Red Lining

[old-git]

My bike chums reckon that the words in Japanese at the bottom the the tacho say "change gear now"

[HDi fun]

It has to say that. Japanese petrols rev to stupidyhigh numbers and without complaint.

Maybe the words are for the American market where they can't drive manuals.

[waynne]

Does your rev limiter cut in at the redline, above it or below it?

[HDi fun]

The Nissan's red area starts at 6900 the limiter (which is a soft one) starts winding the fuel delivery back as you approach 7300. It won't go past 7600 at all (being auto you can't even shove it down a couple of gears - it won't go down the box until safe to do so). Peak power was about 6850, so well done Nissan, got things in the right order.

The hard limiters that work by inhibiting the ingition sparks are very harsh devices. As well as the 'bouncing' effect, you also end up chucking unburnt fuel /air mixture through the cat. This is bloody dangerous as when a slug of hot gas does go through pipe it can ignite the whole lot.

A friend of mine managed to blow the seam welds on the exhaust box in this way!!.

The Pug 406 is redlined at 5300, which is high for a diesel, even a 16 valve one (which it is). Peak power is about 1000rpm lower so it's totally pointless going that far unless you really do like soot.

[Prince]

I'll have to give it a bash tomorrow and see what happens! Lol. I think my redline is at 7000, the highest I've taken it is to 6000.

And to reply to the manual/auto comments....I definitely prefer manual!! Always have, always will.

[SLEEPER]

I thought the redline was where you are supposed to keep the needle

[waynne]

Using the redline is a good way to kill an engine, I know so many people who just pushed a little harder and waved good bye to a con rod through the sump! I'm just curious to see how the rev limiters from different makers work. Vauxhall for example just cut the spark and as HDi says this helps to kill the cat.

[HDi fun]

Driving to the red line should not hurt a modern engine. The red starts at the maximum safe engine speed. Clearly going to the limiter or repeatedly into the red band could cause damage.

The most important thing is to stay well off the revs until the thing is properly warmed up. And keep your oil level up to max if you're a regular visitor to the red.

[waynne]

Good advice HDI. But old cars are less inclined to enjoy the redline. A mileage of 90,000 plus will probably be enough to warrent a more cautious approach. Maintainance is everything though so regular oil changes should help keep the engine in top condition.

[HDi fun]

I used to twat (technical term) the Nissan round to 7000rpm even when it had 170,000 miles (not km) on it. And it honestly, never, ever broke. Ever.

Those SR20 engines are indestructible. Even the camshafts are chain driven so there's no belt to snap.

It also used to sail through MOT's with 0.00% CO on the original cat!

But I did keep the servicing up to schedule and I did warm it up before giving it any welly. This probably helped.

[waynne]

Torque With Accelerative Tweaks?

[pgarner]

we should put together a technical dictionary me thinks