Unusual problem, possibly limp mode? Thoughts please.

1st March 2014, 20:16

I have a friend with a VTR that will often come to ask me about issues or niggles with the car and this one has me a little stumped.

The car runs fine, it will start and drive around steadily as though nothing is wrong.

However, it feels flat, almost like a curio, and once past 4,000rpm or so it feels flat as a fart.
It gets to around 5500rpm, maybe a little less and then cuts the power and drops to around 4800rpm where it will hold on a limiter.

I had a spare lambda, swapped and its made no difference.

No EML light, no funny smells or noises. Just feels flat and won't rev out.

As a backgrounder, the car has done 66K, well serviced, gets thrashed a lot and two weeks ago had a new coil pack after developing a terrible misfire. (just incase any of that would help someone come up with a diagnosis)

Please, any thoughts or feedback appreciated.

Thanks, Matt.

1st March 2014, 22:06

Faulty coil pack maybe when was it last serviced?

2nd March 2014, 08:32

it was last serviced 6000miles ago and had new plugs when the coil pack was swapped.

Will try swapping the coil pack back to the original. It will redevelop its misfire, but iirc it would still (just) rev out to 6K he told me.

2nd March 2014, 17:39

i had this on my vtr, i first faught it was the intake, but then it was actually the cat was blocked, i replaced and worked a treat

3rd March 2014, 07:27

replaced cat last night with a 4/2/1 using second hand but known to be working sensors, same issue. Also swapped the ecu for another unlocked one i had, no change.

very frustrating problem.

3rd March 2014, 11:36

thinking map sensor maybe?