Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2010 15:59:52 -0800
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: Glow Shift Tachometer - what shift RPM?
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Hi,
I do all major hill climbing in waterboxer vanagons with auto trans at just
about 4,400 rpm in 2nd gear.
4,500 is all right ..
hate to hear the poor thing laboring away ..
but that's 'climbing mode' to me... 4,400 to 4,500 in 2nd gear.
You could set your light to trigger at 4,400 ..and you'd know you have
reached 'climb rpm' .
I always and only manual shift .
I always start out with it in second on the lever...
then let it into third at about ...varies ...about 3,500 rpm ..
I never use the kick down feature ..
ever ever.
many vanagon owners don't know this, but the shift lever is designed so
anytime it's in 3rd and you give it a 'slap down' .......without pushing in
the button ..
it'll only go to 2nd..and not beyond.
that's so you can get a fast 'no thinking' no button pushing downshift from
2nd o 3rd.
Going back up ...there's no interlock though ..
and it'll go in neutral ....( no button pushing in needed though )..
so you have to be a little careful on that manual upshift.
using the kick down feature is almost rough on things I think.
I never even use 100 % throttle..
maybe 90 % and only when needed.
you have to give the poor thing full throttle to get to downshift on the
kickdown ..
that feature is just there for people not smart enough to down shift manual,
or when they should.
keeping it in 2nd for descents is important too..
it won't do that on it's own when you really want to all the time either.
for an all out redline I use 5,000 rpm ..
but I almost never take an auto trans waterboxer above about 4,600 rpm.
It is nice to have a real tachometer of course.
they are not hard to retrofit with an instrument cluster that has one.
Scott
www.turbovans.com
Scott
www.turbovans.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Boldway" <jboldway@HOTMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Monday, November 22, 2010 3:36 PM
Subject: Glow Shift Tachometer - what shift RPM?
Hello all - just got in a Glow Shift tachometer from ebay - it looks pretty
cool. External mounting, digital readout, in a tube about 1.5" dia and ~4"
long and a mounting bracket. My camper didn't have a tachometer (84
automatic) so I found this on ebay for under $60 shipped. The tranny doesn't
seem to want to downshift unless you try to push the gas pedal through the
floor (yeah, I know it needs to be adjusted) - but when I'm going to climb
some steep hills out here in Washington state I'd like to keep it in second
gear manually. The big question is what is a safe max RPM to run the motor
at - the tachometer has a set of lights that glow when you hit a specified
RPM meaning it's time to shift - what should I set the shift lights to?
Thanks!
Tom
'84 Westy "Spiny Norman" =
