I let a friend drive my GTA TA. When he got back he sat there in the drive reving the engine to 4-5,000 RPMs. Did he hurt it? How high can you rev one in neutral without damageing things? I told him he would blow the engine and he laughed saying it doen't hurt a thing. Is he right?

 

5000 RPM will not hurt an engine. Still, I don't believe I'd ever let some tool that had that little respect for somebody else's expensive property, ever get behind the wheel of my car again. That's just pointless juvenile stupidity.

 

no problem, the 305's and 350's can take 6,000 RPM no problem, but it wont be making any power past 4,200 RPM if the engine is basically stock

 

Wow thanks for the fast replies guys. That was great. That is a relief to know it didn't hurt anything. He has had several so I figured he knew what he was doing. But when it comes to this car I am real ****. Nobody touch my baby

 

high rpms will contribute to early engine failure...especially free reving in nuetral where the engine doesn't have the dampening effect of the driveline to absorb the vibrations of the crankshaft...because the little balancer on the front can't do all that! ofcourse a well built engine can take some abuse and not sweat it...most SBCs in general,but do you really want to trust the care of your car to people who will never bear the expense of maintenance and repair??? biggest mistake I've ever made is letting too many people drive my TA (not that I was any better)...especially chicks!! they love to floor it from a stop light,chirp gears....peel out,JAM on the brakes!! one of my friends borrowed my car to take his girlfriend home and blew the piston rings out in one shot!! not only are these kinds of things retarded,but they get no extra performance benifits out of the car,only destroy it!! like holding the pedal to the floor,never neccessary unless you want a downshift (auto) or the people who think overdrive is the "go-fast" gear....cracks me up!! bottom line: real friends will respect your property and not insist on getting in your drivers seat! I was 17 at the time and thankfully the car lasted until I was 20 when I replaced just about everything. also you should get a security system and keep your car out of the slums because thirdgens are a piece of cake to steal and then you'll have strangers driving your car who really don't give a schit about your car.

 

I accidentially rev-ed my 5.7 past 6,500 rpms in November after a double-downshift. Damn automatic transmissions. After this, I limped off the track on 7 cylinders. It turned out that the driver's side rear plug wire pulled itself from the spark plug. I put it back on and everything is OK. I assume that the engine tried to climb out of the engine bay and pulled the wire off in the process...

In autocross competition/road race open track events, I rarely rev past 5,000 (as stated above, it's pointless above about 4,500). These L98's are pretty strong and should handle this abuse better than most.

Helpful hint - anytime I drive someone's car, the first thing that I ask is how high I am allowed to rev the engine. Getting this clear between yourself and the owner can avoid some unhappiness. Maybe you could state your "rev limit" when you hand someone the keys...

 

I agree, I would NEVER let that person drive my car again. If he was revving the engine to 4-5,000 rpm while you were there, I wonder what he was doing when you weren't?

 

Thanks for the replies. NO ONE will ever drive it again. If they want to play they can get there own toy to break.

 

I take my 350 to 6000 on a regular basis. I do however have a pretty tricked out engine with new valve springs.

 

About letting friends drive your car, learn from my mistake. One of my friends couldn't get over how fast my IROC was when i got it. He kept begging and pleading to drive it, so I finally let him have a go at it. Son of a b!tch neutral dropped the tranny at 4500 rpm . It broke the tranny mount, broke something inside the torque converter (it was still rattling around inside when I changed it), and shaved a few thousand miles off the life of the rear tires. I had to summon superhuman reserves of patience and forgiveness not to slit the bastard's throat right then and let his blood out as an apology to my poor car . Several months later when I thought the bastard might have learned something from the humiliation he caused himself earlier, he did another neutral drop. This time something went terribly amiss because the motor developed a horrible vibration around 2000 rpm. The vibration kept coming and going along with the rattling noise until I swapped the the auto out for a T5 last summer. Now the vibration and the rattleing are gone. Just goes to show what so-called dumb@ss 'friends' can do to perfectly good machinery.

BTW, this guy will have to crawl over my dead body to drive my car ever again.

 

OMG you let him drive it again?!!! Man if someone even sat on my car I would rip them right off . Never would I let someone drive my car, I spent too much time finding/getting it, to let some *** fvck it up. Trust me any, and I mean any friend will do this! Its just the degree of how much they fvck it up, whether they do or not fvck it up, is not a question, they will drive like its not theres cuz its not.

One time me and my friend took another friends BMW 328ci, brand new (parents bought it for him ) He asked him if we could drive it, while he was mackin it to a girl in the house . So we started driving it around, this was in New York too. The roads were like 35mph limit. And we were going around with the high beams, those blue type ones, man they are bright-awesome too. He had custom exhaust too, and it was madd loud. We were going 60mph around these streets, we entered another road as we call "Farm road" cuz it had like farms and ****, and forget it we hit 90mph on this road. We went down, turned around and went back on it, and there was this tight *** turn that came of nowhere, luckily we braked enuff and got around the turn, squeeling around the turn. We were fvckin wit the Tiptronic (but bmw tips suk). We peeling out with it (atleast trying our hardest-its AWD). It was fun as hell. Then we came back with the car, tires smelling like rubber .
...but one thing ya must remember, parents bought that bimma for him so its not their car, and its not really his cuz he didn't buy, so really gives a damn bout those bimmas. But an Fbody is a diff story, I'm sure you bought it (theyre cheap), so you take care of it that way. Don't let anyone drive it, period! Unless its a hot chick that ya really want, but still.... hehe make her beg to drive, compromise hehe.

 

Thanks for all the great replies But how do you handle this one. It snowed the other day. The roads are white with salt. My wife demands that she drives the TA. We have had one hell of a fight over this. I don't want it on the salt. We have several other vehicles. The crown vic is already covered with salt. There is no reason she can't drive the other ones till weather clears. The only thing she will drive is the TA. How can I convice her what that salt will do to the metal. I lived in Iowa for 6 years and know the toll salt takes on the undercarrage. My wife don't care she doesn't ever wash it. That my job. I bet you guys don't take yours out when the roads are salt covered.

 

We get decent snow only once or twice a season here in AR so i drive my car all year round. They do salt the roads, but I wash off all the salt once the ice is gone, which usually doesn't take longer than 2 - 3 days. I have no choice but to drive my IROC all year round anyway - it's my only car.