. i guess if i had some freak failure which caused an over-rev (pretty hard to do without mis-shifting, i know) and bent valves, it would have tried to start but not had any compression. the total lack of any starting activity indicates it's an electrical/ecu thing.

hmmmm

speedfreakgc

Not sure if it's the same problem, but I has a similar issue with my Prelude just a few months ago. I found out that my ignition switch was bad, but there was actually a recall for it, so it was replaced for free. Try driving your car and then press lightly on the key in the direction to shut it off (but without actually turning the key). If it shuts off, you need to have your ignition checked out.

This is may not be your problem, but it's worth a shot.

The Unabageler

one of my friends had this happen to him. He figured out that his knee hit his keychain and turned the car off

revhi

Ive hit the key chain before to and I thought I shut off the car. It felt like the key moved , but it didn't. That sounds like the most logical reason.

That Prelude thing was a recall? I traded my Prelude for the S. I had the the ignition switch replaced but had to pay for it 2 years ago. That was different anyway. The problem with mine was I would have to turn the key back and forth a few times before the engine would start.

twohoos

Do you have anything on your keychain like a Mobil SpeedPass? Those have been known to cause spontaneous ignition failures.

Kekoa

Doesn't the engine also shut down if you vtec before the engine is warmed up...ie. two bars??