Ok so my dad and I were hotrodding on Sunday, really really nice day and so we decided to go fast. Bang hit the top of one, banged 2nd nicely, 3rd was good, then he goes for forth and oh man nails second but about half way out on the clutch, back tires shake a bit, but recovers with 4th. we were around 100 mile san hour and shut down at 122. We also hit the brakes really hard and his GM slotted and drilled rotors have purple streaks. He has ceramic pads for dust free. We smelt an awful burning smell afterwards, and no it wasn't the cats roasting. It smelt like either the brakes or the clutch. Ok that was the fun part. Next day, we are driving around and he floors it and notice it starts to shake when it hits about 3500 or so. It shakes pretty bad. Its in the engine. We were thinking something like a broken valve spring or a misfiring cylinder that would offset the balance of the engine under higher RPM and make it shake. Basically has anone had a similar experience with this, and do you have any suggestions for next time besides not hit 2nd :-P. He was thinking about the 600 or 700 for the 2 piece Eradi Speeds. I am not sure about this whole situation, luckily warranty is covered. Also its a 04 if that helps :P

 

The rev-limiter does not protect the engine in the situation that you describe; bent push rods are the likely result. The good news is that they are easy to fix and not expensive.

 

Let us know if warranty covers that. When I had a Porsche, they could plug into the engine computer and tell if it was over-revved, and also how much time the engine had spent at redline. The dealer said they would use this info to decide if they would warantee an engine failure.

 

Rev limiters are great, but they don't help when you hit the wrong gear. Hopefully it's just a few bent rods and can be fixed right up. Good luck!

 

basically my dad bumped up the rev limiter a bit and it still almost rev to 7 grand anyways if you pay attention to the hud tach. I have found that the tach on the tach doesn't sweep fast enough for first gear. I never thought of the pushrods, you gotta replace them anyways. Warranty is covering this whole mess because basically the whole thing is that car is built to race and if anything breaks then its their damn fault. Plus his intake manifold was messed up, it didn't mate with the MAF properly, not sure if you all have had that problem. I would check, any dealer knows what your talking about and its ocvered under warranty. Defect, few recalls have been posted about it. Maybe its more than the 04's not sure. I will let him know bout the pushrods, never thought of that since they bash pushrod v8s these days

 

I understand that the dealership can plug in and tell if and how many times the rev limiter has been hit. I don't know what their criteria is for denial of warranty. Good luck

 

Good luck with the fix.

 

No offense but shifting a car into 2nd and overreving it is kind of like driving over a curb and damaging the suspension and saying it should be covered by warranty. Either one is clearly driver error. Be thankful they are covering it under warranty.

 

if he raised the rev limiter, then i doubt you will get it covered

 

No offense but shifting a car into 2nd and overreving it is kind of like driving over a curb and damaging the suspension and saying it should be covered by warranty. Either one is clearly driver error. Be thankful they are covering it under warranty.

I did something realy dumb this past weekend merging onto an interstate and shifted from third back to second. I can not believe I did not blow up the engine, talk about over rev. I am not sure if I did damage or not, but if I did it was my fault. I would or will disclose to
my dealership my mistake. I really believe they would cover driver F---- ups once. Second time it would be on me. My point is this is not a mistake in engineering or design and quite honestly if they did tell me to pound salt, oh well, I bought an expensive car to race, Price of the hobby! Just an opinion!

 

Uh, well no. If you hit second at 100mph, that's not a warranty issue. That's called mechanical over-rev. No amount of electronic safety nets are gonna save you. Your dad should consider himself lucky if his dealer is gonna fix it under the warranty.

 

If your dad does get this covered under warranty, my suggestion is that he takes the money he saves and invests it in a good high performance driving school. These cars are dangerous toys and not knowing how to operate them properly can get you killed.

 

I don't know how long your dad has had his Z, but it took me several months to get used to the shifter to gain enough confidence to shift it fast and especially to downshift it more than one gear. The key is to not force the shifter from side to side and to let the centering springs do the work. I now like the shifter a lot and I can stir it around with great confidence.

 

Learning how to shift would help. The shift from third to fourth should be made with nothing more than the finger tips. The shifter will go into 4th every time since the shifter centers itself. If the shifter is manhandled like some people like to do then you have a good chance of getting second.

Bill

 

My dad is not a horrible driver and nor does he need to go to driving school tos hift on a stragiht drag strip, he always nails forth fine, you just unshift let it go to center and pull it back, he never let the clutch out fully nor did it over rev, you guys are not understanding me clearly. Also, there is no way pushrods could have done this without floating the valves. Plus there is not clanking noise. The mechanic says its fine but my guess is the clutch is toast. You guys can not all sit here and tell me that you all have not gotten a bit hairy in your cars nor have you ever made a mistake. Dont act like you guys are perfect

 

My dad is not a horrible driver and nor does he need to go to driving school tos hift on a stragiht drag strip, he always nails forth fine, you just unshift let it go to center and pull it back, he never let the clutch out fully nor did it over rev, you guys are not understanding me clearly. Also, there is no way pushrods could have done this without floating the valves. Plus there is not clanking noise. The mechanic says its fine but my guess is the clutch is toast. You guys can not all sit here and tell me that you all have not gotten a bit hairy in your cars nor have you ever made a mistake. Dont act like you guys are perfect also he has had his z for about 6 or 7 months

 

It's just part of racing and driving a fast car hard, If your banging shifts the law of average alone will tell you that your going to miss a shift once in a while. It goes with the territory. If you haven't missed one your not driving fast enough.

 

Fear of hitting 2nd gear instead of 4th while drag racing is part of why I bought the hurst shifter. The stiffer spring setting I have mine set to helps keep it in the center when shifting from 3rd to 4th. If your dad doesn't already have one, he should consider getting one IMHO.

edit: well actually it's the 2nd to 3rd shift I worry about more.

 

I don't think anyone here said they didn't make mistakes, but this clearly was a mistake and no fault of the car or GM. Don't post blasting the car when it was not the cars fault and not expect to get comments.

Yes I once hit 3rd to 2nd shifting but I was 16yrs old and it has never happened again.

 

My opinion is if you can afford a vette and you had fun driving or pounding it like it supposed to, then you can pay for the repair too!!! No pain , No gain