Pretty basic question on revving a car engine. I drive a very unusual car, a Ford Focus 1.6L (petrol) 
, what would be considered excessive revving for this motor? (The rev counter goes up to 7000rpm)
What are the long term consequences for the engine if you rev the f out of it and generally drive around like a stripe-assed ape? (I don’t do this myself as such, I only learned to drive at 29 (one year ago) and don’t know diddly about cars.) It depends on what gear you are in, right? 3000rpm sounds bad in first, but is comfortable in fifth.
Well, what’s it’s red line?
The people who designed and built the engine are going to list the recommended RPM limit on the tach. If you don’t have one (typical in low end automatics) then the engine is going to shift for you and will not allow to you over rev your engine (same with modern manual cars with rev limiters).
Reving the engine hard each and every day might increase engine wear but I doubt it’d be enough to notice. Most cars don’t have engine failures, you’re more likely to blow the tranny through heavy driving.
And do get an idea of how high RPMs can go, my Matrix XRS red lines at 8300 RPM. The Honda S2000 red lines at 9000 RPM. I red line my car at least twice a day and when I race (on a legal track) I’m usually above 6K RPM for 20 minute stints.
Most modern cars have a rev-limiter. That either shut off fuel, or spark when an unsafe RPM has been reached, and prevents damage to the engine. However long amounts of time at high RPM can cause engine damage, overheating, and pre-mature engine damage.
What the others said. I don’t know about the Focus specifically, but you’ll likely hit the rev limiter, which will be set at a level where the engine won’t sustain damage. AFAIK it is actually considered beneficial to give the engine a blast at high revs from time to time.
My Mazda RX-8 has a buzzer telling you to change gear at 7500rpm, and the rev limiter is at 8500rpm (I think - when driving like that I tend not to be looking at the dials!). FWIW, Mazda UK threw in a track day for all new purchasers of the car, and I spent probably 20 minutes thrashing it round a track at probably 6000rpm + the whole time, and apart from burning through plenty of oil (and petrol :eek: ) it never did any harm.
My Dodge Stratus engine runs at 2400 rpm at 65 mph. Going up hills the transmission will shift down and the engine will speed up to 3500 and occasionally 4500 rpm. Red line is at 7000.
Most engines cruise along at 2000 to 2500 rpm at 60-70 mph.
You’ve asked what happens when you rev the whee out of an engine routinely.
[ul]
[li]You’ll waste fuel. Your car engine is designed to be at its best fuel efficiency at a speed much lower than the redline. [/li][li]When you rev past the top of the torque curve, the power falls off, and you’re better off shifting.[/li][li]Theoretically, your engine can run near the redline without breaking anything. Does your engine have perfect parts? Was it put together by the best mechanic in the plant? Maybe.[/li][/ul]
Never heard of the phrase “redline” outside of BMXs. I’m guessing it refers to some sort of mark on the rev counter that indicates excessive use of the boot.
Mine has no such mark or colour, just white numbers up to 7000. So I guess I can’t redline my motor, damn! :smack: