Quote:
Originally Posted by abehwang
so whats the optimal cruising RPM for our car?
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Popular opinion seems to be to keep the car at or above 2000 RPM to avoid bogging. But this is probably based more on maintaining non-stressed feedback from the car rather than how efficient it is operating.
Also, of course, there are only a couple reasonable cruising gears to select from at any given speed. So, to some degree, speed limits and traffic are going to decide the RPM of the engine for you. But there are still some choices. For example, in a 45mph zone, I might go 48 or 49 mph, and I would tend to choose 7th gear at about 1900 RPM (or whatever the exact RPM works out to be). Some people, however, might feel 7th is too stressed at that speed and choose 6th (some people only use 7th on the expressway, for that matter). Which gear is more efficient at that speed? I don't know. I suspect it is 7th but have no evidence for that.