another stick shift question

[phatfreeza]

when my dad was teaching me how to drive stick, he told me that fifth gear was reserved for highway use ...above 55 mph...i used to drive a civic ex 5spd. it doesn't rev as high when cruising compared with the si. my question is, is it okay for me to shift to fifth when i'm cruising in the city at around 40mph? i wanna conserver more gas...but i don't want to hurt my engine. thanks for your input! :p

[RMC22]

yep

[cbecker333]

Originally posted by phatfreeza
when my dad was teaching me how to drive stick, he told me that fifth gear was reserved for highway use ...above 55 mph...i used to drive a civic ex 5spd. it doesn't rev as high when cruising compared with the si. my question is, is it okay for me to shift to fifth when i'm cruising in the city at around 40mph? i wanna conserver more gas...but i don't want to hurt my engine. thanks for your input! :p

You might not really be saving gas by cruising @ 40 in fifth gear - to get enough torque at that low RPM (I'm guessing 2000 or lower) with THIS engine takes excessive application of throttle. Lower RPMs does not always = better efficiency. You want the engine running at the lowest RPM that allows it to make the needed torque w/little throttle application. Running at the lower RPM also means you give up some control of your speed because engine braking has less of an effect and so does the throttle.

[furious]

and if lower than 2k rpm, not very good for a newer engine or any for that matter

[DetroitRiot]

you can over stress the engine

[RMC22]

Originally posted by RMC22
yep

Realized I read this wrong last night...
I'd wait until 45-50. A lot of times I upshift to 5th when i know its a long straight away around 40-45. And downshift to accelerate.

[chunky]

nothing wrong with cruising in 5th at 40mph. if you wanna accelerate, you have to downshift, but you can maintain a 40mph cruise in 5th no problem.

[Brettnyt]

Originally posted by RMC22


Realized I read this wrong last night...
I'd wait until 45-50. A lot of times I upshift to 5th when i know its a long straight away around 40-45. And downshift to accelerate.

yeah man, same here...

[2k3BlackSI]

Yeah.. I would say that crusing at 40 is fine in 5th.. I like to keep her above 2000 RPMS though so I may be switching back and forth..

If it's a solid stretch and not stop and go traffic, I would say 5th is fine.. IF it's stop and Go traffic, I would think that running in 5th would be very inefficient seeing as you have to nail the peddle to get any giddyup..

[iVtec si]

40mph I'm crusin' in 3rd. Is that bad?

[cbecker333]

Nah, u r fine...I usually shift around 4,000...seems to work best

[cbecker333]

haha! the evil broken site strikes again! delete that! next time you see the error screen, ignore it and hit the back button twice.

[iVtec si]

werd! :p