FTO AUSTRALIA

ok this is my problem ill make it as brief as i can.

my car refuses to rev past 6000rpm on the dot mind you. i took it to my mechanic and he somehow found a dude with the exact same model. 95 gpx (it was even red ) he first switched our alternators and the other guys car hit mivec and mine hit mivec first time but refused to hit every time after that. so he then switched our ecu's again his car hit mivec and mine hit first time and nothing after. clocking off at 6000 and refusing to hit mivec. so he switched both alt and ECU from mine to his, his to mine, and again mine hit first time and nothing after that, his hit mivec EVERYTIME!!! that would suggest that my alternator and ECU ar working fine. and his are suddenly stuffed once they are put in my car, as are mine when they are in my car, but work in someone elses. you still with me, good coz it gets wierder from here.

this had my mech baffled as was i and the other dude who had extremely kindly leant his car. then out of frustration i guess the mechanic reved the living bajeezes out of my car over and over... the bloody thing hit mivec and screamed the roof down. but the second it fell below 6000rpm. or 5500 it refused to mivec again. after flogging my baby we deduced that if you rev the car to 6000, 3 times, the fourth time it will hit mivec. problem is i would then have to slap my tip from neutral to drive at 8000 or 9000rpm and keep it flicking up gears not letting it fall below 6000rpm. ??????? what the hell is that all about. his final verdict was that who ever had owned it previous had placed a limiter somewhere between the alternator and the ecu. this was why mivec worked the first time on every exchange of equipment, but the limiter picked it up after that and blocked it every attempt following. yet after 3 big revs it works. he has no experience with limiters and didnt want to touch it, i dont know hwere to go or how to even explaine this to another mechanic.

to add salt to my wounds i feel like a right moron coz i never realised the car was supposed to rev to 9000. i thought that was for wow factor, i mean who ever heard of a 9000rpm on a NA engine. rotaries barely make it there for petes sakes.

so yes im an idiot, and my car is playing twilight zone games. does anyone know what i can do or who i can see. any suggestions, experienced this 4th dimension yourself at some time. im in dire need of help. i feel like ive been given the cake, can put it in my mouth.... but am not allowed to swollow

there are articles on this in here... just do a quick search

bascially it's a broken sensor (or wires to the sensor)...

the FTO limits the revs to 6,000rpm when it thinks the engine is too cold to be able to handle the MIVEC range so as to minimise damage. Once the engine warms up it will go past the 6,000rpm range.

As Steve has said this is likely to be a sensor issue. Why on earth someone would be checking the alternator to overcome this problem I have no idea, to me this would imply they know little or nothing about the FTO and I would be looking at going to a different mechanic who is more familiar with the car.

One thing which I have found also was low engine oil, but this mainly caused the Mivec to cut in and out

Jc

Pagan, the FTO's standard redline is a just tad over 8000rpm... unless you have aftermarket cams/ecu/valvesprings fitted, it shouldn't rev up to 9000rpm or it will do permanent damage to the engine...

you should let the car warm up little and drive modestly for a good 10-15mins then you should be able to stretch her legs all the way to the rev limiter without much problems...

ruchi wrote:the FTO limits the revs to 6,000rpm when it thinks the engine is too cold to be able to handle the MIVEC range so as to minimise damage. Once the engine warms up it will go past the 6,000rpm range.

The engine ECU will limit revs for other reasons too. Not just temperature.

ruchi wrote:Why on earth someone would be checking the alternator to overcome this problem I have no idea, to me this would imply they know little or nothing about the FTO and I would be looking at going to a different mechanic who is more familiar with the car.

The MIVEC version has an alternator with an additional link-up to the engine ECU. It's caught out a lot of places that fit replacement alternators to GPX cars. The customer gets it back, it charges okay, but won't rev past 6000/6500rpm. In some cases, it's because they fitted the wrong alternator, and didn't get a MIVEC-compatible one with the extra smarts. In others, it's because the wiring loom was faulty.

That'll be why they are looking at the alternator. For a GPX, it makes perfect sense.

But without getting the relevant engine-ECU error code out, it's guesswork. The code will 100% definitely show what the computer is unhappy about. Knock sensor, alternator, whatever.

Here's how to do it:

http://www.ftowa.com/html/workshop/workshopart07.html

Swapping components is doing it the hard way! The above method involves one little wire, and will tell you exactly what's wrong.

Good luck...

- Rich

hmmm... yes i'm sure i've read something about the GPX alternators which are linked to the factory ECU somewhere on the net awhile ago but because I didn't remember/know enough about the technicalities I didn't wanna risk myself from sounding like an ass LoL...

I'm sure Richard nailed it right on the head though, cheers matey!