RPM

If it's a bone stock engine, the design is so restrictive from the factory that it's almost impossible to over-rev it under load.

The design of the engine also causes harmful vibrations/harmonics to the crankshaft at around 5500 rpms - a speed that should be avoided if possible.

Horsepower and torque curve starts to fall way before 5500, so winding the engine out to max rpms will not gain any more power. You would get better ACCELERATION by upshifting to the next taller gear earlier and let the engine run closer to it's power peak instead of way past it.

The valve springs start 'floating' at a certain rpm too, there's quite a bit of variation depending on wear etc. but it's somewhere past 6k. Scary sound and loss of power will make you lift off the gas instinctively, and the engine can get up there only in neutral anyway, unless you dropped it into 1st or 2nd gear from highway speeds.

In other words, keep it under 5000 at all times, and you will be fine. The best shiftpoints (below 5000) you can determine yourself, time your acceleration /speed increase in different ways, shifting early vs. shifting late. You will soon learn the sweet spot for each gear.

In 2nd gear, you may want to wind teh engine up significantly higher than the max power rpm, just to get the rpms up high enough for the 3rd gear to start pulling strong. The jump from 2nd to 3rd is big, killing acceleration until the engine gets back on the powerband as the rpms increase again.

Jan

Is this for manual- or auto- trans?

Roger

Manual.

Jan