Daily driving - warm up temps and gears?

[thirdleft152]

So I know this might be a stupid topic but I always wonder about the weirdest things. I just wanted to see how other people drive a manual day-to-day in moderate to heavy city traffic. I was also wondering about driving temps.

I have a 13' LS3 with LT, CAI, Exhaust, Tune, and stock 3.45 gears (nothing too special). I usually run 285 front & 305 rear.

What kinds of speeds do you drive in each gear?
1st - 0-20
2nd - 20-30
3rd - 30-40
4th - cruise @ 40-45 (city)
5th - 45-55 (city) OR 40-55 (highway)
6th - cruise 55+

How do you skip-shift through the gears (if you do)? Sometimes I skip 3rd and go to 4th and sometimes I skip 4th and go to 5th or 6th.

How long do you let your car idle on cold start? I have seen people that say they let engine temp rise atleast to whatever is right below halfway mark on cluster and also don't drive up 2k until oil temps reach ~140 and not to drive it hard to at least 200+. Sometimes this is just completely inconvenient for me as I can't wait 20+ minutes for oil temps to reach that before I leave. I drive a lot for work and can't waste time.

[Spec]

Moderate to heavy traffic? I don't even go into 1st. I start in 2nd, cruise up to 12-15mph, then shift to 3rd, at around 22-25mph 4th, then at around 32-35mph 5th, then at around 45mph 6th.... and I'm passing traffic...

Anything more you hear the growl loudly and If I gave it over 50% throttle I'd be flying and scaring people, lol.

Above 45mph I'm cruising in 6th. 5th if I want to play a little...4th if I really want to get up over 100mph fast etc....

I let my car idle at start up for a couple of minutes... when the needle passes the 'C', its good to go. The car likes the morning warm up...

[ThePopo]

I go by RPM. Not letting it drop below 2k and changing gears around 2.5 to 3k. My clutch don't like going below 2k.

[blakjak55]

30 second warm up, drive easily (under 3k shifts) until the oil gets to 150. After that, don't care.

[JLSuperfly]

On start up, I wait until the tach drops to 700 rpm and take off slowly.

[Dmpsix]

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q...before+driving

According to most people, our cars hardly need a warmup unless it's freezing temps. Even then, the absolute best way to warm up the car is drive it very slowly until the oil and tranny reach a decent temp.

[JD555]

[QUOTE=
What kinds of speeds do you drive in each gear?
1st - 0-20
2nd - 20-30
3rd - 30-40
4th - cruise @ 40-45 (city)
5th - 45-55 (city) OR 40-55 (highway)
6th - cruise 55+
.[/QUOTE]

I do exactly what you posted for just normal cruising. I let the oil warm to about 70 and then go but keep the RPMs down till I see the oil about 140 then drive like I feel. I only skip a shift If i spool it up in a gear and dont want to go much faster. I never start in 2nd. I think first is to long anyway.

[thirdleft152]

Originally Posted by Spec

Moderate to heavy traffic? I don't even go into 1st. I start in 2nd, cruise up to 12-15mph, then shift to 3rd, at around 22-25mph 4th, then at around 32-35mph 5th, then at around 45mph 6th.... and I'm passing traffic...

Anything more you hear the growl loudly and If I gave it over 50% throttle I'd be flying and scaring people, lol.

Above 45mph I'm cruising in 6th. 5th if I want to play a little...4th if I really want to get up over 100mph fast etc....

I let my car idle at start up for a couple of minutes... when the needle passes the 'C', its good to go. The car likes the morning warm up...

I never liked starting in second as it feels like to much slip on the clutch. Sometimes I do try to stay in whatever gear I am as long as possible so I'm not constantly shifting. So that may mean something like 5th @ 30 depending on how the traffic is moving. Most people here in Dallas have no idea how to drive. In morning traffic I can enter the on ramp to the highway and be going 10mph then traffic eases up and im doing 70, then randomly everyone slams on their breaks, and repeat over and over.

Does 6th @ 45 not shake and rattle your car if you attempt to accelerate, even just a slight increase in throttle? Never liked that. It's such a tall gear that it's got little pickup making it hard to deal with Dallas drivers who barely know what coasting is or go as fast as they can so they can slam on the breaks.

Originally Posted by JD555

I do exactly what you posted for just normal cruising. I let the oil warm to about 70 and then go but keep the RPMs down till I see the oil about 140 then drive like I feel. I only skip a shift If i spool it up in a gear and dont want to go much faster. I never start in 2nd. I think first is to long anyway.

Yeah what I have been trying to do when i don't have time to let it really warm up is let the engine steady out (30-60 seconds) and usually by that time the engine temps are almost where they stay at during normal driving. About a mile or two later, light driving, the oil temp starts climbing and is close to 140 or so.

[rfopt]

No matter the temperature, even if the car was sitting outside I typically don't let my car idle more than 30 seconds after a cold start. At very cold temperatures, I'm very gentle with the engine for awhile. A very cold engine is inherently not good and the sooner the engine is no longer cold the better, which doesn't take long with the car moving. I make sure I'm not lugging the engine when the engine is very cold, however, I'm not shifting higher than 2500-3000 RPM either.

I'm not really getting on it until the oil temp reading is around 140-150, which seems to take quite awhile sometimes. It also takes awhile before my transmission is no longer notchy.

[Nor Cal ZL1]

These cars like to be warmed up a bit, even more so with a manual transmission. If you have to drive it right away on start up just go easy until.the oils have warmed up. I usualy let the temperatures register a bit before setting off.