Is it Bad to Redline your Engine? Can it be Good?

do high revs cause engine wear if you bounce off the rev limiter are you going to blow the engine up well it's not as easy as a yes or no answer because it depends on many factors is your engine up to temperature what sort of engine do you have is it modified how old is your vehicle so in this video I'm going to try and explain when it's likely safe for you to rev the engine to the red line or when you probably want to take it easy I'm starting in a Mazda MX-5 it's just over two years old and has just over 20 000 miles on the clock it's a cold start so I'm going to be gentle you can see here the temperature gauge it's in the blue and there's a blue light on here to tell me that the engine is cold so I'm going to start the engine now and I'm going to keep the revs below about two and a half thousand and not use more than a quarter throttle for the first couple of minutes until this needle comes off the blue it actually recommends in the owner's manual for me not to move the car for the first 10 seconds but as I have to move out of the car park I'm not really putting the engine under any strain so I'm quite happy to move out of here the reason why I'm being gentle is because the fluids are cold also it's running rich which means it's using more fuel than usual and the ignition timing is to heat up the catalytic converter which is essentially a filter in the exhaust to term the harmful gases from the engine into far less harmful gases and they don't really work until it's warmed up now the needle is getting above the blue and coming up above 50 degrees Celsius the blue light's going to go out soon not all cars have this blue light if you can see it on the camera but you want to wait until the engine temperature the cooling temperature is reading around about 60 degrees or 70 degrees at least come off the bottom of where it is sometimes the bottom can be like 70 it depends on the car before you start pressing on because that means now the engine is going to be running normally it's not going to be running rich and it's not going to be retarding the ignition timing at that stage which I'm at now the blue light's gone out and I'm around about 60 degrees I'm happy to use around about half throttle and half revs this engine revs to seven and a half thousand so let's say I'll use three and a half to four thousand until it's fully up to temperature now I understand that oil temperature is also a factor but this car doesn't tell me the oil temperature only tells me the coolant temperature which is essentially water with anti-freezing chemicals that circulates around the engine and into the radiator to keep it cool I do have a car which tells me the oil temperature I'll get to that car later now the engine is nearly fully up to temperature usually that is 90 degrees Celsius coolant temperature and on the Mazda it actually shows 90 is just below 100 but when this needle is just below 100 that means it's fully up to temperature it doesn't actually mean that is the temperature of the coolant it may say 90 and stay there but in reality it may be 85 it may be 95 it doesn't keep the exact temperature it fluctuates but the computer tells you an exact temperature for peace of mind it's not until it goes wildly out there it'll start telling you that something's wrong it's nearly there now one little Notch higher when it's right next to 100 then it's fully up to temperature when that's the case I am happy to give Full Throttle and full revs in this car now the engine coolant is fully up to temperature just below 100 on this Mazda although usually most cars display 90. this Mazda is the only car I know of that shows just under a hundred uh when it's up to temperature it's not only the Mazda MX-5 I find other Mazdas do that too these days how long it takes for the engine to get up to temperature does vary drastically depends on the weather at the moment it's 13 degrees and sunny so the heater isn't having to do any work in fact the air conditioning is working to keep me cooling here if it was cold in here the heater gets its heat from the engine coolant so therefore it takes a lot longer for the engine to heat up on cold days as the heat from the engine gets diverted into the cabin so on a cold start I recommend you take it easy don't rev the engine very high and don't press the gas pedal very hard even if you keep the revs low if you're pressing the gas pedal hard you're still putting the engine under stress it's known as load revs how high you rev the engine load is to do with how hard the engine is having to work to push the car so high gears and loads of gas isn't the solution to the problem you just want to drive gently and to at least the cold start phase is over and the engine is no longer running rich many engines tend to sound a little bit different after their cold start phase but not all but usually it's over within the first mile but this car has been up to temperature now for some time so I'm quite happy to press on I'm quite happy to get full throttle and full revs it's a relatively new car just over two years old 21 795 miles so the components aren't worn and old and on their last legs the engine is designed to rev so it should rev I'm quite happy to go all the way to 7.5 000 RPM and even bounce off the limiter if I do it by accident I wouldn't be worried if I did that because I have a lot of confidence in fact I'm gonna go up to the rev limiter now and bounce off it [Music] um you know I'm not worried [Music] however I don't feel the same way in all cars and that's because although engines are designed to rev it's important to remember that mechanical components deteriorate as they age not just mileage age as well this car this is my say at Leon I've had it just over nine years since new and it's been driven by learners for that time it's my driving instructor car and it's got over 197 000 miles on the clock now I'm not so bothered about those miles they don't bother me I'm more bothered about the age I think that causes more of the problems because mileage is likely to wear metal components because metal components don't wear so much with age you have to wear them out with movement but they're well lubricated so they don't tend to wear as long as you look after your engine change the oil as you should they're probably going to be fine but the rubbers and the Plastics well there's no getting away with age when it comes to those components icon Escape age and nor can the car even if I don't use it as they age they get brittle and there's plenty of plastics that spin under that Bonnet on that engine and if I spin them twice as quickly as I need to to make progress well I'm bringing forward Garage repair bills bills that may have happened so much later that I may not have even had this car when the breakdown occurred or the failure of that component occurred so taking it easy in this car is likely to save me money I don't take it easy though and there is a reason behind that I'll get to that later however I am careful when I'm cold starting this car because it weighs 1 250 kilograms and only has a piddly little 1.4 liter four-cylinder petrol engine which is not enough really to move this massive car very well it will but slowly so to get around that it has a Turbocharger and it's very reliant on that turbocharger the turbocharger relies on good oil supply and also when the turbo is boosting the engine the engine's under a lot of pressure so the engine relies on its all Supply even more and warm oil flows better than cold oil it's not all about oil temperature though because this engine is turbocharged it's going to have higher cylinder pressures it's going to run hotter and when the engine's cold and the components are all a slightly different size because they're cold as it heats up and expands I don't want to do that too quickly I'd only heat up one part of the engine quickly another part less quickly because that different expansion ratio well that can cause problems it's better to let it heats up gently fortunately this car gives me a oil temperature gauge so I can keep an eye on it I don't like to drive it hard until it's at least 60 degrees Celsius and if it starts going much above 120 degrees Celsius then I'll back off a little bit so cold start in the lay on this is my temperature gauge it starts at 50 but it doesn't mean it's at 50 it's at ambient temperature and it's up to temperature at 90 although it's probably at somewhere between 83 and 87 if you plug in the computer and read the actual temperature and I can look here if I scroll and have a peek at my oil temperature and just keep an eye on that and I'll try and stay off the turbo until it's got some temperature in the oil at least 60 degrees I like to see so clutch down start the engine runs fine it's very refined uh it doesn't feel like it's a cold start and I'll get going straight away try and use no more than a quarter throttle try and keep the revs below 2 500 and just try not to use the turbocharger when the engine's cold the stop start system won't kick in however it doesn't wait for the engine to be fully up to temperature I'm not quite sure what the temperature is for it to allow it but it's usually after the first couple of minutes of driving according to say it or should I say VW as they are the people who actually make the engine the camber on this car should last the life of the engine but what do they mean by the life of the engine what they consider the engine's life so I wasn't taking any chances and I've replaced the cambelt every 60 000 miles and last time I replaced it at 180 000 miles the plastic idler pulley was worn it wasn't spinning right and the edge of the cam belt was starting to fray so not replacing that for the life of the engine will probably be the life of the engine by default how long does the engine last well how long has the cambelt last and if you're not aware of what I'm talking about the cam belt is a very significant part of the engine when it fails the engine is likely to well essentially destroy itself as metal components Bang into each other so it's important to replace it to make sure it's young and fit and not old and deteriorated so I'm just going to peek at the oil temperature see it's not registering anything it starts registering a temperature at 50 degrees Celsius I bet the coolant's there now where is it 86 yeah it's nearly at 90 it says there as well actually can't actually see that bit because that's where my camera is have to lean to see that part of the gauge if you don't have an oil temperature gauge A good rule of thumb is that the oil temperature is going to be around about five minutes behind the coolant temperature however on a really cold day that's not usually the case and that's because the coolant is going into heating the cabin or the temperature in that coolant heats the cabin so it takes a lot longer for the coolant to reach its temperature but the oil is less affected so on cold days they heat up at a more similar rate when the coolant is fully up to temperature that suggests that the engine block itself has expanded you have to worry so much about expansion that happens a lot more quickly than the oil reaching its temperature now the oil is showing me something it's showing me 55 degrees I feel a bit happy about pressing on because I know it is going to be flowing better than when it's cold even before it started showing 55 degrees it probably was still fine but I don't know because I can't see it now I can see it I am happy to start using a little bit of boost and you'll find when you start doing that that'll heat up a lot more quickly anyway there are two ways this engine produces power whereas in the Mazda there's only really one way to get power out of the Mazda you need to rev it but this can also produce power at low revs via the turbocharger for example my revs are 1 500 at the moment very low I'm in third gear doing just over 20 miles an hour if I floor the throttle now it will accelerate still quite quickly now the turbo's kicked in that wouldn't happen if I didn't have a turbo and I don't like to use that unless the oil is up to temperature and I know the engine is hot however a more successful way to get power is to use the revs and the turbocharger so to do that I'm going to drop it down into second gear and now when I floor it it's got the power of the revs and the power from the turbo which one causes more wear well that's open to debate when you're using a lot of revs you're spinning the engine quickly and when you're not using many revs but heavily relying on the turbocharger you're putting the engine under a lot of pressure but not spinning it as quickly so it depends what component you're talking about both of them do put the engine under more stress though there's a lot more under the Bonnet than just the engine that spins you have your alternator that charges the battery your air conditioning compressor for the aircon your coolant pump your oil pump your cam belt or cam chain those things all Spin and are affected by how high you rev the engine but they're not affected by load when the revs are low and you're pressing the gas pedal hard and putting the engine under strain that's putting pressure on things like the piston rings the valves the head gasket and the bearings but in my experience with modern engines they don't seem to fail as long as you look off the engine let it warm up change the oil when you should everything else around those components seems to fail before they do there is the argument that when your revs are low your coolant pump isn't spinning as quickly and your oil pump isn't either so you have lower oil pressure and your coolant isn't circulating around keeping the engine cool as well as it could but I don't find that to be the case manufacturers seem to have fought about that even at low revs if I'm pushing the gas pedal hard and using a lot of power from the turbo it seems fine if it wasn't this engine would have been toast years ago I don't recommend you lug the engine though I'll give you an example of lugging the engine now I mean third gear the revs are down near a thousand and I'm going to floor the throttle and look here this is my gear shift indicator and it's going to recommend probably there you go that'll go down a gear because it can't handle it's struggling the engine is struggling when the revs are too low for it to push the car and produce power to push the car forwards however when the revs are high that doesn't mean it's struggling many new drivers confuse that sound with all the engines struggling no it's happy it's when the engine's going that's when it's struggling like if you try and move away by only lifting the clutch and not adding gas and the car sort of stumbles nearly stalls that's what you want to avoid but now the revs are at around 1 500 if I throw the throttle now it's not actually recommending a lower gear and that's because this car is designed to do that it has the power and it can handle it all cars are different if you own a Ferrari Testarossa from the 1980s then you probably want to keep the revs above 2000 to get the best out of the engine but this is a modern engine small turbocharged with economy in mind designed to rev low it rarely lugs if I'm above 1 200 revs it does depend on the hill how much acceleration I'm asking for the speed I'm going and the gear certainly by the time the engine's at 1 500 revs it has enough power for most situations earlier I said I don't drive this car gently and there's a reason behind it when I say I don't drive it gently what I mean is is I don't Nanny it I do Drive sensibly but if I want to use the revs or use the torque of the engine I do the reason why I don't feel like I need to drive it gently is because of my attitude towards my ownership of this car I ordered this car in October 2013 I think and it was delivered February 2014 and the plan was to pay it off and after three or four years and after paying it off buy a new one so three years went by February 2017 finished paying for the car not long after that I was thinking of what else can I get then had a look around and nothing really felt like an upgrade for this class of car I was looking at another lay on I think it's like the same car of course it is you've got the golf the A3 the one series the Ford Focus and Astra and I either felt like I was side stepping going down or spending a lot more money for just a little bit of a better car so I decided I'm very happy with this car what I'll do is I'll keep it and instead of putting the payments towards a new car is I'll put them in a bank and save them up and whatever goes wrong with this car the money's there ready to fix it and that worked out pretty well lots of things have gone wrong with this car I mean there's a somewhere on the steering wheel now this is my second steering wheel but I will replace that this is my second armrest that's my second handbrake that's my second gear knob these are the third seats second carpet replace the carpet last year you've got to remember this car hasn't done 197 000 miles like another car this is done about 18 000 to 19 000 hours of use usually cars will be scrapped from between four and six thousand hours a use because this gets used slowly all day people in it getting in and out the interior Wares and things go wrong but I replace them however making that decision of saving up those payments instead of buying a new car worked out pretty well to the point where that car I was driving earlier that Mazda MX-5 that's 30 000 pounds and fifteen thousand five hundred of that comes from the pot that I've saved up and I didn't use all the pot there's still quite a bit left so it was a good decision to keep the car and just spend money on repairs and keeping the interior fresh oh I upgraded that as well that's got Android auto and apple carplay now that was 600 pounds but a new car a lot more money so it was a good decision but I drive it with the attitude of if something fails I will replace it but I'm still going to treat it and drive it like it's a new car but I'm not worried about something failing so now I'm going to show you the red line in this car and how it deals with the red line it doesn't have a hard limiter it has a soft limiter so it sort of gets to the top and stays there the Mazda kind of has a semi-soft limit so it kind of bounces a bit but not when you get to the red lights kind of this one literally goes and stays there a bit like a diesel I'm a little bit worried that something may fail when I do this uh but I'm not that worried because I am prepared for it it would just be an inconvenience and an annoyance time for the red line then first gear I'll do it in first gear because I'll probably be over the speed limit in second let's floor the throttle and it kind of gets to here and stays there see and I'm not worried that it's going to break just maybe a little bit eventually it will things have broken it's not the original air conditioning compressor it's not the original alternator water pump started leaking about 120 000 miles that is not near the cam belt so you don't replace it with the cambelt on this and it's quite expensive it's on the other side of the engine easy to access though so just replace it as and when it fails quite a complicated cooling system on this car oh still working good there is this thing called the Italian tune-up which is where you drive the car hard and then it drives better and I do find that is the case with older cars but with modern engines I don't find it makes a difference what this engine suffers with is carbon buildup on the intake valves now people will say use better fuel makes no difference because this is direct injected so the fuel doesn't come in contact with the backs of the intake valves um and driving it slowly is more likely to clog them up quickly which is true and this car does get driven slowly most of the time so I have to get them cleaned I can get them cleaned by Walnut blasting them blasting them with walnuts to clean them I've got a video on it up there that I did and that transforms the engine when that is cleaned driving it hard is not going to clean those valves though the Italian tune-up isn't going to solve that issue if the car was driven on the motorway mostly then the carbon buildup probably wouldn't occur but this car is used for driving lessons so no matter how I try to deal with it it's gonna get clogged up unless I you know try driving around the red line in between lessons all the time it's just most of the time it's being driven it's being driven at low revs at low speed and in the summer it's hot under the Bonnet gets properly hot because we're not going very fast airflow isn't helping so air conditioning is taking the heat from the cabin and putting it under the Bonnet and that is incidentally when my alternator failed on a very hot day and I guess it was probably because the temperature on the lip Bonnet was very hot and that accelerated the wear or something or the alternator and my air conditioning failed like that as well although it didn't fail straight away it sort of stopped working or turned the engine off and on and it will start again I guess the compressor took a punt replaced it and yeah it works it's worked fine ever since and that was several years ago now when it comes to modified engines I can't comment on whether or not it's safe to rev those I would feel nervous if I was in a modified car and revving it hard to be fair I've owned a very modified car and I revved it hard a lot and took it on track days and Yes actually I was always a little bit worried that it was going to fail the thing is when you buy a manufacturer's car the manufacturer has taken Great Lengths to make sure that car with abuse lasts at least the warranty period hopefully a lot longer so they take the car to hot climates cold climates and rack up hundreds of thousands of miles they have staff and they have a big budget you can't expect the tuner to do that okay there are some modifications out there which I tried and tested and I would trust them more and there are some tunes out there that may have been tested on the tuner's own car where they've driven it for several years that's a good sign but just be careful if your car is modified or you get a modification check to see how reliable it is first who else has used it and for how long until you know that you don't know what it's going to be like and how have they used it are you taking it on track days have they just used it around town it all makes a difference now there is a way you can almost certainly destroy your engine through too many revs at the moment I'm accelerating the revs are only going to go as high as the computer allows but if I was to put it into first gear now it's 60 miles an hour and lift the clutch the engine speed would go up to something like 11 12 or 13 000 revs that would almost certainly destroy this engine very quickly it's known as the money shift because it's probably going to cost you a lot of money it can happen as an accident accidentally selecting first gear say instead of third when you're at a high speed there's no need to worry about the money shift when you're driving an automatic though because the system doesn't allow it the reason why the money shift or too many revs can destroy your engine is because your engine has many moving Parts this is a vital one it's known as a piston the Piston is connected to the connecting rod which is now represented by my arm and at six thousand revs this thing is going up and down your engine a hundred times a second it doesn't take much imagination to understand why if you go fast enough something's going to break maybe the connecting rod would snap and become disconnected from the Piston I'm amazed it doesn't break it 100 times a second also above the Piston of valves and as the Piston goes down the valve opens and as the Piston goes up the valve closes this is to let air in and exhaust out but it's a spring that closes the valve and what can happen if the Piston's moving fast enough the spring doesn't have time to close the valve this is known as valve float and in the piston contact the valve bending it meaning you now have bent valves and when you've got bent valves your engine's not going to run right if at all to play it extra safe though manufacturers set the red line of your car the rev limit of your car below what the engine can actually handle safely well I hope you found the video interesting if you did please give it a thumbs up and if you're looking for car insurance check out the links to Collingwood and Confused in the description if you're learning to drive and want to insure yourself on somebody else's car for practice then Collingwood are there for you because you can do so without affecting the owner's policy and that does take away a big stress from the owner of that car via the link there's up to 35 off at the moment and a 20 pound Amazon gift card if you want to insure your own car I recommend checking out the link to confuse.com because you fill out one quote form and get loads of quotes back from many insurers to compare who's cheapest and what's also great is you can change your car on that quote as many times you like to compare how much it costs to ensure different cars and you don't have to do the whole quote you can just change the car or even just change the reg and update and there you are you have new prices using the links doesn't cost you anything but it does support the channel so thank you very much subscribe to get my future videos and until the next one cheerio

Channel: Conquer Driving

Views: 1,251,705

Keywords: is redlining your engine bad, is redlining your engine good, does the Italian tune up help improve performance, is the Italian tune up good for your car, what is a money shift, why the money shift damages the engine, should you redline an old engine, how to let the engine heat up, how to know when the engine is up to temperature, how long should you let the engine heat up for, what is lugging the engine, are low revs bad, what is a good engine oil temperature, revving too high

Id: 6ppaQIHoWjo

Length: 27min 51sec (1671 seconds)

Published: Mon May 22 2023