How often do you redline your car ?

JHMEG

That was the ST.. Ford lads ran the engine 24 hrs a day for 4 weeks at the redline.

maidhc

All the time - In every gear.

fletch wrote:

I seem to recall a feature on Fifth Gear where they were showing the testing that a Ford Focus went through. They ran the car at full (6,500rpm) revs for something like two weeks non-stop without a problem.

672hrs without getting a problem from an engine is hardly a fantastic achievement, even if it is at the red line.

It is also worth mentioning that running an engine at a continious speed is much less stressful that accelerating up the the red line to change gears.

Either way, the point is not that your engine will explode on hitting the red line (although NCTS make diesel drivers sign a disclaimer in case it does), but that doing so is not good for your engine and can shorten its service life considerably.

unkel

Regularly - It happens in my normal driving

blastman wrote:

It's got a motorbike engine with a turbo bolted on, so it's a little different to a normal car. The redline is definitely up around 12000 or higher, and yes I've been in one while it was being redlined.

Right, I had to google a bit for it. There is a rev limit at 9,300, or 8,800 for more than 3 sec. It cuts off fuel injection. Page 6E-23 of the manual

Also see honestjohn.co.uk who confirm the 9,300 rev limit. Max power is @6,500 rpm as I posted, so going over 6,500 is utterly pointless anyway unless you like the sound

cpoh1

maidhc wrote:

672hrs without getting a problem from an engine is hardly a fantastic achievement, even if it is at the red line.

It is also worth mentioning that running an engine at a continious speed is much less stressful that accelerating up the the red line to change gears.

Either way, the point is not that your engine will explode on hitting the red line (although NCTS make diesel drivers sign a disclaimer in case it does), but that doing so is not good for your engine and can shorten its service life considerably.

What the manufacturers do is run the engine like was mentioned above and afterwards compression and leak down test the engine, check the valves, pistons, crank etc. and see how they managed with the workload on the engine.

If honda, nissan etc. are happy that after 4 weeks of continuos running at the redline the compression in the engine remained near stock and the valves, springs, pistons, crank and pulleys remained uneffected then im going to take the experts word for it over an untrue old wives tale.

maidhc

All the time - In every gear.

cpoh1 wrote:

If honda, nissan etc. are happy that after 4 weeks of continuos running at the redline the compression in the engine remained near stock and the valves, springs, pistons, crank and pulleys remained uneffected then im going to take the experts word for it over an untrue old wives tale.

The harder you drive something the quicker it breaks. It isn't an old wives tale, it is an incontrovertible fact.

I'm not going to try running my 2.1 Capri at max rpm for 672 hrs anytime soon! Or even my 1.8 Focus TDCi with 80k on the clock.

cpoh1

maidhc wrote:

The harder you drive something the quicker it breaks. It isn't an old wives tale, it is an incontrovertible fact.

I'm not going to try running my 2.1 Capri at max rpm for 672 hrs anytime soon! Or even my 1.8 Focus TDCi with 80k on the clock.

You're missing the point completely, it wont break full stop when maintained properly because the engine is designed to take the stresses extolled on them whether redlined or not the engine will still last! Engines go on and on if serviced and maintained correctly. Even after 10 years of redlining a car every day you wont see the car spent 100 hours at the redline let alone 4 weeks. Even at a trackday you'd be lucky to have the car at the redline for longer than 20 minutes in total.

Ive never heard of an engine in standard form with standard map including redline blow a valve or piston or snap a crank due to mileage or everyday use driving a car to the redline. This will only happen with a very bad product base design (which simply does not happen anymore), crap oil with the engine over warm for its design parameters and breaking down, crap petrol or a cold engine overrevved regularly.

Like I said my old crx had 225psi across all cylinders after getting the life driven out of it with 150k miles on the clock, standard psi in the same engine brand new is 230psi!

Gerry

maidhc wrote:

The harder you drive something the quicker it breaks. It isn't an old wives tale, it is an incontrovertible fact.

I'm not going to try running my 2.1 Capri at max rpm for 672 hrs anytime soon! Or even my 1.8 Focus TDCi with 80k on the clock.

When driving hard through the gears, you might go into the red for a few seconds in total per day.
When it gets to the redline, or however far you rev it into the red, the revs will drop again straight away, as you change gear. So it might be at the red line for a few seconds a year.

It doesn't account for more than a tiny, tiny percentage of the time the engine is running.
The manufacturer expects the engine to hold up to this, if they didn't, they'd put the limiter at the start of the red section, not at the end.
Whats the point in talking about running your own engine at max revs for 672 hours? I know you are joking, but at the same time, you think that running it at max revs for a split second is going to make a big difference to the lifetime of the engine...

Drive it like you stole it ( responsibly, and within the law blah blah )

JHMEG

In fact, driving in too high a gear, with the engine labouring (a common problem in Ireland:D) will probably cause more stress and wear than hitting the redline regularly.

Funnily enough I have never seen a Honda B16A in a scrapyard. These engines are around since 1989. Yet if an old crashed integra, civic or crx comes in, the engine is sold within 24 hours, to be transplanted into a lesser engined civic or whatever. Now I'm sure all of those B16As are getting on in years, and probably have seen the redline every day of their working life. Yet there simply are none scrapped!

unkel

Regularly - It happens in my normal driving

Gerry wrote:

Drive it like you stole it

LOL, sounds like a plan

OKenora

Every once in a while - Its good for it

So it might be at the red line for a few seconds a year.

how does it get to redline ? Answer it acellerates and this can produce as much wear as sitting at redline all the time.

drive it like ya stole it

yeah i'm for that, redline it all the way, after all if it's not yours who gives a fVck about it

There is a rev limit at 9,300, or 8,800 for more than 3 sec. It cuts off fuel injection.

Either an ingenious way to keep you going slow,an odd way to save you fuel or there is a very sound mechanical reason for doing it.....

Gerry

JHMEG wrote:

In fact, driving in too high a gear, with the engine labouring (a common problem in Ireland:D) will probably cause more stress and wear than hitting the redline regularly.

Funnily enough I have never seen a Honda B16A in a scrapyard. These engines are around since 1989. Yet if an old crashed integra, civic or crx comes in, the engine is sold within 24 hours, to be transplanted into a lesser engined civic or whatever. Now I'm sure all of those B16As are getting on in years, and probably have seen the redline every day of their working life. Yet there simply are none scrapped!

Yea, if buying any sort of ordinary car, its worth going for the first testdrive with just the owner driving.
I've seen plenty of people who just go through the gears once, and only change down if they have to stop.
If you labour the engine enough, you will damage the bearings.

Gerry

OKenora wrote:

how does it get to redline ? Answer it acellerates and this can produce as much wear as sitting at redline all the time.

Look in the manual, it will say its ok to rev into the red for a short amount of time. It does in mine anyway.

OKenora wrote:

yeah i'm for that, redline it all the way, after all if it's not yours who gives a fVck about it

Erm, yeah, I said drive it *like* you stole it. In my experience, cars break down whether or not you drive them hard. You might as well have a bit of fun.

OKenora wrote:

Either an ingenious way to keep you going slow,an odd way to save you fuel or there is a very sound mechanical reason for doing it.....

You shouldn't drive it as far as the limiter. All the way through this thread, I've been interpreting "redlining" as driving it nearly as far as the limiter. I've tried to make this clear, but probably haven't succeeded.
Going as far as the limiter slows you down, as the engine management will cut the power in some way, either by pulling spark or fuel. It can also damage some cars if the fuel is cut, as the mixture goes completely lean, theres no fuel to cool the combustion chambers down, and they heat up suddenly. Theres no reason at all to do it. If someone is stupid enough to rev it to the limiter, or hold their car on the rev limiter, thats their problem.

cpoh1

@Gerry I really dont know why you bothered replying, its pretty obvious this guys knowledge of cars goes no further than getting into them and driving them and he has no basis for his arguement.

Everybody with a mechanical brain knows that the manufacturers have the redline and limiter set at a point well below the capability the engine of the car can handle and the reason the limiter and redline are there is to stop people taking their car to this level where eventually the cars reliability would be compromised.