SFMax20SE

Man, these things are fast! My cousin has one and we just raced. He had his brother in the car while I was by myself.
We are both autos.
From a dead stop, off the line, he gets me by 1/2 car, then pulls a full car length and then we are even through my 3rd gear. If we are both going about 60mph and we punch it, it is dead even. Oh, casualty of war... we toasted a Civic SI 5 speed with exhaust when we were running
Now I have a base... after my Y-pipe, intake and pulley, we shall run with the wind again!
Oh, I noticed when I am in 3rd gear about 4K rpm and I manual downshift to 2nd, the tranny does not shift, just keeps revving in 3rd. Is this my tranny going out? The TCM? Or does everyone have this problem?

littledog

If you are at 4k rpm in 3rd gear already, that would be around 6.5-7k in 2nd gear, so it doesn't shift. It's a safety mechanism to protect the engine.

MrBurner

sounds like someone needs to learn to race his auto

you should be able to beat this golf once you get to know your car a little better

1st gear tops out at 43mph...you shouldn't ever downshift to first while you are still rolling anyways

2nd gear tops out at around 75mph...if you are going under 75mph, you can downshift to 2nd gear

3rd gear tops out at an even 110mph...if you are going between 75mph to 110mph, you should be in 3rd gear

anything above 110mph you should be in 4th gear

when you downshift to 2nd while going over 75mph, the engine seems to slow down fairly quickly so it can actually start engine braking (don't know if that made too much sense)

your auto is quite a bit quicker if you race from 1-2-OD OFF-OD ON

keep trying him and try different types of shifting...he had a person in the car...either of you have any extra weight? how much gas did either of you have? subs or anything in the trunk (dead bodies?)? every lb. makes a difference when racing

getting a good launch in our auto's is difficult, but it sounds like this was a really close race...keep trying him, i'm sure you will win some and lose some

at least now you have someone to benchmark all of your mods from...currently, you are both even...when you get a y pipe you can see how much that helps etc....every mod you get, you should race him again to see what kind of difference it makes

ArcticMax

on the 4th gen,

second gear tops out at 84 mph,

and third at 125 mph.

IMO, seond gear is too long. They should shorten it little, like on the accord V6.

talk about bad gearing! on the Hyundai Sonata v6 auto, first gear tops out at 51 mph, and second at 92 mph.
What the hell were they thinking? no wonder they are so slow.

SFMax20SE

Thanks for your post guys! After reading them, I did play around and got a better launch. I talked to my friend again today and got new info:
He said he had his traction control on, so he did not get a good launch either, plus he had a passenger, and we both had a full tank of gas.
He was watching me when we took off, and he said I was peeling out like crazy, and that the nose of my Max pick up kinda high off the ground. Guess I need some springs to keep it on the ground more. Will it be weird to have a shift light in a automagic?

Y2KevSE

iTrader: (13)

Definitely.

Mugen13

Man those are some long gears. If you had gearing like a V6 Accord, the Auto's would be a lot quicker and could problably run 15.4's in the 1/4mi. But what can you do?

But back to the race, just practice.

stevepake

The Accord V6 goes...

1st: 44mph @ 6300rpm
2nd: 73mph @ 6300rpm
3rd: 116mph@ 6300rpm
4th: 132mph@ 4600rpm (drag limited)

Our 2nd gear might be a good bit shorter, but this can often act against you, too. Like if you're going 60mph or a little more on the highway and get on it hard to haul azz around some bozo... At that speed it's really too fast for a 3-2 downshift because by the time the tranny downshifts it's darn near hitting redline, and then it has to shift again causing you to lose even more time. So it ends up being quicker (although still slow) to just have the engine duke it out in 3rd gear and dig in from around 3000-3200rpm up to much higher speeds. The Accord V6's power band doesn't really kick in until VTEC engages at 3500rpm, and then it really gets going at around 3800rpm or so.

Having a LONGER 2nd gear (like 84mph) for us would really be beneficial, because then 2nd gear downshifts on the highway would be more possible. But of course, if you never drive on the highway that much (I drive 30k miles/yr - mostly highway) then a taller 2nd gear wouldn't help you at all and a shorter one would be better - it just depends on how and where you drive, I guess.

It's tough to optimize gears on a 4spd because you're already forced to have pretty wide ratios. It's much easier on a 5spd or 6spd to always have a good gear at any speed. Maxima's have MUCH more low-end torque than an Accord V6 though, so the 84mph 2nd probably works well enough for you guys. That same 84mph 2nd in the Accord would lag real bad in non-highway driving because of the lack of low-end torque, so we really do need that 73mph 2nd gear. It sorta does suck for me though. Ah well...maybe I shoulda bought a Max

Now all someone needs to do is just develop an efficient CVT tranny that can handle more than 2.0L engines and we'll be all set

So anyways, be careful what you ask for, because you might just get it. It can work both ways

costcowholesale

iTrader: (12)

kinda off topic:
does yr accord V6 go above 6100? my odyssey's V6 (the 3.5 vtec version)has a rev limiter @ around 6100 and the tach shows redline around 6300. It is kinda annoying, rev limiter kicks in 200rpm before redline. Anyway to by pass this?


and to the rest:
why did nissan change the gear ratio for 5th generation?

stevepake

HA! You think you've got it bad in your Odyessy?? These 5th Gen automagic guys here are getting screwed bigtime. Redline is 6500rpm but the shift point is only 5900-6000rpm, depending on the gear. And the horsepower peak is at redline, 6500rpm, so there's more power to be had that the automagic fails to take advantage of and really hampers the Max/auto's performance.

As for my Accord V6, redline is the same 6300rpm and there's a rev limiter somewhere in the neighborhood of 6500-6600rpm. The shift points are right at the 6300rpm redline on the 1-2, and the 2-3, but if you're racing you ahve to be careful on the 3-4. If the tranny is in D4 it'll do the 3-4 upshift at 5900rpm and steal away 400rpm from you, which turns out to be a good 10mph or so, so when I'm racing I leave it in D3 until redline and then shift up to D4.

Your Odyessy and mine have the same engine block design (J30A1 for me, J35A1 for you) so I'd imagine that things are setup about the same.

The solution to your problem, and the Max/automagic guy's problems is to powershift. The tranny will automatically upshift at a certain point, but if you'd like to shift at a higher point than that just leave it in 1st to start out with and then "manumatically" shift up through the gears by hand. But when you do this you have to time the shift just right because it's still not like having a stick shift. Once you bump the shifter up to the next gear, there will be about a 1sec delay or so from the moment you bump it up a gear to when the shift actually takes place. So if you bump it up right when you hit redline you'll be bouncing off of the rev limiter long before the shift takes place and that'll rob you of speed. The Max automagic guys have the same problem. The Accord V6 shifts right at redline on the 1-2 and 2-3, though.

Err...this "power shifting" works pretty good with a floor shifter, but you've got a column shifter in that Odyessy, dontcha? I think it'd be a wee bit more difficult to power shift with a column shifter!

But seriously, how much more speed to you hope to gain in that Odyessy? Are you planning on dragging out Caravan's and Windstar's both with the 3.8L "hot rod" engines?? I know you guys do this sometimes and it seriously cracks me up to watch this.

So no, there really isn't anything you can do about the shift point, but you can power shift, but just be careful that you don't start bouncing off of the rev limiter. Hmm...I wonder if you can put a cold air intake on the Odyessy?? heh heh heh

costcowholesale

iTrader: (12)

sorry OT again:
hey I've taken civics in my van, I'm a kid so I'm not those old moms cutting people off and races mustang GT!! as for rev limiter I mean the real rev limiter not the shift point.I cannot rev the pass 6100rpm in N or 1 or 2 or d3 or whatever it just bounces inbetween 5900 to 6100 when I floor it in N or @ the top of 1. If I leave it in D3 it seems to shift right @ 6000 around 50-100 below rev limiter. Maybe the odyssey have a different rev limiter?

As for manual shifting in maxima it would NOT help in 4th generation. since it does not have much punch above 6000.
actaully, leaving it in D will faster then manual shifting in 95-99 maximas