I hit the limiter quit a bit. I guess I am running the car hard and the road in front of me is much higher than the RPM meter. Honda touts is F1-like dash but forgets that F1 racers are basically lying down with the console 1 inch lower than the horizon.

I find that watching the rev meter and the road at the same time is almost impossible so I have to rely on the noise of the engine to tell me I'm close to 9 grand. An audible warning, mentioned above, would be great!

Any idea how to do this?

Ed

 

Short of learning the noises of the engine and shifting accordingly, I don't know of any other way besides watching the tach.

But as for something audible, you may want to ask user
"modifry" ... he hangs in the Atlanta chapter forum a lot and has come up with some very ingenious gizmos. Check him out...

 

The red bars on the tach flash just before the rev limiter kicks in...

I often see the flashes, but rarely hit the limiter...

 

Just because we have a limiter doesn't mean we need to hit it. The best thing to do is practice and get used to your engine sound at various RPMs and especially at the limit. Watching the tach will work, but at 9000 I wouldn't want my eyes to be anywhere but on the road.

 

Hitting the rev limiter is bad for the engine - don't do it. On race cars, you do an ignition cut for a rev limiter. This does no harm to the engine, but it allows unburnt fuel into the exhaust and you get backfiring and other environmental no-no's. On street cars, they use a fuel cut instead to avoid unburnt gas in the exhaust, but the pitfall is that it creates an extremely lean condition - which is bad for the engine. A gradual rev limiter would be far more harmful to the engine as you would gradually lean the engine out until it no longer fires. In the process, you would lean out, start to get detonation, lean it even more, heating it up more (leaner=hotter), and basically allow the user to run the motor at redline, full throttle, and leaned out so badly that it doesn't make enough power to continue to rev, but it gets just enough fuel to continue to run really lean... at redline.

 

Do you really think it allows a lean condition, or could it pull timing at the same time?

I hit the rev limiter regularly at a couple of places at the track where I am faster and smoother to bump it for a second or so rather than shift and downshift immediately. I have listened carefully and have not heard any abnormal sounds.

It is something I have wondered about and after talking with an S2K driver that does the same thing I decided to continue bumping it in third. I'd adjust if there was a real need.

 

I will also hit the limiter occassionally when I inadvertently forget to watch the tach. Haven't noticed anything untoward yet. But this info about the mixture suddenly getting lean has me worried. Can someone else confirm or deny this??

 

Lemme re-iterate - the whole detonation thing would only really be a problem if you had a rev limiter with a smooth engagement. Because the rev limiter on the car completely cuts off fuel when it kicks in, you don't get detonation, you just get no fuel - which is a lean (hot) condition, which isn't very good for the engine. If you hit it once in a blue moon, it's not going to hurt anything. Just don't go bouncing off of it regularly (like on a certain turn at the track - don't do that).