My car recently spun out, and other than the tire getting a bit worn, I haven't seen any adverse effects yet. I was wondering what could possibly happen or has happened. (oh yeah It wasn't me driving)

 

not really. but see my post here for my recent experience.

 

Thanks Schatten, that calmed my nerves a little

 

One more thing, what happens when your your car is rolling backwards while in a forward gear, the clutch is also up.

 

How much damage does spinning out do?

It all depends on what you hit.

But as you didn't hit anything, you probably only used up a few hundred miles of rubber.

 

It can't be any worse than doing doughnuts like some have done in the past. I seem to remember one even proudly posting a video-tape of same.

 

Me thinks you buy a NEW clutch!

 

I did the spin-out, backwards-in-a-forward-gear thingy, and so far no problems with my engine. It was a wet parkinglot, and I only rolled a few feet (might have been farther, however, if I was paying attention to that I might've remembered to put the clutch in ) Only effect it had was that the engine wouldn't start for a little while. Once it started, though, no apparant problems. I suspect (hope!) that Honda took the fact that this car will be tossed around into account, and put some safety features in to minimize damage from running backwards.

Since this is a fuel-injected engine, I suspect that the ECU shuts off the fuel injection part below a certain RPM (backwards would be negative RPM to the ECU most likely), and the engine effectively becomes a big pump, puming air from your exhaust to your intake. However, all crankshaft accessories also go backwards (like the oil pump, if it's crankshaft driven), and this is where I suspect any damage would occur. But I suspect you'd have to run it backwards for more than just a few dozen feet to do anything of note

 

The same thing happened to me. I spun out going completely around two times; and yes, I did go backwards for a bit. Miraculously, I didn't hit anything. After the car car to a complete stop (in the wrong direction, I might add), I couldn't get it started. It took something like 5-10 tries to get it to started again. Sometime during the spinning, I did manage to get the cluch in. Although, I don't know if I did before the car stalled. Anybody know why it's so hard to start after spinning around and going backwards?


David
http://dbkelly.hn.org/s2000/main.html