Ok, glad nothing happened. I will make sure i never do that again.

 

you didn't shift to 4th. you shifted to 2nd. 4th gear will not redline in either an 00-03 S2000 or an 04-05 S2000. i'd be willing to bet you went to 2nd. you'd know if you were in 4th, cuz it would go to about 7000rpm and drop down from there fairly quickly.

so, if you are CERTAIN you saw the red flash and the car redline, you shifted to 2nd. and you could have caused damage.

just because you didn't damage something immediately (you would know because you'd get a CEL and the engine would be loud, rough idle, and might not even run). however, people have cracked retainers from mechanical overrevs. what can happen is, over time, the valve slowly drops until it makes contact with the piston. then you're talking thousands to repair or rebuild. (could happen after your warranty expires, and even if it doesn't, there is a chance they will say you overreved)

so my advice to you, if you are certain it redlined, pay the money to have the valve train inspected. and by the way, warranty does not cover this.

 

I don't think its possile to mistake 2nd for 6th. does anyone agree or disagree with me?
On the track I had problem finding 3rd and getting 5th a lot. That was really annoying.

 

i've gone from 5th to 4th quite a few times now when i wanted to get into 6th (but usually it is when i'm just cruising so its not biggie)

 

Accidentally shifting from 5th to 4th is an easy mistake when attempting to shift to 6th and can result from failing to hold the shifter to the right (a passive error). It takes an an active push to the left to shift from 5th to 2nd and seems to be much less likely to occur by mistake.

 

Chances are you simply let the clutch out with the transmission in neutral and hit the rev limiter when you gave it gas. You'd have to be going well over 120mph to overrev a shift into 4th.

 

I'll disagree. Not everyone comes from a manual background, let alone a close gated 6sp one like this. 2nd, 4th and 6th "feels" no different to a lot of people who are new to this tranny.

 

My point is that 5th to 2nd instead of 5th to 6th requires an active error in which the driver must push the shifter to the left, instead of the right, in the double H-pattern. Thanks to human engineering, the shifter will passively align with the 3rd and 4th-gear column of the double-H if the driver fails to push the shifter in either lateral direction. A mis-shift from 5th to 4th, instead for 5th to 6th, can result from a failure to push the shifter adequately to the right, a passive error, while a mis-shift from 5th to 2nd requires an active push in the wrong direction (left instead of right or nothing). I'm sure that both errors occur, but I think that an experienced driver attempting to shift from 5th to 6th, is more likely to passively mis-shift from 5th to 4th than to actively mis-shift from 5th to 2nd.

The shifting problem that worries me is searching for 6th when I switch from my S to my 5-speed del sol. I haven't bounced off of the reverse block yet, but I have put my hand on the shifter a few times with the intent of shifting to a phantom 6th gear. Thankfully, human engineering reduces the frequency of, but does not eliminate, several of the most catastrophic shifting errors.

 

Ever seen people who shift by grabbing the stick not from the top but from the right side as they grip the shifter like that? rather than pushing over to the right when going to 6th, they tend to pull it over to the right. but if doing this quickly can pull the shifter to the left.

to say it's impossible i or even unlikely isn't the case. people who shift by holding onto the right side of the shift (took me a while to get my fiancee not to do this) tend to "pull" the shifter when shifting to the lower half of the H. not everyone is necessarily very experienced at stick shift, and much less even having experience shifting to a 6th gear.


unless you have some other explination as to why he redlined at 95-100 when he shifted to the lower half of the H, I think it's certainly a plausible scenario. the ONLY gear that would cause the car to redline and/or overrev at 95-100 in the bottom half of the H is 2nd gear.

 

This is EXACTLY what just about every person i've let drive my S2000 has said. experienced and non-experienced.