Revving your engine ...

I keep my engine pretty well maintained and I'm afraid I've been babying the car. Interesting thing is ever since we get the Land Rover for my daily needs, I've been less kind with the Gen Coupe revving higher and pushing harder.

That got to me thinking how bad is it for the car to push the engine hard? Like 4000-6000, just before redline?

It's not good to do it in neutral for a number of reasons - but under load when warmed up it's fine. That is why they put redline where it is. It's the top of the safe envelope for the engine.

Depends on the engine in question of course, but my approach is typically that they put the rev limiter where they did for a reason- don't sit there bouncing off it, but as long as the thing is warmed up any part of the tach that isn't red is fair game

Notable exception- Toyota 22r/re. Revving them to 5k+ consistently apparently makes them throw rods, if LeMons cars are any indication.

4000-6000 before redline means you're basically just off idle in most cars....

Sure, there is more wear at higher engine speeds, but it won't hurt a well-maintained engine. It isn't uncommon for my BMW with 275k miles and a turbo to see redline and it does just fine. That doesn't mean you should sit there and bang off the limiter, but if it was hurting something to rev that high, the redline/limiter would be set lower.

My 380k mile VW practically lived at 4000rpm.

In my experience, expecially with old cars, its worse to not rev them out and just putt around than just to give them the beans every day. The Italian Tuneup exists for this sole reason. Dont be scared.

I assume the new di engines will fall the same fate as the old carbed engines with carbon gunk because little old ladys just putt to church and back instead of revving them out and loosening up the carbon buildup, well in the combustion chamber at least.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ wrote: Notable exception- Toyota 22r/re. Revving them to 5k+ consistently apparently makes them throw rods, if LeMons cars are any indication.

Hondas have that reputation in LeMons too, but I think it's a lot to do with the drivers. People think because they're reliable street engines that you can run them to 7k rpm multiple times per lap and hang it there. We run a Honda and have had tremendous reliability with it. But we don't bang it off the limiter, we shift a bit before. Keeps the engine nice and happy.

I routinely flog the engine in the Jeep. Once it's warmed up, anything is game. It's smacked the 6k rpm rev limiter (stock was 5300) a few times during rallycrosses and such and gets run through the gears (shift points around 5500) regularly on the street (and pushed north of 3k whenever traffic allows and it's warmed up). 203k miles and it still has some crosshatching left in the bores. The top end isn't stock, but the bottom end is all original and still doing fine.

IMO, if it's gonna blow up from being run hard, it's broken and gonna blow up at some point either way.

I've never worried about it as long as the car has enough oil, the right oil, and is warmed up. Even the 275k mile Miata and the 284k mile Subaru were happy bouncing off the limiter for a couple of seconds during autox and rallyx. I wouldn't think twice about running up to redline and shifting on the street. +298 it's there for a reason.

If you're doing serious track work, OK, give it some thought. But anything you can do on the street without being an shiny happy person is gonna be fine for the car.

Some cars are designed to run their best in the higher RPMs too. A Miata for example. Seems like they love to be right around 3-4k rpms and hate anything below 1500 rpm. Some truck engines redline around 4k, but the Miata will do it all day.

The only time I shift before 4,000 is if I'm stuck in traffic. I'm not familiar with the Genesis in particular, but most engines in performance cars are designed for higher RPM and you won't do any damage.

I was once on a mountain drive with a group. During one of the stops someone commented that their car always runs better after they have had a chance to wring it out. I told him he wasn't driving his car properly.

In reply to Desmond:

The Miata is kind of a special case. Heck when they get a bit tired and high mileage they seem to develop a more pronounced point at about 4200 where they wake right up and run like hell to redline. Maybe Keith knows why? People routinely bump the rev limit to 7500ish and spend a lot of time up there for autocross without blowing anything up.

I rev the tractor like inline 6 in my wagon too 5200 rpm with no issues. I dont have a rev limiter and it revs 5500 without any valve float. Doesnt pull much past 4800 though.

I have to run the Samurai above 4K to keep up with traffic. It crosses 5K on a regular basis. On the other hand, the 460 in my F350 almost never revs above 2K.

There are theories around the Porsche IMS problem that failing to let the engine occasionally visit the higher end of its operating RPM range contributed to IMS failure.

What would that theory be? Just curious. heat or vibration tempering something, somehow?

I think it depend on the car. My daily driver is an explorer with the 4.0 ohv in it. It never sees 4k and barely ever 3.5k

Nothing wrong with going wide open throttle or touching redline in a warmed up car. Actually considered a good idea to do it once a day, it's not such a problem with modern EFI engines but you can still carbon one up if you baby it. I once had a car that actually quit burning oil when I moved to a city and had to start beating on it more to keep up with traffic.

heck, even in my Disco, I take it on the highway once a week and floor it in Sport mode away from the tollbooth and run it hard till about 80.. it hits the redline a couple of times on the way. It really does seem to run a little better after that.

Now a friend of mine thinks that if you run a car to redline, the engine will burn up. He really does think that

You can shift before the redline? Interesting........

Step 1- get rotary.
Step 2- always rev the crap out of it.
Step 3- buy gas ( it won't be long). Repeat.

My 65 GTO had a mechanical rev limiter. It just bent push rods/push rods poked holes in the rockers. Pontiac parts had boxes of them behind the counter.

Been Beating my 2.4L Theta in the Forte for 63k miles. Several HUNDRED auto-x runs and many more onramps. Run it to rev limiter (soft limiter on these) and it is good to go. STrong motor built well.

There is basically nothing i won't rev to the rev limiter, and i've owned several cars with over 300000 miles. If it breaks, it won't be because you revved it to the rev limiter, it will be that something that was already screwed up finally let go.

I hardly go above 4k in daily driving.. I'll redline it once in a great blue moon to go weee..