Only had my SS for 6 months so Im still new to the car.

Today on hard acceleration away from a light I lost full power in first gear after a few seconds. It was all back after shifting to second.

I had this issue in my old 1991 MX6 GT turbo, which turned out to be a bypass being stuck.

I did not keep my eye on the revs....I was looking at the road but I was probably in first long enough to get the revs into the 6's.

Is this the rev limiter cutting my power? Does it react that way?

It was pretty scary because I did not expect it.

 

Is this a Auto trans?

 

I've had that happen in my GTO if the tires spin while the traction control is on.

 

go out and tach out first and see if it happens again the same way. was it sputtering or did it just die out? the ecu cuts fuel when you hit the redline and it hits kinda hard depending how much power you have and how hard you are accelerating so that coulda been it.

 

Auto's also have differential protection, were the tires spinning a little?

 

Sounds like traction control kicked in and "shut it down" (paraphrasing here). Mine did this once. First gear.Got on it hard. Same result.
Now I just keep it in Comp Mode if I'm doing any spirited driving.

 

Sorry, should have put a little more detail.

Its a 5 spd HHR SS. It was not wheel spin with the traction control kicking in. That I have felt and usually that is only for a short second and then power is back on.

This was full cut of power and I quickly shifted to second. Im thinking it was the rev limiter.

As for going out and taching out the engine to see if it does the same thing......OUCH. That sounds kind of dangerous to the car.

I come from the age where over revving an engine is BAD!!!

 

Do you have the GM stage 1 kit installed?

 

The rev limiter is there to protect the engine, so bumping it once in a while won't do damage. However, it doesn't do a complete power cut like you describe, so I'm a little puzzled.

 

It sounds like rev limiter. The first time I hit the rev limiter (my 87 Fiero GT 5 speed) I thought I blew the engine for the car just shut down. The 2.8 V6 in 1st gear hits the rev limiter around 30 mph. I don't do that any more as the car now has 138,000 miles on the clock and I just don't push it. At 25 years old I just drive it a lot more carefully.