Hi today i took my fiat 500 1.4 up to 6500 rpm before shifting up. When do you think a good time is to shift up under full acceleration? I know that maximum power is at 6000 and the rev limiter (i think) kicks in at 7000 so does anyone go all the way up to 7,000? or change up at 6,000?

depends very much on what your doing, and between which gears, uphill/downhill etc.

overtaking you keep going till you just start to feel the drop off in power and choose the next gear.

Just don't go into the red band regularly. Not sure what it says in the manual for a 500, but my 16v Tipo manual said no damage will occur but no advantage is gained by going into the Red band, maximum power being acheived in the yellow band of the tachometer.

ahmett said:

Hi today i took my fiat 500 1.4 up to 6500 rpm before shifting up. When do you think a good time is to shift up under full acceleration? I know that maximum power is at 6000 and the rev limiter (i think) kicks in at 7000 so does anyone go all the way up to 7,000? or change up at 6,000?

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You don't change at max power, you need to change at max torque (4000 rpm) for maximum acceleration. Ideally just past max torque so that when the revs drop from the gear change, they are still in the max torque band.

Keep the revs and load (right foot) down until the oil has fully warmed up. Staying below 3000rpm is good, but you'll often need to go to 3500rpm depending on the road etc. Once it's warm, reving to the redline shouldn't be a problem, but change up when you get there. The temperature guage only shows the coolant temperature, oil takes a lot longer to warm up. It'll probably take 5-10 miles to warm up depending on the weather etc.

In my Panda 100HP I change up base on the speed I want to do. If I want to do 70mph I can accelerate to 70mph in 3rd gear, and it'll be doing 6500rpm at this speed. Most of the time I either don't need the full performance or the engine is cold so I change up a lot earlier.

hazzamon said:

You don't change at max power, you need to change at max torque (4000 rpm) for maximum acceleration. Ideally just past max torque so that when the revs drop from the gear change, they are still in the max torque band.

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I can assure you that in two identical cars that changing like that will be slower than using the gears and changing towards the top of the gears.

If you go with torque ignoring the power, then you need to remember that lower gears have more torque available at the wheels.

Power is what you want when accelerating anyway it's where torque and revs combine to produce the most work done.

The only sure way to tell what the optimum change point will be is to use an accelerometer. You should change when the acceleration in the next gear is higher than the acceleration in the current gear

You'll be able to get an iphone or android app which will show your current acceleration.

befunged said:

The only sure way to tell what the optimum change point will be is to use an accelerometer. You should change when the acceleration in the next gear is higher than the acceleration in the current gear

You'll be able to get an iphone or android app which will show your current acceleration.

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