Sooo.. yup.. Anyways I am driving around tonight with a girl of mine and I failed to notice she had the heat on FULL blast (all the way up) so I pull out in first gear and go WOT... right about when VTEC should kick in (or a little after it did) the car literally felt like it hit an invisible brick wall.. Felt exactly like hitting fuel cut in my old modified eclipse... scared the CRAP out of me.. (especially in my stock s2000) I literally thought something was wrong with the car... So i try again and the same results... Just cruise on home.. later that night I noticed the heat was all the way up (had the top down.. not sure why she did that) ... Turned it all the way off... Tried.. the car felt a little slower then normal (probably all mental) but didn't "hit the wall"... anyways naturally i know there is a power loss with the heat on in all cars.. and in a lot of cars I know it makes a huge difference... but does it really make that HUGE of a difference in the S??? I mean .. it literally felt like I slammed into a brick wall when the VTEC kicked in... anyone else experience this or just care to explain why so much of a power loss??? Thanks in advance
-Ric

 

my guess is you were trying to engage vtec when the car was still cold, you need 3 bars on the water temp gauge in order to engage VTEC. if you only have 1 or 2 bars, you will hit a rev limiter at around the same rpm you mentioned. this is to protect the motor from high rpm levels when the car isn't fully warm.

please, be nice to your f20c and wait till you have 3 bars on the temp gauge. personally, i wait an additional 5-10 minutes after i get 3 bars since the internal oil temps of the motor takes a longer time to warm up than coolant/water temp.

 

I would assume that since you just pulled out that the temp gague was not up to 3 bars. If not, it will not v-tec. Wait til the car is fully warmed up before you hammer it. It has nothing to do with the heater.

 

Actually, it probalby had to do with the car not being warmed up. Make sure you have three bars on the temp guage before you try to VTEC. Otherwise the car protects itself with a hard as hell rev limiter that kicks in way lower then you would expect.

 

ditto on all the above threads.

 

Man, I must type REALLY slow! There were no posts when I started the post!

 

Oh and you must be thinking about A/C, there is no power loss with the heat on on any car. Actually it makes the car run cooler, although not enough to make any difference, or even notice

 

You hit the rev limiter because the engine wasn't warmed up yet.

I really do not think that your car is any slower now than before. The rev limiter or heater should have no effect on how your car is performing, now. I have never heard anyone having a problem when they turn the heater on. I just had an idea: was the heater control on the defrost position? If so, it will also run the A/C, which WILL slow the car down when the compressor kicks in. Try driving with the A/C turned on and see if this isn't what you felt. You also need to have the fan turned on or the A/C won't come on.

Good luck,
Bob

 

Power loss when the heater is on? That's highly doubtful. There is a power loss when the air conditioner is on, maybe that's what you're thinking of.

Like everyone before me said, the car probably wasn't warmed up yet. Also, if you had the heater going full blast, that has the effect of cooling the engine, so you may have inadvertently dropped the engine temp low enough to prevent VTEC engagement. I know from personal experience, if I put the heater on just after I'm showing three bars on the temp gauge (on a cool night), sometimes I'll lose that third bar for a few seconds, showing the heat loss from the engine.

 

I go with what everyone else said, I wasn't paying attention once and did WOT once straight out my neighborhood....never never again. Right at about 6-7k.....WHAM! So yea, if the car is still running fine and all the rest then I'm sure thats it.

Good luck.

~Andrew