100% agree, also horsepower is the ability to gain rpm and torque is the ability to sustain rpm so low end torque gets you out of the hole. Also the lower the torque curve the more power you'll feel around town as, I don't know about you but, I'm not driving through town and 5000+rpm!

 

Hammer thanks for the info. That helps alot. I know that on my 350 tpi it would fall on its face close to 6000 rpms but my hemi does not show any signs of falling on its face. sever u are right about the motor was just typing. lxman i don't see how it will slow me down other than having the shifts being to high and not shifting quick enough. i have seen several vids on here and u tube that showed shifts at 6000 and they didn't seem like the motors were dying off any. could be the simple fact that u can feel when it falls on its face and not see it sometimes.

 

When it comes to acceleration, there will still be more torque to the wheels in a lower gear, even if the motor is past its peak torque. More torque to the wheels = better acceleration. A good trans/axle setup will allow you to shift at redline and land right in the torque band in the next gear.

Say a Hemi makes 375lb-ft max at the crank, and only 250 by the time it's wound out to 6,000. Coming out of 1st at redline with 3.92 gears, you're still putting (theoretically, of course it's much lower) 2900+ lb-ft to the axle. Peak torque in 2nd will only put 2300 lb-ft to the axle.

For fastest times, let the engine rev as high as possible in every gear. The engine loses 45% of it's mechanical advantage from 1st to 2nd, and 67% from 2nd to 3rd in a 45RFE trans.

 

If you put a 6.1L cam and springs in it, it will be happier at 6200rpm.

I proved the over rpm fact in my 5.0 Mustang that it runs 2 10th/s quicker in the 1/8 mile shifting @ 5500rpm vs 6200rpm. Best time to date is 7.96 @ 87mph.

 

It all depends on what you are driving. The gearing also has allot to do with how a vehicle will run at different shift points. In some cases you get better results by shifting further past the peak because it puts the engine at a better rpm when it does shift. It seems like my truck STOCK would benefit from a couple of 100 more rpm because it seems a few hundred rpm short of really being in its "powerband" when it shifts.

 

I've done the same test except I did it in my Ram. The quickest times were always with the shift points maxed out. While the lower shifts may have gotten you quicker times in your mustang, it doesn't necessarily mean it will do the same for a Ram.

 

It's probably not impossible, with a narrowly tuned engine, to have such a torque falloff at a certian RPM as to make a lower shift point desirable. For a street, stock Hemi though, the more revs the better. Let the gears help as much as possible.

 

What's up with every one on here with mustangs?

If your cam is not designed to make power past a certain point you wont.

 

Does the hp/tq curve always cross at or around 5260rpms on any vehicle?

 

If you're working in ft-lb and HP, then yes. HP=(Torque*RPM) / 5252. So if RPM=5252, then HP=Torque (same number value, different units).