I'll try and list as many of the details of this problem as I can. I have 2000 Integra GS-R that I Autocross most weekends. Up until this past weekend in Rome, NY (SCCA National Tour) the car has been running perfectly. I'm the only owner and have had the car for 2.5 years (90,000 miles). The only modifications to the car that are not suspension mods are : Intake/Header/Exaust.

Practice course : I took six runs on friday in the rain with no problems. The car actually did really well in the rain even with Hoosiers.

Day 1 : First 2 runs are fine (except for driver error on my part). On my 3rd run the car got loose in the last slalom before the turn-around. I settled the car and then shortly after that the revs dropped and the engine lost power. The check engine light came on. The engine began to work normally again after about 5-8 seconds. I brought it back to grid at low speed. Once in grid it idled fine, reved up fine, and drove fine.

*** Theory of the day was that I may have gotten an air bubble in my gas line, though I did have about a 1/4 tank of gas.

That night : I reset the ecu put some more gas in (over 1/2 tank) and took it out for some "spirited" driving. Everything seemed fine so I decided to go ahead with day 2.

Day 2 : Run 1 was fine. Run 2 was great until a little over half-way though the course the revs and power dropped off from about 7000 down to about 4500. No matter how much gas I gave the car it wouldn't exceed about 4500 RPM. The sound was similiar to hitting the rev limiter. The check engine light came on again (of course). So I finished the course as 4500 rpm... Once in grid the car seemed fine again just like the day before.

*** Theory of day 2 is airflow restriction. The rubber neck portion of the K&N filter getting warm and soft then bending inward to constrict air flow. Possible? don't know...

Post event : The car ran fine on the 4 hour drive home. I tried pushing it pretty hard but no problems presented themselves.

I apoligize for the long post but I figured I'd throw out as much as I could remember. Any idea at this point is a good idea so please throw me any you can think of!

Thanks in advance!

 

From what you have said, it sounds to me like 2 things MIGHT be causing this.

You do not have enough oil on your motor, therefore Vtec is not crossing over propery and it's screwing w/ the ECU

Or

You need an aftermarket oil pan for what you are driving, you might be running into oil starvation.

That's just my take, maybe it is, maybe it ain't, but it sounds good

HTH
X2

 

Hey, the more ideas I get the better my chance of solving this.

Ok, another question... When the ecu gets pissed and flips the check engine light does it store the error code somewhere? If it does how would one go about retrieving that code?

 

there is a plug under the dash that hangs above the ecu. stick a paper clip inthere and count how many times the check engine light blinks. long blinks equal 10 and short blinks equal 1. HTH.

ps: get a helms manual.

 

Ok, I popped the code and came up with this : P1259 (22) VTEC System malfunction. This could be more serious then I thought. Anyone encounter anything like this?

 

Ok, X2Board I think you might have been right. I did some searching and found a better description of code 22 :

Based on that and your post I double checked my oil. It was not critically low, but it was on the low side. I'm guessing that I didn't have enough oil in the car for the type of driving I was doing (Auto-x on concrete with Hoosiers) and it starved the engine and VTEC shutdown. Sounds reasonable?... I'm gonna check with acura/honda to make sure there is nothing else. Thanks for the help!