Replies

Just drive some of the hot cars. You will notice a very mechanical point in the rev range, where the engine just suddenly “comes alive”. Some cars cover it better than others.

My own Nissan Titan, it’s obvious, and it happens at about 3KRPM. It’s like a different motor magically swaps with the one you took off with. I even know how they do it (controlled opening of the intakes to the second set of intake valves -— Nissan has forgone a cam phasor thus far, I guess in response to the problems Chevy and Ford both had with them in their FS-pickup V8s).

I also drive a Honda Civic iVTech K24. Its cam phasor is also dramatic, but occurs at 5KPRM. And the engine is so peaky that in 1st or second gear (six speed manual), you will slam into the rev limiter at 7200RPM if you aren’t ready for it. Never go above 5KPRM, and you would think you are driving a especially torquey economy car with good manners.

The only cars I have not driven, and don’t expect it to occur in, is the muscle cars with launch control. Even those will eventually break if you keep using it.

Also, I have owned one of the mighty Chevy LS1 motors in a 02 Z28. You could also tell it was very much present in that engine, it was so obvious that they were not allowing the motor to go full tilt until you got it into the 3KRPM range. It was a push valve motor without a cam phasor, so it’s not like it was a obvious transition. They just limited it in software, by playing with timing. You could mimick the effect full RPM range by putting 87 octane in the tank, which means they were doing it via timing retardation.

I am old enough to have owned a V8 carb car, it was my first. It had no “peak”, it just went up as high as it could, smooth as glass, but it probably wasn’t turning more than 200hp out of a 5.7L engine (inside of a 3 ton chassis).

A lot of the tunes out there “improve” low end drive ability by modifying the fuel and timing to regain that artificial limitation at the bottom end.