SteVTEC

The most fun I ever had driving a car was a Seat Toledo in Germany, with a 5-speed manual and about 105hp. I beat the absolute **** out of that car and have a photo somewhere of the thing pegged against the rev-limiter on the autobahn in top gear. Despite all that, it still survived my week of thrashing on a business trip including some weekend touring in Denmark on a single tank of gas. When you only have 105hp you can never burn all that much fuel.

lamar411

Dang, my old RX300 was at 3800 rpm (if i remember correctly) at 80 mph. Wasn't loud though, just felt bad seeing the revs that high for long periods of time.

My current Camry will do 80 at 2200 rpm nice and easy.

SteVTEC

You must have had the 1MZ powered 4AT RX300. Same powertrain in our Highlander. Definitely doesn't run 3800 at 80. Probably more like 2800. Technically it doesn't even have an "overdrive" gear with 4th being 1.00:1 exactly. It just ran a really tall axle ratio, like in the 2.xx range. The shortest geared car I've ever had was my old Maxima. Ran 2500 at 60 in 5th, which came out to about 3300 at 80, and pushing 4000 by 90. Coasting at those speeds on the highway resulted in so much negative pressure that it would suck oil right past the rings and I'd have to have a quart of oil in the trunk handy on long highway trips.

mmarshall

In the highest overdrive gears? I don't believe it. I agree with SteVTEC...2800 is more likely.


That sounds about right, with the 6-speed auto

lamar411

Hmm, maybe it was only 2800. I just did a search in the 1RX forum and people are saying around 3200. Weird, i thought it was always much closer to the 4 then the 3 on the tach.

SteVTEC

Yeah probably 3000-3200 at 80 sounds right. I think it does about 2700 at 75, which I remember distinctly because when towing with it I always tried to keep it up at those speeds because it was "on cam" and would make it up hills. Below that it fell out of the torque band and it would struggle. So yeah 3000ish at 80 sounds right. Definitely not up near 4k.

hypervish

Yeah, about 3k rpm is right for 80 mph in an RX300. I set my cruise there every morning.

Och

iTrader: (3)

Yes and no. If you're cruising at under 2000rpms - yes, absolutely. But if you need to accelerate briskly - do yourself and downshift. If you're giving it too much gas at low RPMs, the engine is going to be lugging and wasting more fuel. Usually modern automatic transmissions are pretty good at keeping you at optimal RPM range, but if you're driving a stick, its important to learn how to drive it properly.

Blackraven

QG18 engine?

What Nissan are you driving then? Is it the Pulsar or the old Primera/Almera Tino?

yowps3

2005 N16 Pulsar