Hello all.
Recently, I've been taking the country road route to Uni...to be honest, I've been taking the country road route everywhere! Anyway, I fill up at the same station usually, same pump, always put 20 quid in and I always fill up at the same time (when the light comes on).
Anyway - I've been driving a little more...spirited on these roads which are great fun it must be said and I have to say, I'm pretty sure the car has a touch more power. I know it sounds weird and I know it sounds psychological but I'm not the only one who's said it.
I've heard all about de-cokes and that business but didn't think that applied to more modern engines. I know you should change gear before 3k revs if you like your petrol but I can't help myself taking it a bit higher. Over the past week or so, I've been taking it up to 4,500 - 5,000 (which puts a smile on my face) and I have to say, the car feels better than ever.
My question, in case you've tuned out by now is as follows. Is my (alleged) engine power increase:
a) Due to more enthusiastic driving
b) Due to "non-winter" petrol (Summer petrol you might say)
c) Temperature related
d) In my head
Many thanks for any replies
(By the way - before I go sounding like a reckless maniac, if it pleases anyone, the speed limit was only broken by 40mph at most, overtakes were done long before you could see the whites of oncoming driver's eyes with a good 2 seconds to spare, horn beeping was kept to a minimum (about 5 every hour) and the obligatory dance music was kept to around 160dB at most.)
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Adam
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I would imagine that it is bcause the maximum torque band of your engine is up towards the higher rev range, hence it will "pull" better, this is assuming you do not drive a diesel??
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Adam
For one so young you have been driving like an old man for too long. The focus is/was probably gummed up. 4-5000?? gosh try running it round to the red line young man, push it till the rev limiter kicks in. there is a lot more gunk to blow out of this power plant yet.
Errr what's winter or summer petrol? There is winter or summer diesel as it can wax in cold weather, but petrol is petrol all the year round.
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I had to take my parents to Manchester Airport recently early in the morning, so the M6 was empty so I could get a move on. On my Corsa its doing nearly 5000rpm at 85mph in fifth, and I'm sure sitting at these revs/speed for the best part of an hour has done the car the world of good- seems much quieter, smoother, and eager to rev. I'd recommend it to anyone!
It didn't do the mpg much good though- got about 29 to the gallon, compared to 42-43.
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Not worked out the MPG for a while but I must be putting 60 quid a week in mine at least.
On the motorway, unless overtaking I'll probably sit at 85-90 which equates to around 3,500 revs so other than my country road blasts, this is the workout it usually gets.
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Adam
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No I don't drive a diesel.
RF - I'll confess, I understated the revs a little - I didn't want to come across as...well - what I'm probably coming across as now. I could swear the petrol guage was moving in real time when it hit the limiter! It is great fun though. It adds around 20 miles onto the journey but it has S bends, humpback bridges, massive open stetches and the odd hairpin or two. Fantastic!
For a while though, I've toned it down a bit - driving through endless traffic lights, school crossings and speed traps tend to do that but now that I've re-routed I can go a bit quicker and actually enjoy it again!
On another note, my mate has a Clio 172 and when you hit the limiter, it knocks it into neutral. Bit dangerous this don't you think?
Sorry about my seasonal fuel. I'd read someone albeit swiftly about winter diesel - I just presumed there was winter petrol too.
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Adam
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Hey Adam, have you ever tried shell optimax in your Focus, i have in my KA & over time with a few revs hear & there it can pull like anything off the lights, despite the torque curve would be lower down as it is the old 1.3 endura-e engine it just goes when you want it to!
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Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-)
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I'll be honest frazer, I've tried it once ages ago, hammered the car to see some results and never noticed anything since. Granted it was only one fill up but I just don't think it's worth the expense if I'm being honest. Around 96p here too. 20quid puts in just over a quarter. If I put Optimax in every day I think I'd cry!
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Adam
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Just remember the old saying - drive it like you stole it!
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If HJ had a pound every time somebody started a topic on Optimax he soon wouldn't need advertisers!
Staying on topic but still drifting away slightly, I have to say Frazer I've never noticed any difference in my car. OK it's the HCS carb not Endura-E but same guts underneath. I used it for a while but changed back as supermarket petrol is cheaper.
Adam, funny old things cars aren't they? I mean I took mine for a thrash down a flat straight NSL road a couple of weeks ago when it was really nice weather. Window down engine revved nicely up to 5k rpm and I felt it had found a few hundred cc from somewhere! Took it the next day when weather was a bit cooler and it felt like I'd lost a few hundred cc!
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Mike Farrow
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Ah Adam, Thats better. Good to hear you bounce it off the rev limiter sometimes.
Re the hump back. Couple of tips. When you have all 4 wheels off the ground DONT TURN THE STEERING WHEEL. It will suddenly shoot off where the wheels are pointing when you regain terra firma. Also when airbourne, if you keep your toe in, the torque of the engine will cause the car come down on one front wheel or the other depending on the direction of engine rotation.
I have no idea how I know this, and I am sure you dont need to know it either.
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Watch the rally drivers, Adam, a short, sharp jump(hump back bridge), a short, hard dab on the brakes just before takeoff starts the nose of the car pitching forward, nose hits the ground a bit quicker, power on sooner. Don't misjudge it and land with the brakes on-----
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<< try running it round to the red line young man,push it till the rev limiter kicks in.
In my ignorance I used to drive my first new car like that ~ a 1965 Hillman Imp. The thing which made me change my ways was when it became apparent that the valves had stretched so much that it was no longer possible to set the valve clearances up to the specified figures. I don't know whether the valve heads "mushroomed" or whether the stems stretched or whether it was a combination of both. The nub of the matter was that a new set of valves was required at about 25000 miles!
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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L'Escargot
did you ever drive the Stilleto version of the Imp?They did not work unless the revs were high,much swapping of cogs required-a bit tiresome around town but a joy on the open road.
On a more cautionary note-beware of those country roads when they are wet and muddy.I came to grief recently when braking for a bend on a wet lane,car went into a skid and took out one side of a three year old Mondeo.It was an unfair contest pitting a Sierra estate(built like a tank)against a frail modern car,mine only needed wing,bumper and headlamp,if only my N.C.B.could be fixed so easily.
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Yes those Sierra brakes always were a pile of dog stuff.
Must have been a downhill bend to get enough steam for a skid?
;-)
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Some engine management systems 'learn' as they go along - so if you drive gently everywhere, it adapts to your driving style to optimize under these circumstances. If you give it a good blow-out, it will re-adapt to this different style and put a more performance-oriented slant on the wy it optimises the timing/fuelling settings etc. Don't know if your car does this but it's certainly possible.
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Since I quit my job I've been driving around in an L reg Mondeo 1.6.
The car was last owned by a middle aged guy for the last 5 years, and by an oldish bloike before that from new, I honestly don't think the car has been driven enthusiastically at all.
It has just under 70K on the clokc, and when I got it, the first tankful was about 26 mpg (brim to brim), anyway, I've been giving it a bit of spirited driving and noticed that woth every tank my mpg has gone up, I'm now up to 28.4mpg. Not bad considering that all I really had to do was start thrashing it a bit. :-)
Of course I should point out that it isn't technically possible to thrash a 1.6 Mondeo, it can't pull the skin off a bowl of custard.
Adski - When I worked in a Ford garage we came across this phenomonon every day, some 1.6 Focus's were flying machines, others were gutless, it was all down to how they had been driven by their owners. We even had a really slow ST170 once. My mate used to have a 1.8 Mondeo and noticed a sudden and massive difference when he had the engined tuned at about 90,000 miles, we thought it ran OK before, but it was like a new engine after he had it tuned up.
Blue
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Blowing out the tubes really does work.
Last year my UK car became a 2000 Audi A4 (petrol) that FIL had been using for almost 4 yrs / 17k miles. Luckily what miles it had done were not just short journies. But it had never seen 3000 rpm in its life.
I spent the next 3000 miles driving it like a nutter to run it in. It's fine now (28k) and the fuel consumption sits at 36-37mpg, or about 3mpg better than FIL used to get.
Quite amusing, the radio had never been coded (poor PDI but how do you complain after 4 years, rear seats literally never sat on, etc...
On another front SWMBO's A6 gets an Italian tune up every month or so to save it from the short journies that she does these days. Try 10 miles on the red line in 3rd to blow the junk out of the system.
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Thanks for all of your posts - makes interesting reading.
I'm glad the majority of them are telli...no demanding that I drive it like I stole it.
Shifting into neutral on a humback bridge is scary too. Don's ask how I know that either!
Thanks again,
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Adam
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Shifting into neutral on a humback bridge is scary too. Don's ask how I know that either!
Easier to just stand on the clutch. And don't ask me how I know that! ;-)
P.S. Humpback bridges alone are boring. Much more fun if rapidly followed by a very sharp bend. And don't ask me how I know that either ...
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If it's in neutral though NW it's much quicker to double declutch and shift it into 3rd. This one has a lovely bend after it. Lovely!
Hello by the way.
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Adam
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It's occurred to me that an easy way to blow away the cobwebs on most cars is to stay in 4th gear (assuming it's a 5-speed car) for a few miles at 60-70 mph on main roads / motorways every now and then. Undramatic - no boy racer antics necessary, just a little more noise and a touch more fuel used. Worth it if it keeps the engine on its toes, though.
Cheers, SS
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"Undramatic - no boy racer antics necessary, just a little more noise and a touch more fuel used"
DOH where is the fun in that!
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SS,
It's only worth it if you can see people diving into hedges as you approach and shaking their fist in your rear view mirror!
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Adam
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Is driving like that really a good idea? My 2.0 Mondeo has 120k on the clock and I don't really drive it like somebody of my age would usually drive a 2.0 car. I have never, ever hit the redline and I've no idea what its like to have the rev limiter kick in. Even when I'm 'going for it' I'll change up some 500-1000rpm short of the red line, and usually it wont go much above 4k.
Am I harming the car?
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If car engines werent designed to rev to 6500rpm reliably, then the manufacturers would put the limiter much lower as they would fear the warranty costs.
Now, i'm not saying red-line it all the time, but every now and agin when its all warmed through won't harm it at all.
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Agree with Corsa driver. I red line it probably once a week on a quick run. It's more difficult with sedate driving.
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Adam
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Just to add though, I've only ever once hit the rev limiter in my own car, and that was by accident in a very panic stricken moment whilst I begged the car to accelerate quicker out of the way of the several tonnes of metal bearing down on me!
I hit it once or twice in my company car under less extreme circumstances, but I don't think it has a harmful effect on company cars does it? :-)
So to sum up, I give it high revs almost daily, red-line it occasionally, and never intentionally hit the rev limiter.
Blue
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>> Shifting into neutral on a humback bridge is scary too. Don's >> ask how I know that either! Easier to just stand on the clutch. And don't ask me how I know that! ;-) P.S. Humpback bridges alone are boring. Much more fun if rapidly followed by a very sharp bend. And don't ask me how I know that either ...
Even more fun; a hump back bridge followed by another hump back bridge in a rear engined car, spine crushing, I can tell you.
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