Okay, i'm going to be blunt because I gotta go soon.

First off, my car is stock (well plus an exhaust and some tails.. And an Injen intake soon)

But,
I gatherd from all my reading that Torque is what moves the car, and HP maintains that. So does that mean I should shift at the end of the torque band (where ever that is) on my lancer whenever dragging or racing? Or should I do what my friends do and shift at redline?

And which is burning more fuel? Downshifting to 1st gear @ 6 000 Rpms, or "flooring it" @ 1000 rpms in 5th gear?

and finally, RPMs mean what exactly? How fast the flywheel is spinning?... Or the cylinders?

And does our lancer have a rev limiter?

And finally, lol, whats the end of our torque band and HP band in RPM's terms? (like is it 4000 for torque?)

Thanks a bunch.

 

dang, that's a lot of questions. When you get back, try some searches, most of them are there.

Ummm, off the top of my head, fuel cut (rev limiter) is 6200 rpm. I believe RPM is how many times the crank is turning a full circle per minute. If you shift at peak horsepower (around 5000 rpm on a stock Lancer), your RPMs will fall to somewhere around peak torque. Don't evern downshift to 1st while moving in a regular lancer (1st gear is not syncronized), so that question is irrelevent, but the best fuel mileage is somewhere around 2000 rpm to 3500 rpm (I think). As far as more torque and hp questions, look at the dyno page in the Lancer gen or engine tech forum. It lists some good links and info.

 

alright cool.. Umm I was exgerating about the "downshifting" to first, i was just wondering if your throttle completly controls the amount of gas going into the cylinders...

 

- Shift at redline
- Fuel flow is determined by the throttle position sensor (measure of how far the accelerator is depressed), engine speed, and fuel mapping. In your example, you'd be using more fuel/second in 1st gear. However, if your goal was to get up to a higher speed, you'd be better off downshifting and going through the gears than trying to pull the motor from near idle, as the latter would consume a lot of fuel as the motor tries to get up to speed.
- RPM is a measure of crankshaft rotational speed (revolutions per minute); the crankshaft is bolted directly to the flywheel so they'll spin at the same speed.

 

By what I remember of the dyno sheets, it seems that anywhere b/w 2k and 3k rpm is great gas mileage. Between 3 and 3.5k it starts to increase hp exponentially, thus consuming more fuel.


If you want to find the best acheivable gas mileage do a search for "gas mileage" and you'll probably find a few fairly long threads. The best mpg I got was 320. That was also when the only time I drove was on the highway to and from work. Now, with new rims, I am at around 260 mpg's.