How bad is it to rev your car?

[SRTRICKY]

I always see a lot of people keep reving the crap outta their car! I heard this is much worse then actaully taking the car to rev limited while its actaully driving! Is this true? I know I always give it the occasional rev upto red line when people want to hear the exhaust etc. so thats what made me curious!

 

[SylvanSRT]

NOT good for a car that is not moving and/or not warmed up(fluids up to temp), and like most cars w/ fuel injection its probably better to let the engine computer get the engine settled into a good idle and fuel condition before stress. i am sure if these assumptions are wrong someone will correct me.

 

[ArlyDude]

My GTS sounds bad ass with my exhaust around 3k RPM so at a light, I usually rev her to that once or twice to get everyone's attention.

 

[redsrt03]

Personally, I wouldn't redline any of my cars at a standstill just to let people listen to my exhaust! 3 or 4k should be plenty enough revs to give them an idea of the sound. Back in the old days, some makers of high performance cams recommended revving the heck out of your cars when you first start them up. This was to ensure that the oil was pumped at enough pressure to thoroughly coat everything before you put the engine under load. Not sure how valid that theory was then or now.

 

[Chuck 98 RT/10]

Doesn't hurt it any worse than revving it while driving. In fact, probably less because it's out of gear and isn't under load. That doesn't mean to go ahead and rev it at every stoplight or when cold.

 

[Y2K5SRT]

That doesn't mean to go ahead and rev it at every stoplight or when cold.

Buzz killer...

 

[SRTRICKY]

Doesn't hurt it any worse than revving it while driving. In fact, probably less because it's out of gear and isn't under load. That doesn't mean to go ahead and rev it at every stoplight or when cold.

Thats what i was curious about! Not on a cold car a warm car thats been drivin is it more painful on the engine while not in gear or while in gear and driving! Thanks for the responses boys (This thread really had no point I was just curious I rarely ever rev my car to red line while not in gear except yesterday!)

 

[onerareviper]

Neither is ******* the motor (as long as it's warmed up)... It's a Viper for God sakes, it is DESIGNED to go fast. Some of you guys act like it's a vintage pre-World War I car that needs to be babied. For those that do, why did you even buy a Viper?

 

[Skip White]

The facts are that reving the engine without load, to high rpm,(redline) is far worse than under load. It's the main bearings and main caps that take the worst of this.

When drag cars do a burn out, they let the car go into second on an automatic, and not to obtain more wheel speed, but to put a little bit of load on the engine. Not so much reving it up but for any moment it's being held the engine is in a floating mode.

I guess it's true what I've heard for the past 40 years about redlining an engine in neatral.

The main caps will actually move (cap walk) on an engine when reved to excess in neatral.

3-4K in fine

Load on the engine also calms down out of balance engines to some degree.

Skip White

 

[GR8_ASP]

Skip is correct. Under low load high speed the connecting rods are under tension due to minimal compression or power load. The tension is created by the reciprocating mass. The tension force puts a separating force on the rod bearing caps. If the force exceeds the bolt clamp loads then the cap will separate. If that happens the conn rod will be toast. Definitely not a thing I would promote.

Note since the force rises with the square of engine speed, stopping at 80% of fuel shut-off speed limits the separating force to a little over half its capability. So if you stop before 5k that should not be a problem. Not sure why anyone would want to do this anyway, but if it floats your boat ...