Howdy...

Was out this evening and found myself on an open stretch of road. :-)

So I let my '06 GT loose. In 1st gear, I stomped on the gas, not paying attention to the RPM's, my car accelerated to a certain point and hesitated. I shifted to 2nd and everthing was fine.

Question: Why did my car hesitate on hard acceleration, in 1st gear? It felt as if I hit a max RPM and the car wouldn't go beyond that RPM point?

I've accelerated hard before with no problems, but I probably shifted to 2nd earlier than I did this evening.

Any comments?

 

You probably hit the rev limiter. So yes there is a governor on there. It's an electronic value and can be changed by an aftermarket tune.

It's there to protect the engine from damage and I don't think hitting it once in a while hurts anything. I wouldn't make a habit of it though.

 

^^Exactly

 

Thanks. It makes sense the way it behaved. Was going between 40 - 50 mph when it happened. 1st time I pushed the car to this limit. I won't do it again.

 

Whoa, hold on... WHY won't you do it again? It's set there to prevent a problem, not cause on. Matter of fact, most custom tunes jack the rev limiter UP since the factory setting of 6250 is a bit conservative. Hitting the rev limiter is no big deal and it just means you're driving it the way these engines were designed... to PERFORM. So don't say you won't do it again or I'll be REALLY disappointed.... LOL!

 

The trick to learn is shifting just before the rev-limiter kicks in. If you wait for it to tell you that it's time to upshift, you'll only be slower. I can think of exactly one exception, and I don't think it applies to this particular discussion.


Norm

 

You sure it wasnt Traction control?

 

+1

You don't want to actually hit the limiter. You want to shift a split second before hand.

 

+1

My post wasn't meant to imply that you should be trying to hit it, just that it's no big deal if you do providing you're not racing.

And from Vistagt: "You sure it wasnt Traction control?"

I was thinking the same thing at first but my experience with the TC was having it limit my RPM's at the very beginning of trying to spool up; not at the end.