When To Shift Gears For The Fastest Acceleration

When Should You Shift Gears For Maximum Acceleration?

In order to accelerate as fast as possible, it is necessary to know exactly when you should shift gears. Maximum acceleration occurs when wheel torque is as high as possible. This gear shift should occur when the engine torque has dropped low enough that the lower gearing no longer offers a torque advantage. For many vehicles, this will occur at redline. For vehicle with lots of gears, or very close ratio gears, this may not be the case. In order to determine when to shift gears, you'll need to know your horsepower/torque curve (dyno), your transmission gear ratios, your redline, and your final drive ratio.

Note: some cars have more than one gear reduction in the transmission, as does the Honda S2000 explained in this video. You'll need this number if you want to fully calculate the wheel torque.

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[eviltyres]

here's a trick, once you're in sixth, shift to the gear marked "R". this engages "Race" gear which will maximize speed.

[TGHandle]

Armed with this knowledge my civic can best anything.

[Kyegar]

I shift when I hear the bald eagles scream.

[tor]

Every time I shift, I run through all these calculations in my head.

[brentancoates]

can you make a video on why mustangs always crash into crowds? I've been studying this for a awhile but I just can't find the answer. :(

[BenJuan]

"VTEC ̶k̶i̶c̶k̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶ changes it to a different cam profile"

[solngv]

"You rev it and rev it and rev it until the valves come out and dance on top of the bonnet, and then you change gear." - James May talking about a very small Fiat engine

[Newengland]

its hard for me to listen to the video and read the comments at the same time

[krazyelr]

should do one video shifting for best fuel economy possible

[RamjetX]

Wrong... if you want to go faster... shift down... then down again... and when you get to the lowest gear... shift down again. Fast and Furious has taught me all I need to know about racing.

[TheCarPassionChannel]

Awesome video as always! I think shifting early to make more power is probably more common with cars that come with very small factory turbochargers that make a lot of midrange torque but fall off pretty hard between 6000-7000.

[DomitionX]

There should be a kickstarter to get EE a bigger whiteboard.

[vizourcz]

Now I can smoke BMWs with my 1999 Škoda Fabia 1.4 MPI.

[tpz]

man... you go through such a great deal of mathematics to explain your videos in the greatest detail which I appreciate!!! Sad to say all 583 folks who gave you a thumbs down just wanted you to say "shift from first to second at "x" rpm" etc...

[TylertheGeek]

I wanted to see a video of you actually shifting, the thumbnail brought me here lol

[peace]

I did the math for a 2.0 tdi from Audi with 140kW, which has a big drop of torque after 3000rpm. As it turns out, the gears in the 6-speed manual are perfectly matched to the engine (what should be expected). When you shift from 3. to 4. at 4500 rpm (redline) the engine drops to 3300rpm but the wheeltourque stays the same. If you shift earlier, you get less torque that in the lower gear. Same for 4. to 5. So even with a diesel engine, that has peak torque form 2k to 3k rpm, you should rev it to redline.

[joshuareyes]

You're an engineer and obviously a skilled artist... That's the best blue s2000 drawing ever! (I know you were kidding, I'm just being funny)

[ImKittyCow]

THANK YOU FINALLY. Ive been trying to explain this to people for MONTHS and all i hear is "no you always wanna shift at your hp peak so power doesnt fall off"

[spencerphilippinedream]

7:42 question: "so when would it not be ideal to shift at redline?"
my answer: "when backing up?"

[BigJnWorldWide]

Such a great video! My EMS allows me to set a shift light (CEL) for each individual gear. Even though I'll be autox'ing and won't leave second gear, it'll be nice to see my shift points and pay more attention to the course vs constantly eyeballing my rpms. Thanks so much!!!