[MNBoxster]

Hi,

You lug the engine when you try to accelerate in too high a gear . You make the Engine work harder than it's supposed to. Just like you would work harder if you rode a bicycle up a steep hill in 12th gear as opposed to first gear.

When the engine is over-worked, it overheats. The way it overheats is that the temperature inside the cylinders gets too high. When that happens, the Air/Fuel mixture which is supposed to combust as the spark plug fires, detonates unpredictably before the Spark occurs. That's called pinging , when those detonations make a sound like marbles rolling around.

And, under the worst of circumstances, you can also get piston slap, which is a clunky noise. Because you are getting uneven combustion inside the cylinder (the detonation doesn't necessarily happen at the right time or in the right spot), the explosion can force the piston off to one side when it descends during the power stroke. When that happens repeatedly, the cylinder walls get all scraped up, and over time, your Engine becomes less powerful, more noisey and will start to burn Oil prematurely.

It's important when Starting from a Stop to Rev the Engine sufficiently to match the Load imposed on it. From a Stop, the Engine is not aided by Inertia or Momentum (it has no stored Energy to draw on), it has to do all the work itself (unlike a Gear Change while moving).

You need to select the gear which gives the Engine the Greatest Mechanical Advantage (which happens to be 1st) and give it sufficient Throttle that is, RPMs, to create enough Power to do the Work you're calling on it to do. Then Feather the Clutch until the Car starts to move, then as quickly as you can smoothly, release the Clutch entirely, all the while adding Throttle.

You can start out in 2nd Gear, if you give it enough Throttle, but this has the drawback of prematurely wearing the Clutch Disc as it will slip more until it can seat properly. Hope this helps...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99