[Closed] Redlining a Car - Do You?

Nope...

It's a car... why would I ?

A motorbike 🙂 Yes... often.

Yep, used to only change up when the rev limiter kicked in on my V6 Golf as it was still pulling (and it had been remapped which upped the limit).

It's pointless in most cars, so generally no. But if something has a nice note up there then yes.

Whenever I safely can 🙂

Was beautiful in my Alfa v6- mk7 golf gti is still fun but less sonerous

Would really miss the noise and experience in an electric

My wife learnt to drive in a diesel and barely ever takes our golf above 3500, feels a shame!

No - no need. It's a diesel.
Had a petrol civic before and that only really got going above 4500rpm, so that went to the redline every now and then *

*to safely overtake a tractor for example 🙂

The Clio 182 I'm selling at the moment (80k miles, £2,200 for those interested 😉 ) was built to be redlined, the power only really comes in above 5,000rpm and gets to 7,250rpm* very quickly after that. Makes a good noise doing it too

*only once warmed up for 20mins minimum of course

If I'm making progress to an important business meeting in my panzerwagen I'll take to the max, because that's the way I lead my life, on the redline.

Sometimes. No on the road but yes on the track, but then only if it's the difference between just avoiding the limiter and another gear change. A lot depends on what your cars dyno graph looks like though. The higher you rev an engine the more stress it's under (unless you're really labouring it down low).

So uncouth.

yes often, its the only way to get the maximum acceleration in my cars, and its fun.

presume by 'redlining' you mean change gear near the actual revlimiter, but not actually causing the rev limiter to cut in? if you mean actually bounce it off the rev limiter, then no, never - unless I miss time a gear shift.

MX-5 - Yes frequently.
Land Rover - Never.

Depends what you are driving really.

I drive a diesel SMax!

Other peoples cars

On roads in my shitty petrol car. Hell no, it's lost all power by 5.5k 😆

On my track car, I try not to, its had a lot of mods done recently and has caught me out a couple of times on the track.

This might be a myth, but it keeps the engine a little less coked up if you run it through the rev range occasionally, I'm not on about bouncing it off the limiter. 😐

have you ever driven 68bhp in a vehicle that CAN weight just under 2 tonne.

if you short shift on a hill you risk stalling 😀

Mechanical sympathy is my middle name and I've never owned or driven a car that hasn't sounded or felt as though it was going to explode on its way to the redline so no, never

But I've owned a few two-stroke motorbikes and IL4s where the redline was just a coloured section on the revcounter and there was no mechanical distress whatsoever so yes and often

its an auto, so sort of.

In my car no - its a diesel so it's given all its got to give by 3000 rpm so no point in going any higher towards the 4500rpm red line. The wife's car is an auto so if i'm pulling out of a busy juncion or accellarating down a motorway slip road aiming for a gap in the traffic, it will sometimes kick down and use all the revs. That's what they're there for.

Though I can completely understand that if you had a car with an interesting engine that sounded nice at a particular RPM then I might be a bit more inclined to delay the gearchange unneccassarily from time to time when the fancy took me. But to my ear at least most cars or bikes don't sound good when maxed out at full revs. There is always a sweet spot beyond which the noise just gets harsh and screechy like fingernails scaping down a blackboard. A bit like if you were to turn up a HiFi too loud and you start getting clipping, distortion and all sorts of other effects.

In my ten year old turbo diesel Corsa, the party's over by 3k, so no.

In my old 1275 mini with stage 1 kit, yes, every time I drove it purely for the racket it made through the pipe and air filter 😀 In our diesel Doblo that has to last us a while, not so much.

Nope, drive a diesel, there's no point

i'm blessed/cursed with an over-developed sense of mechanical sympathy.

our current car (1.8 petrol vauxhall) is not at all happy approaching 4k, never mind the 'redline' of 6000rpm...

had an old VW jetta, bloody years ago, that thing just revved, and revved, and revved, that was a really 'nice' engine.

(60mph in 2nd was no bother)

8250rpm redline so why not.

And every other car as all cars need an italian tune up now and again.

Mechanical sympathy is my middle name and I've never owned or driven a car that hasn't sounded or felt as though it was going to explode on its way to the redline so no, never

according to many .....my cars all sound like they are going to explode from idle all the way through to 4500...... im not sure you would be able to tell the difference between idle and full beans without a rev counter 😀

its now 10 years old and owned for 7.... never given me any issues with the engine despite it getting used through its range often.

I do in my parents suzuki alto as otherwise any breeze would blow me backwards.

In my old 84 MK2 Golf with 180+ bhp (16v ABT tuned engine) i used to occasionally when the road conditions allowed as it was very entertaining to hit 7800rpm but it's been off the road for the past 2 years getting a very slow (and expensive) bare metal rebuild so all i can do now is sit on a plastic crate in the bare shell and make [i]broom-broom[/i] noises.

In my current runaround of a 2003 ford connect van i rarely take it above 3000rpm as there is no point in revving the nuts off it

Sure, occasionally on the road; definitely on the track (and like the other peeps; if by redlining you mean "changing gear at the last possible moment" and not "bouncing off the limiter")

*peak power is at ~7k rpm

I'm driving my wife's C2 with the eco-strangled 1.0 engine (0-60 in 16 seconds). I hit the redline by accident just in normal driving because it is so slow.

It's such a crappy undriveable little engine as well, I don't think it has enough torque to pull my foreskin back. There's absolutely nothing below about 3500 RPM. Then the bloody redline is 6000. You have to constantly drive round revving it up looking like a boy racer **** just to go at normal speeds.

Only in hire cars...

And my 1996 1.4 Megane the night before trading in. It made what can only be described as a 'death rattle'. I quickly changed up and trundled home to preserve something to trade in...

V-tec yo.

Rarely, but when there is a pull away from lights or roundabout on an open road (National speed limit of course) then the v-tec does occasionally get woken up.

Occasionally - it's a diesel automatic so generally shifts at about 4500rpm if you keep your foot flat to the floor but since it's new I've held it in gear until the rev limiter begins to come in a couple of times.

I imagine that cooling issues aside a modern diesel engine would run at the red line for years before anything happened.

Drive/ride it like you stole it! 😀

I have blown up quite a few motors. Quite spectacularly! Punching a con rod through the crank case at >120mph on my VF500 F2, and the contents of the gearbox dumping itself onto the red hot exhaust collector box and engulfing me in a huge cloud of smoke, must have looked as spectacular as the newly released piston saying hello to the valves sounded! 😳

How fast can you pull a clutch in?

Yes. A flat six at 7000 rpm sounds completely awesome in the Brynglas tunnels...

of course, occasionally. RS Clio, so it kind of likes it anyhow.

GLWTS legend - why are you selling?!

I think redlining finished the day after I parked rubber side up in the Goyt Valley.No. I'm slow and old now and more interested in fuel consumption.

Surely the answer is yes when it's a hire car
😉

simonbowns - Member
GLWTS legend - why are you selling?!

Doing more miles than ever planned for it, so the things that give it 'character' are starting to get a bit wearing. Haven't exactly compromised massively though, got a Fiesta ST now too

No point if produces max torque/power below the red line

No point if produces max torque/power below the red line

actually, there is.

lets ignore torque (its irrelevant at this point) and focus on power. A typical power curve might go

4.0 150bhp
4.5 160bhp
5.0 170bhp
5.5 180bhp
6.0 170bhp
(redline)

lets say your shift from 2nd to 3rd drops from 6000 rpm to 4,500 rpm - this would be going from 170 bhp down to 160bhp. if however you shifted at peak power (5500 rpm to 4000 rpm), you'd drop from 180bhp down to 150bhp (ish, it would actually drop slightly fewer bhp as the revs would only drop to something like 4125 rpm). anyway, from the time it takes you to get back to 4,500 rpm you'd be getting ~150-160 bhp. if you'd let the car rev, you'd have been getting ~180-170 bhp at the same time (using the higher revs), which is a lot more.

On very few engines you do get less than maximum power out of the engine by shifting early (ie ones with a very peaky/early power curve), but on the vast majority of engines (yes, even including turbo diseasals), you get most power by hitting the redline every time. That's why the autobox does exactly that.

The Clio 182 I'm selling at the moment (80k miles, £2,200 for those interested ) was built to be redlined,

I think that's false logic, I'm with FunkyDunc.

This thread needs graphs. Several hundred graphs.

Yes in the diesel auto - not that often but sometimes.

It is Italian, has done 90k miles, and the engine is canted back such that the pistons are aimed directly at my head if it is going to chuck its guts out.

I go as far at 6k rpm (i.e. 1000 rpm off the red line) with an interesting mixture of fear and pleasure.

In the (1.4 turbo petrol) road car, no point going beyond 5000 rpm, power band is 2.5-4.5.

on the rx8 ive just got 9k rpm is often seen.

Just reminiscing about my Integra Type-R and the joys / challenges of keeping it above 7,000rpm but not hitting the limiter at 8,600rpm for as long as possible down any given road.

After this resulted in a month on public transport I am now a reformed character

disl Yeti, round to the red line regularly when appropriate in lower gears.

strangely I don’t suffer from DPF issues.......

Used to quite often in the Citroen not so much in the Lolvo, not much point when it produces more torque at 1200 rpm than peak in the Xsara.

I have found that an Italian tune up every now and again prevents EGR build up problems in diesels. Almost certainly the case in the wife's Cooper S that suffered with coked up engine and would run better after it was thrashed.

Yes, occasionally. 13 year old 5 series Touring 2.5 diesel - 212k miles...

The Ovlov see the redline occasionally just to open her up on a couple bit of National Speed Limit dual carriage way when pulling on off roundabouts etc, usually in 2nd as it'll do 66-67 @ 6700RPM and 70ish just before it bounces off the limiter.

Once in a while it'll happen demonstrating to naive boy racers who don't know what an S60R is that Volvos can go quite quickly...

I'm driving my wife's C2 with the eco-strangled 1.0 engine (0-60 in 16 seconds). I hit the redline by accident just in normal driving because it is so slow.

It's such a crappy undriveable little engine as well, I don't think it has enough torque to pull my foreskin back. There's absolutely nothing below about 3500 RPM. Then the bloody redline is 6000. You have to constantly drive round revving it up looking like a boy racer **** just to go at normal speeds.

Pretty much what I was going to say. I've driven crappy little cars that you had to keep your foot to the floor to get up slight inclines, so they would have spent a deal of time in or tending towards the red.

Years ago I had a series of normally aspirated 1.8D Fiestas as a company car, they were about the single most gutless thing I've ever driven. I often hit the rev limiter on the hateful things, and when you did that it immediately dropped the power as though you'd totally lifted off the accelerator. Great design, really focused the mind if you were in the middle of an overtake at the time.

These days though, in a modern car with a competent engine there's little point even when overtaking. I can't remember the last time I looked at the rev counter, even.

0.8l car with a family and camping gear inside, going up birker fell from ulpha, pretty sure I got close to red line there.

205 mi16 launching, the sound of it bouncing the limiter was awesome.

"Years ago I had a series of normally aspirated 1.8D Fiestas as a company car, they were about the single most gutless thing I've ever driven. I often hit the rev limiter on the hateful things, and when you did that it immediately dropped the power as though you'd totally lifted off the accelerator. "

Loved mine as a first car.....you had to actually drive it.

Like someone else in this thread, I used to have an Alfa Romeo with a proper V6 in it, so it was rude not to redline it. Indeed, travelling through the Dartford Tunnel at the 50mph limit in second gear with all the windows down was absolutely necessary.

Before that, I owned a Mk2 Golf 16v, which pulled all the way to the rev limiter, so that too was redlined regularly.

These days, I drive a 1.9 turbodiesel...

My mechanic tells me hard acceleration helps keep the egr/dpf etc running well...

All the excuse I need!

The GF hates my mechanic;-)

On the occasions (rare) that i get something fun to play with at work, yes.

On a test track.

Last one was a Panamera.
Before that was the Polestar C30.

One was fun, one was dull.

One wonders... Why wouldn't you?

I had the impression that engines were designed to be used through their rev range. I wouldn't redline my car through every gear change, but occasionally on most journeys the engine will be run through its entire range.

Just seems normal to me. But then I came from a (straight four) motorbike background before cars.. So..

I had the impression that engines were designed to be used through their rev range.

[img] [/img]

@ghostlymachine

What did you think of the Polestar C30 out of interest?

I had a S40 T5 AWD with the B5254T engine tune to 300bhp and I was thinking of doing the same to a C30 but wasn't sure of the handing and whether it would put the power down etc.

Just seems normal to me. But then I came from a (straight four) motorbike background before cars.. So..

I think you may actually be me. Its this that I blame my propensity for wringing everythings neck until it explodes

no_eyed_deer - Member

One wonders... Why wouldn't you?

Because in loads of cars peak power and peak torque plateau or fall off before the redline so you are just making noise and burning fuel. Plus a lot of turbo cars have a hard limiter so if you actually hit the redline it'll cut boost and cause rapid deceleration.

Does making noise not qualify as a good enough reason in its own right?

Years ago I had a series of normally aspirated 1.8D Fiestas as a company car, they were about the single most gutless thing I've ever driven

Spent every journey getting mercilessly mown down by buses and HGVs

COME ONNNNNNNNNNN! F***********************ING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Berlingo - No
Clio RS - Yes, well I assume so, I'm not looking at the clocks I wait of the shift beep, it's how it's desighned to be driven.

My Nissan NV400 doesn't get much beyond 3500rppm - but in the past I had 3 cars which all went into the red on a regular basis - Lancia Beta HPE - sweet reving beauty on twin down draught Webbers, BMW 525i throaty rumble peerless and my Mitsuibishi Colt 1.1 3cyl - like a sewing machine, just great fun.

Pretty sure that's how the designers of my old Toyota felt. the red line was a very thin sliver right at the end. They put a bit of 'are you sure' orange where most put red

Reminds me, used to rally with a chap who had a 1300cc Sirion Rally 2. Ugly as sin, but they're revvy little critters. Redline was 9k rpm, we had the needle the wrong side of the redline a few times, no limiter. 10,000k rpm in a car. Madness. Like a bike engine.

[quote="one_happy_hippy"]What did you think of the Polestar C30 out of interest?

Absolutely ****ing barmy. It was about 430-450 BHP when we had it. Blindingly fast everywhere. Pretty much a touring car with leather trim and a CD player.

I don't think you'd be able to mod a stock car to that level though. It was a bare shell factory rebuild. And a lot of the stuff was limited availability or one offs. Like the AWD system. Shocks, gearbox, engine, brakes. Pity it never went to production. 🙁 Couple of colleagues got shanghaied into the project for 2 or 3 months while they looked at it. That was (apparently) good fun.

I've had a (public road) play in the hopped up road going version (about 325 bhp and FWD) and that was a hoot. I reckon 300 would be doable and drive able with some smart purchases (diffs, suspension, brakes!).

Not the actual redline/limiter but deep into the red, sure. Even though it's a diesel it still pulls up to the top, and if I shift high then the upshift drops the revs right into the fat again for the next gear. Don't do it often though, just not neccesary.

My bike used to make basically the same amount of power from 6500 to 10000 so that was where you wanted to stay (it'd have gone on to 11 if I'd switched the ECU but I think it'd only be a matter of time til a piston punched me in the jaw tbh)

Loved mine [1.8D Fiesta] as a first car.....you had to actually drive it.

I can only assume that you only ever visited things that were downhill.

We could be talking about different things, this would've been a... Mk3 I think? Let me Google.

Honda Integra Type R......it goes to 10 000 rpm for a reason, its meant to be used. Big fat yes from me when the time is right (best in 2nd gear)

For those who are red line curious

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

Mk4.

[img] [/img]

Just look at it! Hateful bloody things.

Looking at Wikipedia, it'd imply that there were two different 1.8D offerings I think - there's two 0-60 figures listed against it.

The Mk3 on the other hand came with a CVH engine, I imagine that was a lot more fun if the 1.6 CVH petrol I had in my Escort was anything to go by. Now there was an engine that properly thrived on being thrashed.

@nickjb - is that all that's left?

Occasionally in the Mrs car. 2.4 petrol accord 7500rpm redline...

mines was a mk3. mark my words it was faster than a number of 1.2 corsa from a standing start - mainly because they had to change gears about 30 times to get there and i would still be just going into 3rd. Died of rust at just shy of 250k

Loadsa MPG and fast enough for a new driver - and didnt mind having 3 blokes and 3 bikes on and in..... the 1.6 zetec escort that replaced it couldnt handle that.

VTEC yo? Makes me cringe every time I hear that...

As above when the car / conditions allow, a big yes 😀

Nah it's a diesel, the redline just means lots of noise and you've missed the band by miles, it's quicker to shift up at about 70% of the rev range.

Petrol cars though yeah, maybe not on the way to the shops but now and again.

Nest car will be a petrol, and probably brand new, unless the book says it needs to be run in or something (do they still do that?) it won't get past the first day without seeing the line, maybe the limiter if I'm being a bit cack-handed.