Here's the deal: When my car warms up, I'll give it a go in first and second gear, and vtec works fine--it pulls as hard as it should and doesn't "bog" or anything out of the ordinary. After those two instances, vtec will no longer work. If I shut the car off and let it sit for, say, fifteen minutes or more, turn it back on, and take it for a drive, then it does the same thing--vtec twice, and no more afterwards. The ECU is NOT throwing a code, so I don't even know where to begin diagnosing something of this sort.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I did a search for scenarios where vtec won't work, but I am only getting threads that involve the CEL coming on and that's not my particular problem.

Thanks!

Oh, it's obd-1 b16, I'd assume that shouldn't matter, but dang I suppose I'm desperate.

 

there could be a few things wrong, i would check into oil pressure, maybe theres enough for the first few pulls and then not enough cutting vtec off

 

good call, I actually just replaced my valve cover so that seems like the most reasonable explanation.