How often do you redline it & a story of newfound joy
 

Hi all,

Well, celebrating about 3 weeks of boxster ownership now. 99 model, 5-speed, 56k miles and now 700 more than when I took on ownership.

First off, I wanted to ask how often people redline their boxsters (once fully warmed up of course). I find myself winding it out on the highway and alot on backroads....2nd and 3rd gears mostly. I'm primarily taking it to 6000 before shifting, but have gone up to 6500. Most of the magic appears to occur between 5000-6000 though. I'm guessing I'll be hitting redline once for every 5 miles I put on the car :cheers:

Second thing I wanted to share: I've been a bit hard on the boxster. It may have an alignment issue, as it tramlines & vibrates at different speeds. It creaks a bit, and rides a bit rough for my taste (partly due to the barely broken in Bilstein HD dampers + thin sidewalled michelin pilot sports (not PS2s)).

As I was turning onto 6 miles of backroads tonight, I slapped myself in the face. I've got a mid-engined Porsche here, with a racing heritage, sitting on really fat summer tires hung off of excellent stiff dampers, and here I am complaining about ride quality and characteristics and some interior noises.

I sucked it up and started winding it out more, but also perfectly rev-matching downshifts, taking turns fairly hard (with a clear view of the other side), putting some heat in the brakes, and generally driving it.

Made me realize that sometimes a race car will make you happiest as a race car, instead of trying to make it into a pleasant sunday driver.
What is/was wrong with me? :rolleyes:

Happy motoring.

By the way....I'm guessing my front engine mount is wearing out along with the shifter bushings, as my shifting is stiff and notchy, and my clutch and flywheel seem to not play friendly sometimes.

But when I was driving it hard and ripping off shifts, she was perfectly fluid....

Generally I drive my Boxster around 10 miles every day. Once warmed up, I try to red line at least twice before getting to my destination. It's good fun, and even though it's not lightning quick it still does feel good to be able to hit the red before getting into 2nd.

So honestly I probably redline 3 to 5 times a day every 10 miles.

EDIT: Also, as I found out, the tires make an enormous difference in ride quality, I swapped my tires for some cheap Kumho Ecsta ASX's and they ride amazing, work's really well as a daily driver now with reasonable grip.

If you're not using the top 1/3 of a flat-6's rev range, you're not getting what you paid for. These engines are made to rev both in performance and logevity. Run it to redline or buy an SUV.

I may not redline it ever time I drive it, but it's not uncommon. I drive it nearly every day and most of them have it over 6K at least once.

My car sees the redline pretty often, with the care attention and maintenance we all put in, I feel confident in doing so.

No offense but why would you bother to redline your Boxster in first gear? To me this is just revving for its own sake. The extra revs don't give you much in the way of torque after the midway point. Torque peaks and is actually on the way down as you reach the redline.

I shift out of first from 4500-5000 rpms max, I shift out of second around the same and then wind third all the way to the redline and fourth and fifth, I have never redlined sixth as of this writing.

I redline my Boxster at least once ever time I drive it and try not to let the rpms go below 3000 rpms while cruising, the rpms do drop below that during starts and stops and in traffic but I live in the country so that is not as often as it would be if I lived in the city.

So why are you redlining first gear?

Maximum acceleration is dependent on torque at the wheels. It's a combination of engine torque and gear ratios. There is more torque at the wheels in first gear at redline than in second at any point. So max acceleration comes when you redline in first ( and every other gear for that matter). It's not the case with every car, but usually is with sports cars and absolutely is with the Boxster.

Let us know when you redline in 6th. It's over 170mph!

Perhaps I should qualify my statement....in the 3.6 there seems to be no benefit percieved from redlining first or second. The long gears are where it is at.

I tend to agree with landrovered here. I don't know the science like some folks out there, but, to me, it seems like the Boxster has such a good torque curve that it feels totally unnecessary to wind out to redline in first.

As he said, when "in a hurry" I'll typically run up to 4500-5000 rpm in first, then shift. She just pulls so strong in second when I do that it just seems silly to delay that shift. I too save the redline (or near-redline) shifts for the middle to higher gears.

Like I said, I really don't know the science here...this is kind of a 'butt dyno' kind of thing for me.

Unless the 3.6 torque curve is less flat than the 3.2, which I doubt, you're still faster winding to redline. Whether you fell the need to do so is of course another matter.

Your butt dyno needs recalibration.

Oh Great! What's THAT gonna cost me?? :)

I have never driven a sports car where redlining first gear made sense. IMO, the Boxster third gear and fourth is where the power is killer approaching redline. I also think remaining in fourth on the highway is way fun, sucks more gas but the available passing power is again, killer.

I put the gear ratios of the 986 6-speed together with the torque curve of the 3.6 non x-51 engine. Attached is the resulting torque vs road speed curve. You always have more torque in the lower gear at redline than the next gear up for any given road speed.

If the curves crossed each other, that would be the shift point you'd want to make. If they don't cross, as with the 3.6, redline is always going to be faster.

6th gear at a redline of 7200 RPM should be about 176mph.

I think 1st gear is worth at least a 6000rpm run (when is fuel cut on the 2.5 liter?)....maybe it's just me, and my huge-ass 265/35/18 wide pilot sports, but between the power output, the medium-ish gearing of the 5-speeds, and those tires....well, I definitely feel that first gear redline is not an OVER-RUN of power output.

Anyway, I don't like to redline in first unless I'm racing someone (which is extremely infrequent). I don't like the forces it puts on the juicy bits, and I don't like it's feel as much as I enjoy a good 2-4th gear redline run.

Good to hear others opinions. I come from driving a 2006 Civic SI, which I redlined at 8000 rpms everyday and have never been concerned about. Conversely, my 2008 Legacy GT is not a car that enjoys redlining.

I find the boxster to be not as encouraging of redline as the Civic SI, but also far smoother power delivery. Since the car has a long history of being tracked for many miles without any sort of rotating assembly failures, I assumed it was a great car to keep in the upper rpms (in terms of mechanical happiness).

I like being re-assured :)

Joe

P.s. First full tank of gas in the boxster, driven 70% highway with the top-down, lots of aggressive driving.....23 mpg. Sound about right? Also is 11 years old without a 60k mile service yet, which may help.

There's only 2 highways in my city, and I don't ever use them in my Boxster, thus the only time I can redline legally is first gear, thus I do it :dance:

But yea, I do agree that 2nd gear does pull better than 1st gear beyond 5000 RPM.

Maximum acceleration torque depends on the wheel, It is a combination of engine torque and gear. There are more torque to the wheels in first gear in the second Redline at any time. The maximum acceleration occurs when you Redline in the first, This is not the case with all cars, but they usually do with sport and certainly contributes Boxster.

I red-line my 2.7 several times a day and no problems so far.
Letting the rpm drop below 3k is dissapointing since the power just isnt there if you need it.
i have been getting 19-20 mpg lately though :)

Manual Mode and high Revs!
 

I've only recently taken ownership of my Boxster and reading the post on "Tiptronic in Manual Mode", I have just discovered a whole new car when driving in lower gears in manual between 5,000 and 6,500 revs (I think my 2.7 red-lines at 7,000?). Enormous fun, but still couldn't quite bring myself to take it right up to the Red-Line yet. Guess I'm still worried the engine will come out of the car over my left shoulder (UK). :o

Gentle driving in Auto is giving me around 26MPG, driving like last night probably around 21MPG.....but hell, its only fuel!! :D

Wow, I cruise at 2k constantly after hard acceleration, and only get 18 MPG. Time to up cruising rev's and see how I do :P.

Ahh silly Europeans and your different MPG measuring and fuel octanes. Us in America can manage maybe 22 MPG on the combined cycle if we drive like grandma's.
Do it when you're ready, but building trust with your car often requires for you to explore its limits.

Ummm, I guess I generally avoid redline (6500). Sometimes I will hover above 6k for a bit at the end of a long straight when I don't want to upshift just before a braking zone. My sweet spot is 4-6k and I tend to do all my performance driving there. I think max torque on my car is 4800 and it feels like it falls off a little above 6k so that is where I usually reach for another gear.

All I can say is, I'm glad my '06 2.7 has a rev limiter, sometimes I lose track of the RPM exiting a corner! At 7k it feels like it wants more!

Yup, pretty much my findings exactly. I change up at 6k - it will rev out reasonably well 6k, but it is beginning to go off just a little, so I prefer not to wring it out all the way to the limiter. as you say, 4-6k is where it's at in the 2.5.

LMFAO!! Spoken like a true Porsche owner!


I try to never let my revs drop under 3000, selecting a gear that keeps the steady-speed revs in the 3000 to 3500 range. I ease it away in first, shifting around 4 or 5, and then wind it out through the rest of the gears. It is not uncommon to get a reminder from the rev limiter that maybe I should shift now.

I seem to average about 25 to 28 imp. mpg.

Had a real Grandma weekend, drove at around the 80-85mph mark North up our M1 Motorway on Saturday, then back on the Sunday. Kept it at this to see how the range of the tank worked out.....320 miles with a further 42 miles to empty. That was however on the higher octane unleaded which I switched to a month ago. Didn't want to push it to 360 miles in case I sucked a load of crap into the car.

I had a nice 911 coupe several years back with a tip. I took it up to Riverside CA and back on a trip. Steady 75 or 80 both ways.

28 MPG. I thought that was pretty good with the A/C on all the way.

Economy car.

It's great to know we can ring it's neck in Manual and enjoy the rush 6500-7000 revs delivers, at the cost of some fuel, or drive sedately in Auto and get 27-28 MPG......what a brilliant sports car!

If you're not bouncing off the rev limiter, you're doing it wrong. ;)

I swear my car runs better after getting redlined a bunch (compared to spending a few years lugging around a bit). :)

I don't think I've broken the 25mpg barrier yet, but it's 11 years old, hasn't had a 60k service yet (57k miles), and I'm generally keeping it above 3000 rpms with the top down...

Joe