seems to me that my car is faster if I dont tach it out to 6500 RPM. The maxima seems to have no ***** at all above 6K. I'm going to try this at the track and not shift at 6500 RPM. I have an intake and Y pipe in terms of 0-60 mods....

 

Seems faster but I've tried that at the track and you'll be slower. The distance is so short that you need the most out of every gear in order to get a great run, even if that means bouncing off the limiter between shifts at the track.

Shifting at 6,000 rpms might be good for the street but when you are at the track it's a different story.

 

After dynoing and buying a shift light, this is what I've determined. The stock tach is off by about 200 rpms after 5300 rpms. When it says you're at 6500, you're actually at 6300. A VQ 5 speed with an intake, y-pipe, RT cat, and B-pipe doesn't make any power after 5900 rpms as reflected by many dynos. The best rpm to shift at will be 6100 or approximately 6300 indicated on the tach. First gear should be wound out to near an indicated 6500 rpms to get deep into 2nd. All other shfiting should be done as soon as the tach gets past 6100 rpms. I haven't tried any of this out yet because my track has been closed since adding the light and running the dyno. I don't know if winding out 3rd to the end of the track is better or not. I've tried shifting to 4th and there wasn't any difference. I'll experiment when the track opens again.

Dave

 

ok...if Horsepower is basically a measurement of force/time, the higher HP yields more force over a less amount of time...since 1st gear has the best mechanical acceleration there is no noticeable loss in running it over the HP peak...when the mechanical acceleration becomes less, and the weight of the car and drag from the airflow over it become a factor, you need more Power to accelerate the car, so there is less and less acceleration over the HP peak due to less mechanical acceleration, more wind drag, and so on...so every gear shifted up needs to be closer and closer to the HP peak...(e.g: 6200rpm (1st) 6000rpm (2nd) 5800rpm (3rd)...and so on...I don't know the exact formula to calculate the optimum shift points but you get the idea...

So that's why cars with HP peaks that all basically at redline have the best top speeds and best highway acceleration...like Honda VTEC...

-- Peter

 

I was bored one day, so I figured out how much force was being applied upon the car at certain speeds.

at 100 mph, there's rough 160 lbs of force, at 150 mph theres 360 lbs of force.
F=1/2CdApv2
Cd - coefficient drag
A - front area of car
p - density of air
v - speed of car

there's a bunch of other little formulas used in conjunction with this one, but for simplicity, just take my word for it