Isn't the engine designed to be revved up in a racing envirnoment?

Am I damaging my engine by flooring it from a red light? If so, how? It's not like the engine stays at 6K RPMs for more than second, it usually shifts by then!

Could someone please shed light on this? I often floor the Maxima, mainly because it's really enjoyable. It's a great rush! I don't speed or anything when I do that, I usually let up on it by the time it hits 60km/h.

Also this can go for any engine, not just the VQ. I rev the 1.6L 4-cyl in my Corolla too, but that's just to get the car moving.

 

you know that racing engines blow up too right?

its called stress on the engine..

 

I'll rev to 6k at the track and possibly once a day outside of that on average... its always with my engine warmed up... the harder you are on an engine, the sooner it will die.. it is very true about racing engines... they are meant to last a few races, not for everyday driving... I think they would have made the redline lower if it hurt the engine so bad, but i still redline only on rare occasions..

 

that sucks.. wut about me, i floor it a lot... but i have an auto.. is that ok??

 

flooring it is one thing, redline + hard shift = bad tranny + engine... but maximas seem to take a lot of abuse... just don't do it all the time...

 

I know that racing engines breakdown more often but they have a lot of stress on them. ie: Formula-1 V10 pushing 700hp or Nascar V8s pushing 700hp.

But our VQ doesn't have a lot of stress in stock form, therefore being revved shouldn't put a lot of stress to the engine. It is one of the smoothest revving V6 in the world!

Also if you have a manual, when you do hard-shifting, the clutch takes a beating correct? Not the actual tranny?

 

Well, lets see...Driving down the road at 60 mph takes about 8 HP. WOT at 6,000 RPM sends 180 - 200 HP through the crank and drive train. Do you think a transmission will last as long transferring 180 HP as it will 8 HP?
Race engines are put together as perfect as they can be, and they still break. Production engines are mass produced and the whole car costs a fraction of a race engine.
The more you beat on it, the faster it will break. Real simple.

 

damn that sucks, o well... nissan should be reliable up to 100000.

 

I never thought of it that way! But the drivetrain should be designed to take that 180-200hp for a longer period of time. It should be over-engineered?

 

I always thought that revving your engine above 4,000rpm's once in awhile will burn off and free carbon deposits in your engine? Although, I could be wrong....

 

Reving an engine with only small throttle openings, provided you don't go past red line, won't bother it. It's when you put it under a heavy load that tremendous heat is generated and the engine is stressed. So, running the engine to high RPM,s, at less than WOT, in the lower gears is very easy on an engine (actually less stress than lugging it in a high gear with a larger throttle opening).
Running an engine at higher RPM's to clear out engine deposits is a good thing, but you have to be careful. If you just "nail it" (WOT) the heat rise in the engine can be so fast that the deposits become glazsed (like making a ceramic in a kiln), and you just make them much harder and very difficult to remove.
For a number of reasons, components are not greatly over designed (Engineers come much closer now to accurately designing to a "useful end of life" target. Low weight and cost controls are drivers here). Placing additional stress on a transmission will shorten its life. The only question is if it will reach the end of its life while you still own it.

 

um... I was just looking at the poll again... and the first two options are really the same thing... Yes you will damage it OR You'll have a dead VQ soon... ???

 

its weird how many people didnt know that flooring your car is bad. I'm shocked that some people mod their cars and dont know this. Ohh well there is nothing a new engine and drivetrain wont do.

 

I've always run my cars pretty hard (86 Accord LXi, 90 CRX Si, 94 Z28) and I've never had an engine propblem with these cars. I've always been under the belief that if you use your cars full rpm range a regular basis, the motor will last a bit longer because you keeping the seals, gaskets, etc in a good condition. When I say using your car in the full rpm range, I'm not talking about hanging around at 6500rpms all day. I'm talking about a couple WOT runs in 2nd and some 3rd once a day or so. I'm also not talking about speed shifting.

Launching hard from a stoplight is FAR worse than going WOT in 2nd and 3rd. A tremendous amount of torque and stress is put on the motor and TRANNY when you launch hard in a stationary car. I would be much more worried about the tranny than the VQ. As far as I'm concerned, the VQ itself is a bullet proof motor in NA form. I've never heard about spun bearings, bent valves, broken rods, blown headgaskets, leaking gaskets, etc when talking about the VQ. There are plenty of VQs well over 120K that are running fine. JeffKs 95 Maxima had over 115K when he sold it and it was running is top form (14.3s in the 1/4 mile). I have no worries about the motor based on what I've seen with the internals of VQ (very beefy). The syncros on the 5 speed is about the only thing I worry about due to hard shifts when drag racing. My car has over 30 1/4 mile passes and lots of drag racing practice and the clutch and syncros still feel new after 65K miles. I consider that pretty amazing.


Dave

 

theblue: I just noticed that the poll's are wrong. The part about the VQ being dead should be on hte "Yes" section. Sorry about that.

What's the difference between having WOT and being in the high RPMs? Aren't they the same thing?

 

The true answer is probably beyond the scope of this thread and the orignal poster but in short(like the other guys said) running the engine hard will potentially decrease the engine's life. Nissan makes fine engines but there's no way in hell any car maker would build an engine to withstand redline all day/every day for 250,000 miles. It would be too expensive to. The engineers know that the typically an engine is not used in this manner.

Also it's how you treat the engine determines how long it lasts. Let's say you never ever change the oil and the oil level is always low. Let's say you rev to redline right while the engine temp is still cold. Is this engine gonna last as long as someone who drives the same car but uses top quality synthetics and waits until the engine warms up?

This is loaded question really.

 

Oh ok.Well I rarely hit redline more than once a day, the needle usually goes to 5K when I accelerate. The engine is maintained properly, it has oil changes every 5K kms. Not sure if its synthetic oil, since the dealer does the oil changes for free.

Well in short, I won't accelerate hard anymore, especially from a red light.

 

Well as long as you keep up regular oil changes and WAIT UNTIL THE ENGINE IS WARMED UP, then I say it's okay to drive the car aggressive. The above two points are probably the two most important factors in engine longevity. Don't forget the scheduled tune-up though! The Nissan VQ30 is a very stout, smooth motor, no harm in using it!

 

Ok guys Race engines also rev well over 12,000 RPM that why they dont last but a few races.

 

Holy smokes, Im slipping!

 

Thanks Tim for chiming in today on a thread that's 2 year old.

 

ya know, i read the whole thing and never realized how old this thread was

 

Heh heh...oh well. Grave diggers are freaks of nature...

 

and race engines also have such short strokes that their piston speeds are still reasonable even at 12k RPM. Same thing with bikes.

 

WHOA...I came on the main page and was wondering wtf this old thread was doing up here!

i'm honoured that my thread has been brought to life.

 

I race my Maxima monthly. I redline it everytime I get in the car. I have 86,000 miles of a beautiful and trouble free motor!

I have driven every car I have owned to redline everyday, not a problem yet (knock on wood). It is when you increase the factory redline when things go south.

 

Yea someone had to wake it up lol

 

If its not broken, your not racing hard enough

 

I agree with Dave B I push my 3rd gen Very hard Daily over 100mph and at WOT alot!! it has 230,000 miles on it and still purrs like new. The funny yhing is my father used to drive his caddy like an old man and the car became very sluggish. So he asked me to look at the car to see what the problem was. believe me i punished that car for a few hours and gave him the keys back. The loss of power had been fixed.

 

My mom's old Ford used to run like a champ (for a beat-up '88 Tempo) when I drove it (somewhat hard, lots of driving)... then when I got my own and she just drove it granny-style once a week, it really started running like ****... I'm very well convinced that a car only works properly if it's worked periodically

 

Same thing with my grandfather 85 Town Car but he ended up sending it to the grave before getting it fixed. Hit a pole or something but he never drove the thing and it barely stayed running when he started it.

 

I agree w/ a lot of things people said.

1) The harder you push your engine....the sooner it will wear out. That's kinda true for everything.

2) 5spd drivers....giving the engine throttle to about 6k RPM every ONCE in while shouldn't be a problem. It really depends on how you let off the clutch and how much throttle is being given.

3) A/T drivers.....we can't bark 2nd or 3rd (some 5spds can) Shift points on an A/T are there for a reason...even if you're flooring it.

My $.02

 

Same thing with the VQ.

 

When I run my car hard on the street I don't slam it into the gear. I granny shift very slowly. There's no point in shifting hard because I'm not racing against a clock and why beat my tranny up for no reason?


Dave

 

I bark 2nd all the time and when i get my car back third should be no problem!

 

Launching hard from a stoplight is FAR worse than going WOT in 2nd and 3rd. A tremendous amount of torque and stress is put on the motor and TRANNY when you launch hard in a stationary car. I would be much more worried about the tranny than the VQ. As far as I'm concerned, the VQ itself is a bullet proof motor in NA form. I've never heard about spun bearings, bent valves, broken rods, blown headgaskets, leaking gaskets, etc when talking about the VQ. There are plenty of VQs well over 120K that are running fine. JeffKs 95 Maxima had over 115K when he sold it and it was running is top form (14.3s in the 1/4 mile). I have no worries about the motor based on what I've seen with the internals of VQ (very beefy). The syncros on the 5 speed is about the only thing I worry about due to hard shifts when drag racing. My car has over 30 1/4 mile passes and lots of drag racing practice and the clutch and syncros still feel new after 65K miles. I consider that pretty amazing.


Dave[/QUOTE]

Dave,

Funny how my car got into this topic. Let me tell you that I drove the car hard at the track for 74,000 miles(bought it with 30k on the odometer). The car started to slow down when I hit 100,000 miles. So it was time to sell it. Come to find out from the new owner a few months after selling it that the bell housing was cracked and a month later the motor dropped a valve. It was an amazing track car(very consistant) and better daily-driver.

Racing a car on the highway is a good way not to break things but at the drag strip that's a different story all together.

 

i remember reading this thread when i first joined the org, and i still didnt vote in the poll

 

youre beating on the engine and transmission and causing unnecessary wear and tear... common sense isnt so common eh?

btw, lots of things in life that "feel good" arent good for ya

 

i like to feel good, i dun care

 

That is because the poll is retarded. The first two choices say the same thing.
I just voted "I don't know" so I won't have to see the choices anymore.