• Welcome to the Contour Enthusiasts Group, the best resource for the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique.

    You can register to join the community.

what's your RPM's?

P

partsman48210

New CEG'er
Joined
Feb 15, 2014
Messages
10
Location
Ypsilanti Michigan
I've been driving my 2000 csvt for a couple weeks now and working all the bugs out. I notice the rpms are high at highway speed. 3400-3500 at 80 mph. Is this normal for these cars?
 
The numbers sounds correct ... generally its 3 krpm at 70 mph.

And I have never gotten this need that everyone has for a 6th gear ... between the Contour and the Focus crowd. Drive at a more conservative speed, say the speed limit has show many a Contour to break 30 mpg ... The gearing for each engine gives good power in 5th when on the highway.
 
Yeah 5th gear is fun at highway speeds do to the high final drive ratio, but it's still a high RPM at 70+ MPH in my opinion. A few highways here in my area are 65 and 70 MPH, and when I push the car over 70 MPH it just sounds like I'm romping on it as I pass people. Gets a little loud in the cabin. I have stock exhaust manifolds/cats except my 3rd cat is a high-flow cat, and I have a Borla cat-back. I'm really worried about doing headers on the car because it's borderline too loud in the cabin doing highway speeds as it is. My main wish for the 6th gear is just to slow the engine down. Increased MPG would just be an extra benefit. But if I never really exceeded 60-65 MPH during normal driving it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

Sorry for the thread-jack!
 
AGrayson84 said:
Yeah 5th gear is fun at highway speeds do to the high final drive ratio, but it's still a high RPM at 70+ MPH in my opinion. A few highways here in my area are 65 and 70 MPH, and when I push the car over 70 MPH it just sounds like I'm romping on it as I pass people. Gets a little loud in the cabin. I have stock exhaust manifolds/cats except my 3rd cat is a high-flow cat, and I have a Borla cat-back. I'm really worried about doing headers on the car because it's borderline too loud in the cabin doing highway speeds as it is. My main wish for the 6th gear is just to slow the engine down. Increased MPG would just be an extra benefit. But if I never really exceeded 60-65 MPH during normal driving it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

Sorry for the thread-jack!
Click to expand...

I'm looking at that same Borla exhaust! I suppose "too loud" is subjective though... And as everyone else has said this is a normal RPM at that speed with stock gearing. I drove 3.5 hours yesterday at 80 and that is what I saw the whole time! The way back it stayed at 65 and as stated above saw EXACTLY 30 MPG.
 
I think I recall reading that the Ztec MTX final gear is an option for those wanting to lower the RPM:shrug:
 
Jbalch said:
I'm looking at that same Borla exhaust! I suppose "too loud" is subjective though... And as everyone else has said this is a normal RPM at that speed with stock gearing. I drove 3.5 hours yesterday at 80 and that is what I saw the whole time! The way back it stayed at 65 and as stated above saw EXACTLY 30 MPG.
Click to expand...

Yeah it's definitely subjective. The Borla idles nice and quiet, and doesn't seem to be loud outside of the car during normal acceleration, however I could be wrong because I'm used to driving the car now, and I'm used to driving a car with louder exhaust. But definitely the volume level in the cabin gets a little noisy, in my opinion, at 80 MPH. Especially under load or when you decelerate (in 5th gear still). Maybe it's just as noisy in the cabin with the stock exhaust... but I can't answer that because I've never ridden in one of these cars with stock exhaust.

The Borla definitely sounds great though and don't think I'm swaying anyone away from it. I wouldn't have it any other way, and again, the exhaust isn't loud or anything.... it's just noisy-ish in the cabin when doing 80 MPH due to the high RPM of the engine.

But you're getting 30 MPG at 65 MPH??? Wow! My car needs a retune badly. Granted I have a 3L, I'm only seeing 20-21 MPG best on the highway. That's doing anywhere from 55-65 MPH. Anything above 65 MPH just will not net me more than 20 MPG. :(


royalblue said:
I think I recall reading that the Ztec MTX final gear is an option for those wanting to lower the RPM:shrug:
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've heard you can only use the Zec final gear in the newer model MTX's though (the one with some updates/revisions). Supposedly my car has the updated MTX, but I'm not really sure.
 
royalblue said:
I think I recall reading that the Ztec MTX final gear is an option for those wanting to lower the RPM:shrug:
Click to expand...

Yup. Had it in my 3.0L Lowered the final RPM's by about 500. Still had more than enough power in 5th to not need to downshift to pass on the freeway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top