On the track recently, I experienced loss of power, as if I'd run out of fuel, during cornering. It started out happening only during the hardest tightest cornering on the track (I was running on Hoosier R6's) at about 5/8ths of a tank of gas.

The problem became progressively worse/ more persistent as the tank progressed toward empty.

The loss of power was pretty much complete, and lasted 2-3 seconds, until I was onto the straight after cornering. When the tank became near empty the loss of power persisted 5 seconds or more, well onto the straights. I still had a couple gallons in the tank.

This has never happened, before or since, on the road.

Anyone ever hear of this happening? I'm thinking this is more likely a fault than a design problem.

Possibilities I'm brainstorming about are all entirely speculative at this point:
1. A fault with the fuel pickup
2. A problem with the fuel pump affected by G force?
3. ECU detecting a drop in pressure and cutting engine?

I have also noticed that the car's low fuel warning light seems to be coming on earlier and earlier, ie with more fuel actually remaining in the tank when the light comes on.

I'm concerned that this could potentially cause a destructive lean burn situation.

 

I don't know much about this, if anything at all, but I notice all the time if my temps are above 210 I lose A LOT of power until about 3-4k RPMs if I go WOT. This is because the engine retards the timing because of the high temps, to safeguard the engine.

Other then that I have no idea, but I would bet thats what the cause is.

 

That's kind of interesting, but I'm not talking about less power, I'm taking about no power, losing speed, engine cut out. It's like I turned off the key. This is not retarded timing...

 

the comment about your low fuel light coming on earily and earilier sounds to me like the pick up tube something wrong, maybe pull it out about a 10 min job

 

I'm not sure of the design of the G35 fuel system, but the fuel pickup likely has a small reservoir that remains filled with gas even when the fuel shifts in the tank going around corners. I'd bet that resevoir is either broken or clogged. If that's correct, you won't notice a problem when the pickup is submerged in fuel, but the second you go around a corner it'll start picking up air instead, but only when then fuel level drops low enough to leave the pickup dry.

 

See, told you I don't know much about it haha.

jimrockford's post makes sense then.

 

Do you know its a 10 minute job to pull it out or are you guessing it might be a ten minute job to pull it and look at it?

 

Has anyone here ever had fueling problems/ loss of power while tracking your sedan??

 

This is Canadian posting under this s/n..

To get to the fuel pump and to remove it to look into the tank is a 10 minute job, easy as hell.

 

I was thniking it was your VDC but, I guess not. It cuts the fuel when it comes on as well. iono

 

Cool. I'll check it out thanks.

 

It's not VDC. First, while VDC does cut power, not like this. Secondly, my VDC is fully disabled with the G-Sensor (Yaw sensor) disconnected by a switch.

 

What is the ambient temp at the track events lately? You discribe part of the problem a lot of us have when the temp get in the high 90's and up. < This has to do with the fuel warning and level.

 

It was probably about 95F maybe 100F at the track until an afternoon thunderstorm cooled things down. The problem didn't go away with the lower temperatures though. It was probably around 90F after. Can you point me to any threads about what you're talking about? What fuel warning?

 

It seems to me that you're loosing fuel pressure and the most likely culprit is sloshing fuel in the tank. You really should be run with a lot more fuel because it fuel starvation could wreck the motor and also burn up the pump. Both my 96 Maxima and 94 Z28 would cut out power when taking them into really hard manuvers with 1/8 tank of fuel. The G fuel tanks don't have baffles nor are designed for high G loads. You need to run more fuel to compensate for this.