Had this discussion with a friend... is your engine working just as hard when it's at 4000rpms in 1st as it is at 4000rpms in 6th gear? I'm thinking it's the same right? The difference being the gearing? Please educate me!

 

There are differences. Doing 4k up a hill in 6th is going to be harder on your engine than say 3rd. Does that make sense? Lugging your motor works it harder for instance than just coasting down a hill in gear at the same RPM.

 

get on a bicycle. Pedal 60rpm in a very low gear. Now do the same (60rpm) in a very high gear. It's alot harder to do this in a high gear.

 

So more gas to maintain the same RPM in a higher gear right?

 

You have wind resistance too

 

you have different gear ratios. But your engine is working just as hard at full throttle at 4000 rpms in 1st as it is in 4th.

It's a moot point anyway. Your engine is doing what it is designed to do, and as long as it's stock, it's not hard on it. Is it harder on it to open the throttle to make more power? Sure, but that's kind of what engines are designed to do.

FWIW, I don't think anyone has ever demonstrated that a stock car engine lasts longer if you never use full throttle. In fact, it's actually good for the system to run it at full throttle occasionally. The owner's manual in my 86 Chrysler New Yorker specifically recommended doing so once a month at least, "without exceeding local speed limits" LOL

 

Oh darn, really?

:looks for car keys:

 

An engine at full throttle produces the same amount of power at 4000 rpm no matter what gear you're in.

 

You can introduce a bunch of random conditions, but net net is the engine works at one rate at 4000 rpm. There may be hills, wind resistance, etc. that make it harder for the car to maintain 4k rpm, but the engine is always doing the same work at 4k, or any rpm.

To make things simple, assume you are in a flat parking lot going 2,000 rpm in first, then shift to 2nd and get to 2,000 rpm. The engine is working exactly as hard as when it was in first, but the gearing ration difference means you're rolling along at a faster rate of speed.

There's a difference between workig at a set rpm and working to get to a set rpm. Imagine hanging from a monkey bar thats 6 feet up from the ground. You can probably just grab it, lift your feet and hang. Not a lot of work to get to the bar, and a constant amount of work to hold on. Now imagine the bar is 10 feet up and you have to climb a ladder to get to it. More work is needed to get to the bar, but once you're hanging, the work you need to do to hang on is the same as when the bar was 6 ft up.

 

Wow. That's gotta be the worst analogy ever

Straight up contradiction, thanks for clouding the water some more

How about this, grab hold of a bar, now have someone jump on your back. Harder to hold on right? Why are we talking about holding onto bars?

Elistan, what does your post contribute to answering the question?