Does hitting the 7000 rpm redline hurt the spark?

[Jeffrey Makela 6]

sometimes I have hit the redline when getting on the highway. does that hurt the motor?

the spark has the most horse power at 6500 rpm.

[Greg_E 211]

Yes and no. If you run it there all the time, it will shorten the engine life. If you hit it once in a while, there should be no problem. One thing to note, it may hang up there for a few seconds when you go to shift to the next higher gear. I've hit the limiter once and when I stuffed the clutch in to shift, the engine stayed at the limiter until the next gear when in and clutch was released. It's part of the way emissions are handled and you can see this happen if you stuff the clutch in fast in any gear or rpm and take you foot off the throttle pedal at the same time, the rpm will hang up where it was when you took your foot off the gas because closing the throttle suddenly gives a momentary increase in emissions.

[Lil Dew 14]

No, it wont hurt the motor. They set the red line at safe levels to prevent damage by higher revs. You can run the rpms all the way to fuel or spark cut, whatever the ECU is set to do. Even that doesn't damage the engine. Disabling that, well, then it is a different story. You will start to float valves and damage bearings.

Take the Mazda RX8 and Honda S2000 for instance, or really any of the four banger Honda's. You have to rev the crap out of them, 8-9k rpms, in order to get the power. That is how they are designed.

[Greg_E 211]

They don't do a soft limit, it just cuts fuel until the rpms fall below their set point.

[tommyspark 24]

Believe it or not; redlining an engine periodically is actually recommended. Helps to blow out some of the carbon build up in the head(s). I purposely floor our sparks; all out about once a week...... Other than that, I live in "good gas mileage land". I try my hardest to not rev em up past 4K RPM. Just don't drive redline all the time and you'll be fine

[Dori 13]

Is there a recommended engine idle warm up time before you start driving? It's coming into the colder months of the year now, and I drive a 2LT Manual. I usually shift around 3,000 RPMs. So if I start cold and drive right away is that hard on the engine?

[Greg_E 211]

Normally I park so I need to back up and turn around, I'll let it idle for a few moments then back up and go. But I still take it easy on the shifts until it feels like it has warmed a little.

[tommyspark 24]

I always let my vehicles run for about 3 minutes before driving....

[WaltK 305]

Here are a few articles on this debated subject. http://withyou.cenex.com/blog/dont-idle-warm-up-your-car-the-right-way/ http://blog.nwautos.com/2010/02/warm-car_wars_preheating_your_engine_in_cold_weather_is_still_a_subject_of_debate.html http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/myths/idling.html

[Ataristic 5]

I let it warm up as well, it only takes a minute or two, you know the car is ready to go when the idle rpms go below 1000 and stabalize. Even after that, I take it easy on accelation until I have driven a mile or two.

[tommyspark 24]

Some.cars, like my.Pontiac I had HATE driving cold. It just didn't run the same.as it did.when the car was warmed up. Night n day difference....