Boxster Redlined
 

I have this 03 boxster its got about 70000 miles and i have it in trip... yeah i know.
but i was driving it today trying to race a s5 off a light, and so we start going and i try to blow past him by shifting down.. retarted as i am i didnt realize i was in 2nd gear so it went to first and the rpms went to 6500 the redline is between 7 and 8 thousand so it didnt touch it this happend yesterday i havent driven the car since do you think its fine should i drive easier for a few days what are your thoughts.

Its a porsche not a damn garage queen..... the cars were designed in mind for auto xing with high rpm... running it in redline for a few seconds did nothing to harm the car.

alright nice because i drove about 5 more mins after that and the car felt alot different.

Maybe it has to do with the old expression about "blowing the carbon out". JK, Ed

Placebo effect caused by guilt and adrenaline.

Over-revving during a downshift is a great way to wreck your engine. It sounds like you didn't over-rev, since you say you only hit about 6500 RPM.

"I have it in trip" - does this mean it's an automatic that you were manually shifting? If so, the computer is not going to let you over-rev.

Either way, it doesn't sound like you have anything to worry about. When you say "the car felt a lot different" - what does that mean? Better? Worse?

Now, about the street racing thing...

The TIP has different programs
 

for shift points that it uses as it senses what kind of driving you do. Your downshift told it to go the the most aggressive program as opposed to the gas saver program. And as you drove normally if came out of that program and back to normal.

Don't rev it high until it is all warm.

spank it. it liked it and it wants more. believe me.

you're fine

My old boxster hit the redline every time I took it for a ride. It never needed anything more than oil changes. Trust me, your not the first person to make a porsche hit 6k rpm

Porsches love to be at redline. I missed a downshift (2nd instead of 4th) at Cal Speedway and slightly over-revved it. By slightly I mean I hit stage 5 (<9500 rpm). 15k miles later and the motor is still happy. :cheers:

The first time my Boxster hit rev limiter at the track, I think my exact words were, "Crap, what is that?!". The DE instructor just laughed and told me to shift. That must have been 25k miles ago. The car is still running great and no doubt so is yours.

never said who won during these shenanigans.
s5 or boxster??

In your situation a I am sure your engine and transmission is fine.

If it were a manual transmission redlining on acceleration is one thing because the engine will engage the rev-limiter, redlining / over-revving upon a down shift is different, the rev-limiter may not catch that, and there is potential for engine damage is that situation.

yeah mine is automatic
and i put it in manumatic mode and shifted down
haha and we were both neck to neck after the light turned green then i down shifted went up a little and then i got scared when it hit 6500 rpms and so i put it back into automatic and he went off.

LOL............

Makes me recall a time....some 16 years ago I had a 1970 911E. Grabbed 2nd instead of 4th on a backroad race. Oops, bent a handfull of valves on that one. But that was taching it out well over 10k rpms I'm sure. :cool:

I've done the same thing with my Boxster a couple times. Was at redline in 3rd and grabbed 2nd instead of 4th. :rolleyes: Not sure exactly how high the revs reached since tach stops at 8,000 and I wasn't looking but I'm willing to venture around 8,500. :D She still runs great.

It is near impossible to do engine damage by revving too high in a tip. The computer will not shift down if it will push the engine past the rev limiter.

As other posters have said, missing 4th for 2nd or worse still, missing 3rd for 1st can cause big problems. The rev limiter cannot help you at all, as it is the wheels that push the revs up rather than the throttle which the computer controls, and you may bend a few valves.

In terms of pushing too hard, the rev limiter will cut in before any damage can be done. At times when I have been racing another car I occasionally flat shift 1st to second, ie. leave the accelerator flat to the floor to prevent the revs from dropping between gears. The motor just bounces off the limiter, sounds scary but no harm done to the motor (the clutch is a different story mind you, it overheats very quickly, hence why I gave up this practice).

Enjoy your boxster and drive it the way it was intended to be driven!

Just a reminder to all you “red line bangers” that big brother is watching. Our cars record parameters into a downloadable data base. This is taken from the Durametric web site (the laptop monitor snapshot will not paste);

• Notice the section for "Ignitions (Range 1)." This vehicle shows "13958/917h" which means the vehicle has used the rev-limiter for 13,958 ignitions, the last time being at 917 hours. So this indicates the engine was red-lined often and the last time occurred recently since the engine only has 917 hours.
• Notice the section for "Ignitions (Range 2)." This vehicle shows "1/48h" which means the vehicle exceeded the red line one time during 48 hours of operation. This is an example of a possible car a Porsche dealer will not perform warranty work on as this metric indicates abuse.
• If you ever look at an online auction for Porsche instrument panel clusters, you will see many of them for sale. Most of these clusters are not broken; many of them were replaced from lease vehicles to avoid paying excess mileage charges. From the example above, you can see that this engine has 917 hours in the "Operating Hours Section." This should be compared to the odometer to see if the number makes sense. If you divide the odometer mileage by the operating hours you will have an average MPH.
• Example: 12,000 Miles / 917 Operating Hours = 13 MPH
• Most cars will average between 30 - 50 MPH depending on how much traffic it is driven in so the value of 13 MPH indicates there could be a discrepancy

Food for thought.

I suppose if you wanted to play a joke on the dealership you could go the other way and have an average speed of 237 mph!

Hitting the rev limiter ≠ taking the engine to the redline. Instead, it indicates an inattentive and bad driver who doesn't know when to shift... or one who feels that it's faster to not shift for that split second before a braking.

The redline on the tach simply represents the safe cutoff on the high end of the engine operating range, and it is a perfectly good idea to use the entire range when necessary (or when it's not :) ) The rev limiter is for those times when you go over the redline, and it prevents you from revving the engine beyond spec.

http://ericfilcoff.com/pictures/Boxster_03.jpg

You need to try that maneuver on the highway. That tiptronic is nuts. I never drove automatics before the boxster and even after 30K miles, the thing still scares the crap out of me when it downshifts at 75mph. I passed a semi on the highway the first night I had it. I gave it as much gas as I'd give the 911 to speed up quick and zip around him. I didn't realize the car would see that much throttle increase as a sign to downshift. It downshifted, probably hit 6K rpm, then upshifted again. Definitely not the smoothest little maneuver but I went from 75 to 95 in a hurry. I still haven't completely gotten used to the changing shift patterns of the tip.

On a similar but separate note, has anyone ever considered changing out the tip selector on the console for an older or new one? The older tips had the gear selector as a toggle on the center console instead of on the wheel. The new PDK's have both. I'm not real comfortable going around corners and trying to hit those little rocker switches on the wheel in the right direction. I'd be much more aggressive with the thing if there were the up/down toggle on the console.

Nope... that's incorrect. The early shift levers merely select between Auto and Man mode. You're confusing Tiptronic with Sportmatic!

Cheers!

Actually it shifted at 6400rpm, that's the peak horse power rpm before it starts to nose over. The Tiptronic is pretty smart, with your aggressive "I gave it as much gas as I'd give the 911 to speed up quick and zip around him" throttle response, the Tip gave you the best performance possible...and that's what you felt.

Boxster Redlined
 

Last year, I traded in my 2003 Boxster S for a 2009 Boxster S. Living in metro-NYC, I made the decision to go from a 6-speed manual to the new PDK.

PDK doesn't make it any less easy to redline, but it does make manual shifting seamless and effortless. Leaving PDK in auto mode and depressing the accelerator to the floor does give you head-jolting acceleration. I've never experienced anything like it. It's fantastic. I would love to have an S5 pull up next to me.

haha I am one of the only people in my group to have a sports car being a young kid, so I stupidly let my friend drive, if anyone knows northern NJ, he hit 113 on 208, 115 on 17 and then 118 on Palisades Parkway. I must admit that it was alot smoother than I would imagine.

Hitting redline is perfectly fine (provided the motor is healthy and at operating temp). Over-revs, however, are not good. They stress the connecting rods, can actually stretch the rod bolts, and will usually show up as bearing wear in motors that have been over-revved. Furthermore, since these cars have hydraulic lifters, the valvetrain cannot keep up and it is very likely to get piston to valve contact, with its associated consequences.