Z28SORR

Yah, it's my daily driver. So mostly back and forth to work, about 10m. Even with the 3:73's I never get into 6th unless I hit the freeway for a trip.

JakeRobb

To each his own, but you're using up a lot more fuel than is necessary.

turbo_Z

I would rather burn off a little extra fuel than lug my motor in 6th gear. Running low RPMs in 6th gear is how you kill a motor.

96trans am

With my stock gears and my 4:11's i really didnt notice THAT much of a difference RPM wise on the highway. But for me I dont think I ever go into 6th gear until im around 60mph and up. If I am any under 1500rpm's, just like you guys are saying, I feel like its hard on the motor and also have no acceleration. To add on to that this is when i use to hear my horrrible header leak on my SLP shorties!!! God im glad thats over with, what a nightmare.

jchevy

Jack the rear end of the car up so both tires are off the ground. Spin the tire 1 complete revolution and count the number of times the drivshaft spins. it helps to put a mark on it so you dont lose track.

If it spins ~3.5 times then you have 3:42s
~3.75 times you have 3.73s
~4 and a hair more you have 4.10s


When i had my stock gears i found 6th pretty much useless under 70mph

Z28SORR

True, but not a problem. Maybe when gas gets to 6 dollars a gallon. When I was in Europe a couple of years ago I had to fill the rental. It was like 86 Deutch Marks, that's like 60 bucks U.S.

Z28SORR

This is a really old myth. Driving at low rpm's in no way harms your motor.

jchevy

Driving at low RPMS doesnt hurt it, but lugging it sure does.

Z95m6

Yeah but as the other guy said the lugging involved with it sure does. It beats the bearings out of the motor. Hell my motor even had a broken main cap on a stock shortblock.

zlightning

What do you mean by lugging?

jchevy

Low RPM, heavy load. Usually in upper gears, like trying to quickly pass a car when you are in 6th gear instead of downshifting.

You can pretty much lug any gear except for 1st.

OldSStroker

OEMs run wide open throttle WOT dyno tests from very low rpm, under 1500, perhaps from just off idle. There's not a lot of torque or power there, so the loads on the engine are not very high. Even at 1200 rpm you get 80 firing pulses per second, so it's not really like hitting the engine with a hammer. With today's PCM software, and especially with throttle-by-wire, the OEM coud prevent you from "lugging" your engine, like they prevent you from doing a max rpm "drop" from N in to D on many higher-torque FWD cars, but they don't. Must be they like to replace engines destroyed by "lugging". Not!

Audi 180 hp 1.8L turbo 4's are designed to make max torque from about 1900-4500. They pull WOT comfortably from 1500 and part throttle from lower than that with no complaints or shaking or evidence that they are suffering the dreaded lugging. Au contraire, Audi recommeds running in the highest gear you can for the conditions. Guess they like engine replacements under warranty also.

If you want to accelerate and you are in 6th, push down on the pedal. If you are at too low an rpm, the engine will talk to you by perhaps shaking. We're talking very low rpm here. Maybe under 900? OK, that's probably lugging, but there's almost no acceleration available at that rpm. Even a NDF (vulgar expression for a non-gearhead) would realize that condition isn't right, and downshift.

If you have applied lots of pedal and you are not accelerating quickly enough, downshift 1,2,3 or even 4 gears, and go. I'd pick a gear that got me the acceleration I needed for the traffic situation without exceeding maybe 80% throttle. In a basically stock (110 @12.9 on DRs) Camaro SS LS1 6th is good in suburban traffic from about 1100-1200 on up, and rarely requires downshifting, except for showing off or blowing off. Nope, it's not damaging the engine. If it's only producing a fraction of it's max torque and hp, how does it overload the rotating parts? Answer: it doesn't.

With skip-shift working, you go 1-4 at 20 mph or so. Check out the rpm the next time you use it. The next time you drive a stock LS6 Z06, shift into 6th at 30-35 mph and "crowd" the accelerator, or keep pushing it down slowly, and look for signs that it's unhappy.

Broken main caps and euchered bearings come from sources other than low rpm acceleration.

My highly-opinionated $.02. You opinion may vary. If you are an OEM vehicle engineer we can discuss it. If you subscribe to urban legends as your MO, we can't. Ain't differences of opinion fun?

Loony

I dno my car comes off idle pretty quick in second...stock gearing. I do it at stop signs most of the time.

seawolf06

So if I'm doing 77@ 2k rpm, what does that mean? Could the speedo be that wrong? I have an M6. Wouldn't the computer need to be tuned for the gears for the speedo to be right?

Vigilante

So, when I'm just crusing along where should I be in terms of RPMs? I usually try to keep it in the 1500-2000 range. Is this good?