So I decided to go for a late night drive tonight to test out my newly arrived Lexus all-weather mats and found myself on the Courtney Campbell causeway which is a nearly 10 mile long bridge with nowhere for cops to hide, LOL - see pic. I was in the left lane going at a very healthy clip when I notice that I’m rapidly approaching the distinctive tail lights of a newer Lamborghini in the right lane. So I put my gearshift into M and downshifted a couple gears to get the RPM’s up around 5,000.

As I pull alongside the Lambo I floor it of course since there were very few other cars on the bridge and I hear the Lambo quickly follow suit. I had the top down so my car sounded fantastic as I paddle shifted to change gears at 7,000 rpm while I could simultaneously hear the wail of the Lambo in the other lane. I was late on one of my upshifts and it bounced off the rev limiter. But instead of just doing the normal wah wah wah when it bounced off the rev limiter, the engine abruptly and violently cut power and dropped to about 3,500 RPM - scared the crap out of me. My car was very low on gas when this occurred so I’m wondering if that was the cause? However I continued to drive another 10 miles or so to a gas station without further incident so I couldn’t have been that low. Has anyone else experienced such a violent cut off in power when bouncing off the redline?

 

no expert here but could the engine was just starved for fuel in that paricular circumstance.

i never drive my lc with very low fuel.

 

If you are in manual mode and fail to shift at redline it will respond exactly like you described.
I had mine do the exact same thing once.

 

Thanks that makes me feel better. I wonder why Lexus would have engineered it so it would react so violently at redline if in manual mode and yet so nonchalantly if in auto mode. The good news is my new floor mats performed flawlessly

 

Well, MANUAL mode means YOU are in control of the shifting.

RTFM.

 

[QUOTE=GatorGreg;11625757]Thanks t I wonder why Lexus would have engineered it so it would react so violently at redline if in manual mode and yet so nonchalantly if in auto mode./QUOTE]

Perhaps to get our attention.

I also think it depends on how hard you are pushing it.
When you are slowly approaching redline in manual mode it will do the wah wah thing. Chasing a Lambo, not so much.

 

Well it was definitely at WOT when it happened, LOL. I’ll have to RTFM as Kenny suggests but I still don’t understand the logic of why it should behave any differently. Which reminds me - at some point last night I was fiddling around with the trac pad and “discovered” two things I didn’t know:
1) The Owner’s Manual is apparently built into the car’s computer - although when I tried to access it it wouldn’t let me because I was moving.
2) You can have your cooled seats going simultaneously with the heated air scarf which I found amusing

 

Gallardos and F355s do this, too.

 

I have yet to push my LC fully since I just got it in November and the roads here are supbar at best, with summer tires and cold weather, it'll have to wait until late spring until it comes back out.

In any event, I have read on this and it seems to be fairly 'normal'. Ideally I agree I wouldn't let the fuel go down that low, I actually have a fairly firm rule in our house that none of the cars go below half tank, especially in the colder seasons.

Stay safe, Gator.

 

Is this specific to LC or to the 2UR GSE line? I've shifted late a few times in my GSF but it never cut power. Granted, i wasn't there long, bounced maybe 1-2x then shifted. I'm still in break-in with LC and don't plan to bounce it off redline but this info good to know👍🏽

 

I think this is the same Lambo that I embarrassed myself against

 

Very simple answer: It NEVER hits the rev limiter in auto mode. Having said that, I'm almost sure at least one reviewer (maybe Throttle House?) was bouncing off the limiters of both a Jag and an LC, and they never did that. It doesn't sound normal to me, but maybe it is. Maybe T/C kicked in for some reason, no? Because that'd be exactly how the car would react to that.

 

you hit a fuel cut/rev limiter. Basically designed to save the engine from doing something idiotic like reving it to the moon when missing a shift and destroying valves or a piston.

 

i guess i was right it was starved for fuel, which is BY DESIGN when manually banging on the rev limiter.

 

I have redlined my LC many times like the video here shows. There was a time when I had the radio turned up and forgot I had the car in manual and I kept pushing the gas while the car got slower. When I turned the radio down in a panic, I could hear the engine sputtering and realized what was going on.