Was in a honda dealers today and whilst waiting got talking to a couple of honda engineers who had come down to give a training day at cambridge, they had just come from a meeting regarding a Vtec engine that had blown up, this has never happened before and they were very worried a problem had come to light after all these years.

Honda sent out this team don't know to what area to see the customers car and to try and find out why it threw a rod as it was un heard of, didn't find anything replaced the engine and sent customer on his way, all was forgotten until last week, customer called the honda dealer same thing had happened, so alarm bells were ringing, they sent out the same team to find out what was going on and this time hooked the car up to the ECu which they can download all the information from the last run of the car, it transpires that the customer had gone from 6th to first by mistake and the engine reved to 11,000 RPM before it blew. guy realised he was found out and has now had to pay

 

I think a few people on the US forum have had blown engines from changing into the wrong gear - but 6th to 1st??? HTF do you manage that then?

(Note to self: If this happens to me, reset the ECU )

 

6th to 2nd maybe, but 6th to 1st

 

i did ask why 6th to 1st and they got told it was him planning to go into third and got it wrong.

 

i have heard this same story about 2 years ago, so some thing is a miss & i don't really understand the no honda engine failure thing in X Billion units, board members engines have gone pop & i know of a non-board member who has now had two. One down to lack of oil, prat!


So is it that honda are saying that no VTEC engine has failed because of the VTEC (variable valve whatever)???? I'm totally

 

there was a similar thread on here a while ago about a guy revving a CTR to 27,000... sounds like it might be a bit of an urban legend...

 

er, recently as in a year ago...

https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=180609

 

No VTEC 'system' has ever failed - NOT VTEC equiped engine. Subtle difference.

The VTEC principle is very simple and robust - explaining why Honda have had no VTEC failures. Engines on the other hand are inherently complicated when required to rev high (light weight precision components and materials required) and hence it should not be suprising that engines occasionally fail. Won't be due to a VTEC failure though...

Andy

 

The thing is you can catch it unless you are a total moron. On my first journey in my S2000 I tried to drop from 6th to 4th to get her in vtec. I dropped it into 2nd and the revs jumped quickly but because of the engine braking I instantly knew what I'd done and dipped the clutch. The revs hadn't even got anywhere near the limiter as it was so obvious what I'd done the instant I'd done it. You'd have to get it very pear-shaped to do a straight drop and blow your engine!

 

AFAIK vtec is just a cam shaft with a second set of lobes on it. When the engine passes a certain amount of revs it moves on to the different lobes. Therefore, Honda claiming that they've never had a vtec failure just means that the vtec system - a cam shaft and a method of switching.

They've never claimed to have had no vtec engine failures.