Re: Why we love high-revving engines | Pros & Cons of high-rpm motors Here's my (somewhat long) take on revving: Its a sports car lingo that's often misunderstood by normal road car owners.
When people go to test out a new car or drive in everyday conditions - be it on city roads or highways or some ghats - they seldom think of and much lesser actually rev their engines. Revving our petrol engines has its advantages like burning off carbon, smoother (and higher) power delivery and the engine feeling a lot more free running later on. Our cars are also designed to be run at conditions close to the engine redline (the peak output of most petrol engines are listed in the 5000 rpm range), but approaching that redline is needed only in very specific situations.
Here's my personal learning curve on revs: I knew the torque and power curves in theory from my engineering days and have never had a chance to redline the famous v-tec engines. The 1st time I heard "redline" in normal use was from a friend who had an FZ. I used to drive my 1.6 MPI Vento in the 1500-2500 rpm range most of the time, but used to be surprised with the way the showroom guys drove my own car. My 1st experiences with crossing the 3000 rpm mark was with downshifts during overtakes - especially on 2 lane roads. I had a friend with a Polo GT in college and we used to talk about the DSG upshifting at 4000+ rpm in sports mode - and we felt it was probably too much performance. Much later, after watching an autocar video on the city v-tec hitting 100 kph in 2nd gear, I gave redlining a shot at a few signals on highways - and there was no turning back. Whenever I got a chance with free roads, I would hit that 5000+ rpm in the 2nd gear. My current 1.5 TSI does rev to the 4-5K mark occasionally, but I haven't felt the need for power beyond that in normal driving.
While I understand our roads are currently still filled with a lot of small & efficient diesels which are not at all rev happy, I really wish more drivers on our roads learn to overtake a little better - downshift and rev a bit.
On a much lighter note - rev all you like today, for the future is smaller engines, electrics and hybrids! |