Sudden loss of throttle response on the highway!

[wind.zero]

I am posting this in the Tuning Section because this problem certainly felt electronic to me. It has happened twice. The first time was one day last week and the second time was about an hour ago on the commute home.

The only way I can describe the problem is a sudden loss of throttle response and what seems like an electronic governor. I wish I could duplicate the problem but I can’t. When it happens again, I will try and get a video assuming I can video and get off the road safely, probably not.

The loss of throttle happened both times while merging from an on-ramp to the freeway. I was traveling about 65 maybe 70 MPH and dropped from 6th to 4th and bam, the engine stops revving at ~4k. The odd part is if I lift off the throttle, the revs stay at ~4k RPM’s. If I floor the throttle, the car barely maintains speed but the tachometer still indicates ~4k RPM’s. I watch the speedometer and the car slowly loses speed with the accelerator all the way on the floor. It is kind of obtuse to describe but losing the throttle on the highway with traffic is not pleasant.

Last week, I was lucky enough to be able to immediately pull off on the shoulder. Today, I had to navigate over a lane of traffic and tried shifting to other gears (5th and 6th), but the engine stayed at ~4k RPM’s and my traveling speed kept dropping even with the throttle floored. It was almost as if the car was coasting even with the throttle pegged.

Last week, I killed the car and on the restart everything appeared to be fine. I was able to rev normally in neutral. I drove on to my destination with no further problem. Today, I had to kill and restart the car three times before the throttle would go over 4k RPM’s in neutral. Before the 3rd restart, I waited about 20 seconds.

Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this? I can’t think of what might trigger an electronic governor or valet type mode when traveling at highway speeds.

The only correlation I can find is speed about 70, down shifting from 6th to 4th and then a sudden loss of throttle response. A restart or several restarts of the car make it go away. After it happened today, I tried to duplicate it and no luck. Nothing has changed on the car, tune, and all gauges/temperatures are in normal operating ranges.

• Water temp is normal right below half on the gauge.
• Oil temp is 200 – 220
• Ambient air temperatures in the low 90’s
• Fuel today and last week was 75% full

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot