Accidental over revving incident...

[Welshman Adam]

Morning all,

Driving to work this morning and I managed to accidentally over rev the engine for a split second by changing from 4th to 3rd, rather than 5th…  Rev counter shot round to about 7,500 rpm (ish, I was looking at the road before hearing the revs rapidly increase making me look at the clock so it could have peaked higher).  I hadn’t fully released the clutch, so stuck the pedal right back down again. 

Everything felt fine afterwards, drove as normal for the remainder of the commute, but I’m a little worried that I may have caused some damage.  Can anyone put my mind at rest?  Please?? 

Felt like a right tool afterwards and actually said “sorry” to the car…   

[dokez]

It be fine. If you had damaged the car, you would of known about it by now.

[numec]

its gona be fine..

[Scottymon]

What's that about 95/100mph indicated at 7.5k?

Probably more damaging to the gearbox than the engine... Did it hit the limiter?

Wouldn't worry about it.

[john87]

Your revs would have went beyond the limiter, however as already mentioned, if you'd done any serious damage (i.e. snapped a conrod) you would have known about it by now 

[ConorF]

If there was serious damage caused the car wouldnt have made it to work 

[Welshman Adam]

Thanks all, that's what I hoped.  It was a horrible feeling for a moment!

And I'm not quoting any speeds, but that Mini Cooper S shouldn't have provoked me...  

[Top Cat]

I don want to panic you but if you have damaged it ( not saying you have ) then it wont show up straight away. It happens a lot with Exiges on track days because the gear selection is pants on them. It is called buzzing the engine and can take weeks sometimes months before the engine shows signs of damage. Again it depends on how long the revs shot up for, with Exiges a tiny quick over rev is normally ok basically it is just the luck of the draw. Can you get a scan with VCDS and see what revs you reached. 
With these engines not revving to high you should be fine, just wanted to point out that the damage wont show up straight away as mentioned. 

[Scrubadub]

Surely the limiter would cut in?

[john87]

The limiter isn't mechanical; therefore if you select too low a gear for the road speed, then you are forcing the engine to spin faster than the limiter would allow... therefore putting moving parts under more stress than what they were designed to handle. Obviously there is a factor of safety...

[rich83]

Surely the limiter would cut in?

Correct...  but the limiter only limits by stopping fuelling, it wont stop the engine spinning up and eating itself.

[Cupra R]

If you have managed to over-rev it enough, there will be a fault code stored.

Clear it. I'm sure it'll be fine. 

[Welshman Adam]

Cheers all.  Appreciated. 

Will ask about the error code on Friday.

[danishmkvgti]

When i was at Donington in 2011 for at track day a friend over revved his 500bhp Cupra and it lost the valvelifters and wouldn't run. He knew imideatly that it was bad so you shouldn't have that issue 

[Tamiyoman]

Did exactly the same thing in my Mk2 GTI 8v Campaign, lost 2 valves and engine needed rebuilding, oops, same situ was provoked by an Escort RS Turbo