Stupid but.... Lotus Exige red line - when do you shift?

[wilsonf1]

Little bit amatuer hour, but once the second cam kicks in on the Toyota engine, when should you shift up? There's no red lines on the counter and I really have no idea what that engine can do! Think I've got to about 7000 and then gone up - can you go much further?

Putting a big smile on my face - and seemingly waking up a lot of children in push chairs as well. Don't worry, I'm being careful

[subaqua]

Edit: just to say, hitting the limiter on the road is possibly a bit unnecessary...however

It has a hard limit at 8200 ish, although depending on use, the limiter might cut in lower IIRC (i.e. hammering down the motorway on the limit in 4th).

If its an N/A Exige without the Motorsport map (brings the cam change down to 4500 and its more of a progressive change than the on/off switch on the standard map) you'll want to get round to 8000 if you want to make swift progress and drop back into the next gear on-cam.

If its a S/C version, you can probably get away with changing at 7000 as you'll have plenty of torque to play with in the middle of the rev range

Edited by subaqua on Monday 11th June 15:26

[wilsonf1]

yeah it's N/A - ok cool we'll see what happens when I go above 7000 then!

looking out the window: it's raining... bugger

[DC5TEG]

Practice to make sure you stay on CAM. If you change up at 7k and drop out of Cam, well up it to 7.5, 8k ect till you remain in Cam. Its the whole point of these cars if you want to make swift progress, keeping it in the powerband.

[wilsonf1]

Yep. Just need to get use to it and just wanted to find out from you lot what I should be aiming for.

Tesco Club Card points here I come!

[otolith]

I presume the Exige is the same as the Elise - no red line, but there is a red shift light which illuminates as maximum revs are approached. You can see it at about 2:08 in this clip.

Obviously it would be coming on in second gear at about the speed limit for that road, and the driver would have immediately backed off.

[Exige77]

Rev limiter is at 8500 in fisrt 5 gears and then at 8000 in 6th.

Red light come on at 8000 to warn you that you are approaching the 8500 limit.

Ex77

[Phil-CH]

Actually, up to 2 seconds over 8000 rpm is allowed. In the first two gears, this usually gets you to the hard limit at 8500 rpm. If you have more power, usually its possible to get there in higher gears too.

The manual states:

"The engine management system limits the maximum continuous engine speed to 8000 rpm once normal running temperature has been reached. Very short bursts up to 8500 rpm are allowed during maximum acceleration through the lower gears."