what rpm's do you guys run in your trucks???? what is considered being "hard" on it

linkfarms

IDI Addiction
Joined
Mar 10, 2010
Posts
395
Reaction score
0
Location
Ladoga,IN
i've got truck in sig 88 f-250 4x4 5sp 4:10's with 2.5 straight pipe modiefed intake new filter new fuel filter oil change and must be good injector's i'm getting 18-19.2 mpg pretty often if i shift at 2 grand.
well here lately messin around drifting and such i've hit 2500 3000 3150 a few times i've only went over 2500 4 times in 1200 miles i'm woried i'm to ******* it some times.
the girls like the noise it makes at 2500 rpm ;Sweet
 

dyoung14

Is getting worn out
Joined
Jan 2, 2009
Posts
6,128
Reaction score
3
Location
spencer,tn
It is perfectly ok to turn anything on the factory rev limit (3300-3800)

Now i take it you dont know the story on me, my old motor saw 4500 rpm a bunch and held up, till a **** load of either was sprayed in it and i rolled it off and it tryed to hydrolock it twisted and bent the rod till it snapped and come threw block, now my new engine i saw 4200 on accident one time because the throttle stuck wide open, i try to keep it below 3800 but i have taken it to 4000 about a dozen times so im like the onnly one pushings the limits on these engines at the moment, and so far they seem to hold up well,
 

ocnorb

IDIT
Joined
Aug 2, 2009
Posts
1,320
Reaction score
319
Location
Wasatch Front
I believe the "redline" on commercial duty 6.9L's was 2700 rpm... so I would guess that anything up to that is perfectly acceptable. I've run mine for hours and hours at 2500+ with no issues.
 

dieselgiant

Dieselgiant
Joined
Jul 1, 2008
Posts
360
Reaction score
0
Location
Atmore, AL, USA
Excuse me but Um, mine see's 4000 rpm daily, course that's not holding it there, max rpm is set to 4200, I try not to free rev it to 4200. Is it stupid, Yes, is it Fun, Heck ya. I enjoy seeing peoples reaction, "you have it set how high!"

I consider spinning it higher than 3600 for long periods of time to be working it pretty good, I'm think I'm pushing the envelope on a stock motor with 203,### miles on the clock.
 
Last edited:

Sycostang67

Scooty Puff Junior
Joined
Jun 16, 2009
Posts
1,506
Reaction score
5
Location
Kuna, ID
I've held mine at 3k for quite a while pulling a 25' camper through the mountains.
 

dyoung14

Is getting worn out
Joined
Jan 2, 2009
Posts
6,128
Reaction score
3
Location
spencer,tn
Excuse me but Um, mine see's 4000 rpm daily, course that's not holding it there, max rpm is set to 4200, I try not to free rev it to 4200. Is it stupid, Yes, is it Fun, Heck ya. I enjoy seeing peoples reaction, "you have it set how high!"

I consider spinning it higher than 3600 for long periods of time to be working it pretty good, I'm think I'm pushing the envelope on a stock motor with 203,### miles on the clock.

We think alike:D;Sweet;Sweet

Everyone says my engine sounds wicked threw my stack when i pass 3800 rpm but by then im done going to fast to know what it sounds likeLOL i cant say mine hits 4000 daily cause i dont drive mine everyday but most days i drive it i will take it to 4000 buti cant see the extra 200 rpm hurting it that much more than my 7.3's stock 3800 rpm, :dunno and i have seen the new motor get to 42-4300 but it was an accident i was doing a burn out then i poped the clutch into second gear and kept burning out and held it to the floor and carryed it up the road and when i went to let off it kept revving:eek: but i enjoy taching the hell out of them:D
 

FORDF250HDXLT

The life of an Indian is like the wings of the air
Supporting Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2009
Posts
6,456
Reaction score
1,127
Location
Maine & Oklahoma
its pointless to rev them over 3200.the cams not set to provide power up there.if you put it on a dyno and revved it over the reline like that,your likely to just see the power fell off long ago and your down on hp over the 3k peak.
anywhere around 2500 to a little over 3k is all your going to get lol.that's making her talk good.
its not a high revving gas engine, its a torque pulling engine.
your gunna blow that engine up dyoung.....oh wait.you already did lol.well,dont say i didn't warn ya.....again.;)
 
Last edited:

The Warden

MiB Impersonator
Supporting Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2005
Posts
7,356
Reaction score
35
Location
Fog Bless Pacifica (CA)
I tend to think that shifting at 2000 RPM's is actually a bit too low, because that'll get you to a low enough RPM in the higher gear that you're risking lugging the engine. IMHO the lower RPM you can cruise at, the better fuel economy you'll get...but, at the same time, if you're working the engine (i.e. going up a hill with a load), I tend to think that keeping the RPM's between 2100 and 2500 or so would be a good idea, and I wouldn't be afraid of going higher. Keep in mind that early trucks with 4.10 gears and no overdrive gear in the tranny are spinning at about 2500 RPM at 55 mph and about 3100 RPM at 70 mph :shocked: I went to SoCal with another board member on here a few years back...he was afraid to shift his truck any higher than 1800 or so RPM cookoo and he lugged his engine nearly constantly. When I got behind the wheel, I shifted at closer to 2500 or 2700 RPM and picked up 2 mpg :D

Assuming that everything's maintained properly, IMHO you shouldn't be afraid of running the engine up to the governor, although I wouldn't make a habit of it...the engine will handle it just fine, but you're really beyond your power range. Also, I'm rather firmly in the crowd who believes that the governor's there for a reason...there are some people who like to play around and modify their IP's to get the engine spinning faster, but you also have to take into account the very real problem with valve float (and the fact that the valve keepers can come out and let the valve fall into the engine :shocked: ), not to mention the issue of quite a bit of rotating mass spinning at a much faster speed than it was designed to. As others have pointed out, the IH version of these engines actually govern out at a lower RPM than the Ford version, meaning that Ford is already pushing the envelope on these engines a bit...

Sorry for the mini-rant :angel: hope this helps some!! ;Sweet
 

Dieselcrawler

Professional wrench holder
Staff member
Joined
Jun 4, 2010
Posts
5,284
Reaction score
617
Location
Quakertown Pa
i run mine at the gov alot off road, but mine is still set at stock settings. pump not even turned up. mud, hillclimbs, pulling people out. hits WOT alot. never had a problem.
 

Diesel JD

Full Access Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2006
Posts
6,148
Reaction score
7
Location
Gainesville, FL
Also you gotta realize that a lot of those IH motors with the 2700 RPM governor were designed to work very hard all the time with much heavier loads than an F or E series will ever see. I still don't agree with the Dyoung school of thought on this but I wouldn't hesitate to run up to stock governed RPM, well at least not about blowing up the engine running there will cause it to drink the fuel, never thought about shift points too much I typically float gears around 2000-2500rpm and like to see 1500-1600 in the next gear. There have been times I have wound 1st and 2nd out pretty good.
 

RLDSL

Diesel fuel abuser
Joined
Dec 14, 2005
Posts
7,701
Reaction score
21
Location
Arkansas
The IH 2700 rpm pump engines have a different torque curve than the ford higher rpm pumps and can run at lower rpms just fine, but the higher rpm pumps need to be kept a little higher up on the pipe or they will be lugging. It's OK to run anywhere within governed range, you are not going to hurt anything . start running outside the limits, and well... we all know that story :D
 

Agnem

Using the Force!
Supporting Member
Joined
Jan 10, 2005
Posts
17,067
Reaction score
374
Location
Delta, PA
These guys are professionals folks.... don't try this at home.


LOL


Seriously... I'm going to chime in with this bit of experience and what seems like common sense wisdom to me.

In daily driving, if you like to go easy on your motors like I do, they are going to last a long time, have very little wear, get better economy, and are in general better health than something that is being stressed to the max every day. However, that said, it's a lot like people and exersize. If your heart rate never gets over 100, and you do something strenuous that pushes it there, you may just find out your not in quite as good a shape as you thought. Case in point... The Night Moose. There is no reason to rev that thing out over 2K. Ever. It's so light, it just scoots along in overdrive from a virtual stand still. But, we were at the rally and my son wanted to dyno it. Against my better judgement, I said OK. Sure. Cause' I was curious too. On the dyno I saw one thing I didn't like, and heard something I didn't like after it was over. There was oil flying out of the bell housing, and it had a tick the rest of the day after the test. The oil turned out to be a weak rear main seal, and the tick came from an injector that gave out on the dyno. Lesson learned.... if you have an engine that never sees high RPM's, don't decide it's time to show it them if your far from home. The valve springs in the Moose Truck are 27 years old, and they spend a LOT of time not moving. There are some springs that probably have spent most of their life compressed. Given the above, do you SERIOUSLY think it would be a good idea for me to take it to 3300? I think not. So I've started shopping for new valve springs, and 7.3 style rocker arms. BTW, Ford wants $123 a pair for rocker arms. Anybody know where to get them cheaper?

I've said this before, but I will say it again. Everything has a life span, 4 strokes of the cylinder is 1 cycle. An injector fires once in every cycle. And 1 cycle is 2 rotations of the crank. So for every RPM, it is that divided by 2 for the number of cycles per minute. At 2000 RPM, that's 1000 cycles. That's also 1000 injections PER INJECTOR per minute. If your supplying say 20CC per 1000 injections per cylinder to maintain highway speed, that's 160CC's per minute. At 60 miles per hour, that is 9600 CC's per hour, or about 2.5 gallons. So your burning 2.5 gallons on flat level ground per hour. Now, if you cut your RPM's by 500, even if you have to increase throttle slightly, say to 25CC's, that works out to 750 injections per injector per minute. That's 150CC's per minute, or 9000 CC's per hour, or about 2.3 gallons. So your looking at a MPG difference of about 2 MPG. WHY would you want to spin your motor so fast, that all it does is increase wear and waste fuel? Even at 60 MPH, say you have 5CC's being injected going downhill with your foot off the throttle. That's a difference of 40cc at 2000 RPM versus 30cc at 1500 RPM. That's a difference of .6 gallons versus .47 per hour, just going downhill! For those wishing to check my math, or play with the numbers a little more, my formula is injector CC's per 1000 strokes divided by 1000 to find the cc per stroke, times the RPM/2 times 8 (number of cylinders) to give total CC per minute.
 

nyteshades

Full Access Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2009
Posts
348
Reaction score
0
Location
Tulsa, OK/Ashland, WI
I would agree with Mel, making life easy on motors is a good thing. Not winding up them all the way up, all the time is generally good for the overall life of a motor. That being said, I believe winding them up on occasion to blow the dust out of them is also a good thing.

Being from the central Rockies, the only way to pull those hills is running the motors hard. Down here on the flats, there's no reason to run them like that, but I will winded them up from time to time just to make sure things aren't going to get PO prior to a camping run at 12k feet. I also believe it helps temper the motor.
 

Taters

Registered User
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
Posts
4
Reaction score
0
Location
Holladay, UT
My '84 has a 4.11 rear end and T-19 4-Speed, and it turns 2900 RPM just going 65. That's about as fast as I ever go, not wanting to rev it much past 3000 rpm. The truck has 265,000 miles on the original engine. I'll bet most of those miles happened at high rpms and freeway speeds. The engine is still tight and strong with very little oil consumption. FWIW.
 

fields_mj

Full Access Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2009
Posts
847
Reaction score
5
Location
Brazil, Indiana
Well, I still consider myself new to diesel's, but here's my 2 bits. I was shifting around 2K for a while. Went from 4.10 to 3.55 gears and kept doing the same. I'd wind it up over 2500 on occation, and once in a great while I might even hit 3K, but it was rare and very shortly lived. Lately I have started shifting more towards 2500~2700 rpm, and it seems like the truck likes it better. Shifts are smoother too so that's going to help the clutch a little. I don't see any reason to go much over 3K though. No power left. Even in 4th gear, 3K will put me at almost 70mph. If I'm pulling something heavy enough to keep me out of 5th, then I don't need to be moving it down the road any faster than that.

Just my 2 bits.
Mark
 

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
91,333
Posts
1,130,557
Members
24,137
Latest member
m2rtin

Members online

Top