[acammer]

I know this is an old thread now, but I have a good visual to share on this to help you think about maximizing average power through each gear. This chart shows where you going to land with shift recovery on a 3-4 shift in a regular TR6060-M10 combo. Yellow is shifted at peak hp (6500rpm), green is shifted at about 700rpm beyond that, 7200rpm. It's not hard to see why shifting at peak power is leaving significant performance on the table, you're going to be buried on shift recovery much further down in the RPMs, where the car develops less power.

This is why I get so frustrated at dyno operators and tuners that run the car out to where-ever it peaks and then quit. That doesn't tell the whole story, and that 500-1000rpm beyond the peak is crucial for determining where the best shift point is gonna lay. Given the choice, I pull the car out as far as I trust the motor to routinely go - because that's your real potential operating range, and will help dictate what the best shift-point will be.

Another thing to keep in mind for this discussion is stick-shift vs. auto. Auto guys are faster for a lot of reasons, and shift recovery is one of them. The torque converter will reduce how far back down the rpms drop after a shift. This in turn means the car doesn't need to be pulled as far past the peak. Depending on what the curve looks like, you could very well shift 2-300rpm beyond the peak and not be giving up much. On the other hand, stick shift cars have zero slip once they make the gear change, and drop rpms much lower. So, they must be pulled MUCH deeper beyond the peak to make the best average power through the gear - like as shown in my graphic.

I hope that helps.