getting ready to buy a 97 but one problem

[villestrip]

Yesterday I drove a 97 xj that my brother wants. While driving it I got on it in first gear and when you push the pedal to the floor the engine acts as if there is some sort of rev limiter. The power would cut out. I'm curious as to what would cause this. Its a manual with a 4.0

[RichP]

They do have a rev limiter. I've hit mine a couple of times, comes on around 125 or so with stock 225's, only did when I got tucked in between a high speed line of benz's, porches, ferreri's heading down to philly on the NE extension early one sunday morning.... I got off and the 4 hot cars behind me gave me a thumbs up when they passed me :D that was a very intense 20 min of whats normally 50 minute run... the rest of the day was horrible, felt like I was crawling at 65...

[villestrip]

but my question is if you put the pedal to the floor in first does it sputter?

[olivedrabcj7]

probably.

[villestrip]

Why would it do that??

[olivedrabcj7]

to keep from blowing the engine. safety kinda thing. most newer cars have them. (im not by any means suggesting this) but if you put it in neutral and hold the pedal down, the needle will bounce back and forth up high, this is the rev limiter.

[villestrip]

yeah it does but I have a 98 with an auto tranny and if you put the pedal to the floor it just goes. With the 97 with the manual if you do the same it sputters. I just don't want to buy it if there is something wrong with it

[scoobyxj]

If you getting the RPMs upto some where between 4.5&5k then it's the revlimiter. Auto trannys don't usually let the engine get to the revlimiter in the lower gears before they shift, but sence you control the shifting on a stick you can get to it easily. IIRC if you put the Xcase in low range, and have the AW-4 in 1-2 the tranny shifts right before the revlimiter (on a properly adjusted unit) hits. If It is doing some funky stuf at a obviously lower than the limited RPM then it might just need a good tune up to take care of the problem.

[Atl XJ]

On the '98 XJ AX15, I can floor it and leave it floored till the redline at 5000 when I shift without any sputtering or hitting of rev limiters. My 95 AW4 is the same, I can floor it and leave it floored till its hits the redline at 5250 and shifts If I have it to the floor. On my auto if I stomp it hard from a stop it will slightly hesitate and then take off like a rocket, it doesn't do that if I take off with 3/4 throttle and then floor it a second afterwards.

[bjoehandley]

It could be plugged injectors, I ran three bottle of Cheveron Techron through my '98 and it got rid of what ever made the truck start to fall on it's face at full throttle.

[villestrip]

Yeah I think somethings plugged cause it does it right when you start out. So there is no way its hitting the rev limiter. And only when the pedal is all the way to the floor.