How Many Speeds?

[ClutchFork]

My Ford Fusion (2008) has too many speeds. Five gears to OD and OD spins a dizzying 3000 rpm at 70 mph. Not much of an overdrive. I usually don't need all the gears, third often being a skip. So they could have stretched things out a bit more, and that overdrive should run no more than 2700 at 70 mph. Same engine in my wife's automatic Mazda 5 spins 2700 at 70 mph. The one advantage to spinning 3000 at 79 is you still have some get-up-and-go at freeway speed.

Speaking of RPM at 70 mph, there is nothing like a big block. My big-block 300 CID (4.9 liters for all you young folks) inline six in the 1995 F150 would spin a whopping 2050 at 70 mph in OD, and she was hardly working.

Yep, back in the good old days we referred to them by cubic inches, even motorcycles, at least American motorcycles. But then that pesky metric system had to come in an ruin things. Sure 5.0 sounds pretty impressive for a Mustang, but back in the day it was a 302, and BTW, the bore and stroke on that 302 actually comes short of 5.0 liters and rounds down to 4.9 liters. Ha, some of those engines were not even 302. Used to be 289, not that sounds like a hot setup and there were some pretty hot 289s back in the day. Nobody bothered to calculate the liters for the 289, it would be sacrilege to do so because that engine predated this metric nonsense. Yeah, but Mercury had to go and put a liter amount on the fender for one of it's cars around about 1970ish, just in an attempt to sound sporty. But why have 5.0 on the fender when you can have 302 on the fender, a much bigger and more impressive number. Now don't go saying I can put the CCs on the fender, that is just going too far in the other direction.

So this post is mostly here because I had nothing better to do (actually I do, like brush the dog's teeth, my teeth, and go to bed) but this stuff just kept spilling out of my head and anyway, the site needs more activity so I guess and hope this will be a stimulus to activity along with the other two posts I made just before this and have already mostly forgotten about.

Oh well, if you are too busy to read this, then don't, but of course by now you already have, so bad advice.

[Rope-Pusher]

My Ford Fusion (2008) has too many speeds. Five gears to OD and OD spins a dizzying 3000 rpm at 70 mph. Not much of an overdrive. I usually don't need all the gears, third often being a skip. So they could have stretched things out a bit more, and that overdrive should run no more than 2700 at 70 mph. Same engine in my wife's automatic Mazda 5 spins 2700 at 70 mph. The one advantage to spinning 3000 at 79 is you still have some get-up-and-go at freeway speed.

Speaking of RPM at 70 mph, there is nothing like a big block. My big-block 300 CID (4.9 liters for all you young folks) inline six in the 1995 F150 would spin a whopping 2050 at 70 mph in OD, and she was hardly working.

Yep, back in the good old days we referred to them by cubic inches, even motorcycles, at least American motorcycles. But then that pesky metric system had to come in an ruin things. Sure 5.0 sounds pretty impressive for a Mustang, but back in the day it was a 302, and BTW, the bore and stroke on that 302 actually comes short of 5.0 liters and rounds down to 4.9 liters. Ha, some of those engines were not even 302. Used to be 289, not that sounds like a hot setup and there were some pretty hot 289s back in the day. Nobody bothered to calculate the liters for the 289, it would be sacrilege to do so because that engine predated this metric nonsense. Yeah, but Mercury had to go and put a liter amount on the fender for one of it's cars around about 1970ish, just in an attempt to sound sporty. But why have 5.0 on the fender when you can have 302 on the fender, a much bigger and more impressive number. Now don't go saying I can put the CCs on the fender, that is just going too far in the other direction.

So this post is mostly here because I had nothing better to do (actually I do, like brush the dog's teeth, my teeth, and go to bed) but this stuff just kept spilling out of my head and anyway, the site needs more activity so I guess and hope this will be a stimulus to activity along with the other two posts I made just before this and have already mostly forgotten about.

Oh well, if you are too busy to read this, then don't, but of course by now you already have, so bad advice.

[IMBoring25]

Some of the '70s Trans Ams got "6.6 LITRE" on the hood scoop too.