Pumping losses

[monroe74]

Originally Posted by theholycow

my point was that in an automatic where you don't have the ability to go wide on throttle and tall on gear at the same time, it's still going to be worth it even though you sacrifice some of the pumping savings. It's still better than nothing.

I see what you mean. Thanks for explaining. Good point.

I think, like me, he doesn't have enough gears to have low RPM at highway speed.

I don't think that's it. If you read his posts, he's not talking about cruising at 4000 because he's already in top gear and can't upshift anymore. That's not it. He's talking about hitting 4,000 momentarily, just before he upshifts. That's enough to tell me he needs to shift earlier (unless he's in an unusual situation, like pulling a a trailer up a hill).

By the time I hit 40 mph I'm pretty strongly itching to shift but there's no 6th gear.

Right, I understand the feeling. I love tall gearing. Even in my VX, I'm occasionally doing 75 mph at 3000 rpm and wishing I could upshift again. Because the thing really has a lot of torque at 2000, and even lower.

My point wasn't that it's better to rev high in the pulse, just that it's better to pulse revving high than to not P&G at all.

Good point. I didn't realize that's what you meant. Thanks for explaining.

I rarely reach the 2200 rpm that PaleMelanesian reports until I run out of gears.

Same here. I spend a huge amount of time under 1500. Sounds like you do the same. But every now and then it's fun to rev it up. And believe it or not, Honda actually recommends you do that occasionally. To blow out carbon.

I do remember this exactly: 70mph = 3000rpm.

In a VX, 70mph=2500 rpm.

edit: oops, I was a bit off with those numbers. That should say 70mph=2357 rpm. And above I should say that 75mph= 2525 rpm.