Just wanted to run a strange expirience by you. THe last time I drove my Dad's S2K it seemed like the engine would not rev past 6000 in 1st or 2nd gear from a cold start. When it hit 6 it just stopped. However once you go into 3rd it would go all the way to the redline, and in a downshift from any higher gear to 2nd it would go all the way to 9 with no complaints (I didn't try downshifting to 1st, these were all 3-2 and 4-2 heel/toe downshifts, the best kind).
Dad's never complained, though I don't think he regularly runs his car to the limt the way I try to (hey I don't get the chance to be behind the wheel very often).
Anyone else expirienced this? Is VTEC less obivous in 1st adn 2nd from a cold start (by cold I mean running up the tach from a standstill, not nessicarily just after starting the engine), did I just need more throttle or is there something wrong with the car?

 

The rev limiter comes down to 6000 rpm when the engine is not warm (i.e. less than 3 bars).

 

Makes sense, but thats not exactly what was happening. I drove the car well over an hour on several occasion my last visit. I'm sure it was warmed up, however any time I started from a standstill I hit rev limiter at 6k in 1st and 2nd on the way up. Once I got to 3rd and higher dropping back down had no issues. I'll pass that on to my dad when he has the car checked over after it comes out of winter storage (should be any day).

 

Did you check the oil level?

 

Did not check oil, nor do I know how often the car's oil had been check. Knowing the way my dad dotes over that car, I can't imagine it'd been more than a week/300 miles.

 

If the temp gauge shows 3 bars, you should not be hitting the rev limiter before 9K. If you do, there's something quite wrong.

 

Your V-TEC solenoid for whatever reason was not actuating. This solenoid is dependent on oil pressure. You will here a lot about three bars (coolant) but the system doesn't see coolant temp at all......the relation is coincidental. As a previous poster noted your oil may be low; or the engine wasn't warmed up (about 20-40 seconds past 3 bars to get the required oil pressure).

Utah

 

If I was your dad, I would give you a spanking for doing that with a cold engiene.
j/k

 

*sigh* Let me stress again: the problem did not occur exclusively with a cold engine, it happened everytime I attempted to accelerate in 1st or 2nd gear from a standstill (last drive in the car took at least 1 hour, that should be more than adequate for an engine to warm up even in upstate NY in November). For the record I always allow his car to warm up for ~1 min before setting out.
I forwarded this info to him. The car is coming out of winter storage this week, it will of course start the season off with fresh fluids etc. If the problem is still there (described in detail for him) its going to the dealer for a checkup. Thanks for the help.

 

I thought that if the VTEC solenoid wasn't working, the engine would still rev to redline but the engine wouldn't be able to actuate the VTEC system.