Best gear and speed for greatest acceleration

Please tell me an M3 owner did not ask that question....

1st gear rolling at 3900 RPM

pman10 wrote

There is a faster way. Hold the (-) paddle and 'pedal to the metal' (push past the accelerator resistance point) at the same time - that will put you in the lowest gear possible. I like this way better, as I don't have to deal with switching to auto or back.

Hmm thanks, didn't know that.

to be honest your best bet is to race them from 1st gear roll if you want to have a chance against corvette motors. I had an e46 m3 with 315whp and it was never even close to SS camaros with cams and headers which would make 390 whp 400whp.

stock e92 makes 335whp i believe could even be 360whp, im just saying don't race and lose because then they will have a reason to talk smack that your 80k m3 got smoked by a way cheaper car etc.

Just tell them to look at the badge on the trunk /thread.

Is your motor run-in yet?

Scrappy wrote

What is the best speed/gear combo to really take off... I have a 09 6 speed E92 so what do you all recommend since I am new to the car. Thanks for the input.

1st gear @ 13.071732 MPH, of course.

pman10 wrote

There is a faster way. Hold the (-) paddle and 'pedal to the metal' (push past the accelerator resistance point) at the same time - that will put you in the lowest gear possible. I like this way better, as I don't have to deal with switching to auto or back.

I was playing around with this tonight along with a quick shift to auto mode to get a downshift. Both would work well if you need a quick downshift, but think I prefer going to auto mode as you don't need to press the accelerator pass the resistance point. Also depending on how hard you mash the throttle in auto, you don't get the lowest possible gear, but rather the second to lowest which is what I would prefer in most situations. I'd have to play with it a bit more, but I also think going to for a downshift via auto mode may be quicker.

The only times I would use either "technique" is when I'm caught off guard and am in a high gear like 7th. Otherwise, if I'm paying attention, I'd rather do a few toggles of the downshift paddle. Before, going from say 6th to 3rd via the three pulls of the paddle would bug me for some reason, but testing each method tonight, I very much prefer it. Just need to be prepared and know what gear you're in to begin with.

One more thing you need to know. On D mode (the auto mode) if you put the pedal to the metal it takes you to the lowest gear with more than 5000RPM on it and it will shift automatically right on the red line as long as you keep pushing the button behind the acclerator. You may already know that but what I noticed is when you do that the car stays in the low-very aggressive-mode for a longer time (few seconds) if you slow down as opposed to shift to a higher gear once you ease off the throttle. So let's say you're on 3rd gear at 6000RPM and you need to ease the throttle for 2-3 seconds (cause you're getting close to the front car or whatever) it'll stay on 3rd and when you push again you will be still on 3rd at may be 5000RPM.

No matter what board you look at out there, there are always people who push this information that "shifting so you are in your max torque" How did this get so widely misunderstood?

You want to be in the LOWEST gear and go ALL the way to redline in this and ALMOST every modern car.

Very few cars now adays will put a redline that does not benefit you by staying there to that redline.

I am not going to type out a huge explanation but bottom line is first off you look at horsepower and not where torque is the most but second you look at your gearing. Even if you make a lot less torque and hp at 7k than you do at 5k, the gearing advtage (which is often 2 times more torque sent to the wheels via gears compared to 2nd) is always worth the drop in power or torque.

People dont realize gears are the biggest torque factor in our cars-stay in the lowest gear the longest so you get your torque multiplication effect. A small decrease in torque or power from 4-8 k for example, hypotheticically of course-you would have to HALF your power between those two points for it to be worth it to shift gears otherwise stayin in first and bein on a decling portion of the dyno still is better.

this is for auto's by the way

I vote this the most pitiful thread of 2011.

swamp2 wrote

Please tell me an M3 owner did not ask that question....

This is the future of the M owners.

5erman wrote

Very few cars now adays will put a redline that does not benefit you by staying there to that redline.

You mean like turbo cars like 135/335?

Here we go again.... you know this will turn into 6MT vs DCT.

sameh wrote

On D mode (the auto mode) if you put the pedal to the metal it takes you to the lowest gear with more than 5000RPM on it and it will shift automatically right on the red line as long as you keep pushing the button behind the acclerator. You may already know that but what I noticed is when you do that the car stays in the low-very aggressive-mode for a longer time (few seconds) if you slow down as opposed to shift to a higher gear once you ease off the throttle. So let's say you're on 3rd gear at 6000RPM and you need to ease the throttle for 2-3 seconds (cause you're getting close to the front car or whatever) it'll stay on 3rd and when you push again you will be still on 3rd at may be 5000RPM.

?? What are you doing in D mode at all?
Dissecting shift behavior in D mode is like worrying about how to sharpshoot with a blindfold on.

According to the manual, D mode driving is reserved for the following:

1) When your girlfriend/wife really, really needs to borrow your car.
2) When you need a free hand while driving to fondle your girlfriend/wife.

That's it!

ChrisK wrote

Here we go again.... you know this will turn into 6MT vs DCT.

Um... it's already been there. This thread does cement my decision to go with 6MT, though. In 10 years nobody will be able to steal my car.

May I suggest staying at home tonight as this sounds like a recipe for disaster IMO.....................

sameh wrote

Keep it ALWAYS above 4000RPM and you should be fine.

+100000000. no torque below 4 grand

pman10 wrote

There is a faster way. Hold the (-) paddle and 'pedal to the metal' (push past the accelerator resistance point) at the same time - that will put you in the lowest gear possible. I like this way better, as I don't have to deal with switching to auto or back.

Actually, its the other way around i.e. pedal to the metal first and then click the (-) paddle

erhanh wrote

You mean like turbo cars like 135/335?

Actually, even for those cars you still want to run it to redline for maximum acceleration, until you start to get to the very top of 3rd gear (> 100 mph).

http://www.m3post.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7829518&postcount=14

Ken37.73 wrote

May I suggest staying at home tonight as this sounds like a recipe for disaster IMO.....................

I can just see the thread tomorrow:

"Shifted to second gear at 80mph and needle went past 9000 RPM. Is my car ok?"

OP, seriously, before you do anything please see this:

http://www.m3post.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5714522&postcount=29

So you know which gears are available at which speeds. $$$ shift = .

UNNATRAL wrote

+100000000. no torque below 4 grand

I don't get how there's no torque. The engine gives its 85% of max torque from ~2000rpm to 8400rpm. So pretty much you have the same torque all over the range.

If you say there's no power below 4k, that I understand. Assuming the torque is perfectly linear, below 4k you'd have less than half of the max hp.

Here. I think this is a stock dyno result from some forum member: