Tachometers - are we kidding ourselves?

[gwalchmai]

9 hours ago, holyjohnson said:

single digits on a Tach are easier to read and.......Gauge.. at higher speeds or cornering.

and a Tach will tell you your MPH depending on what gear your in and Axle Ratio.

also Tachs move up and down a lot an make it look like your really doing a lot of work and seem to know what your doing.

I notice that I look at the tach and speedo less and less the more I drive the Little Gray Car. I turn off the tunes and listen to the engine sing, and can stay just about where I want speedwise. Of course, I'm mostly driving on little country roads in redneckville, so I'm not exactly setting the world afire. 'sfun, though...

[norton]

My 4 cylinder auto transmission Chevy Colorado has a tach.  

GM auto transmissions these days have a manual shift option/without clutch/on their auto transmission vehicles.

Why I have no idea.  

[gwalchmai]

2 hours ago, norton said:

My 4 cylinder auto transmission Chevy Colorado has a tach.  

GM auto transmissions these days have a manual shift option/without clutch/on their auto transmission vehicles.

Why I have no idea.  

My Tacoma, and my reaction, are the same...

[crockett]

3 hours ago, norton said:

My 4 cylinder auto transmission Chevy Colorado has a tach.  

GM auto transmissions these days have a manual shift option/without clutch/on their auto transmission vehicles.

Why I have no idea.  

 

So you can keep the engine in a lower gear with higher RPM and more power while pulling a trailer up a hill. The auto may try to shift up, just to put too much strain on the engine, shift back down, rinse and repeat. That back and forth can be very annoying and isn't good for the trans / torque converter either.

[janice6]

On 2/7/2021 at 8:36 AM, gwalchmai said:

My Miata has a big tach in the middle of the instrument cluster, with a smaller speedometer to the right. I understand that a tach is important in a sports car, but I disagree that it's THAT important. One of the big selling points of the little roadster is how "together" the car and driver are, and IMHO a driver should be able to know when to shift by sound and feel. If I'm driving "spiritedly" I want to be watching the road, not the tach. I'd prefer a centrally located speedometer, scaled in realistic numbers (like up to 120) and a tach where I can see it peripherally, with maybe a red LED that flashes at 90% of redline (maybe).

But the meat of today's whine is why in heaven's name is there a big tach taking up valuable space in the instrument panels of my automatic pickup truck and my wife's little CUV? These vehicles will never be raced, but if they were who would manually shift them? I think that, like ChinaVirus masks, tachometers have become a useless fashion affectation that we accept uncritically. Think for a moment - before the 60s, almost every family sedan had a manual transmission, and tachometers were virtually unheard of. Today almost every new car has a auto, and a totally unnecessary tachometer.

Change my mind.

I liked manuals and drove them in the muscle car era.  I didn't have a factory tach in the cars I drove early on, so one day I decided to build my own.  It's relatively easy and I found it interesting to use.

I also found that the feel of the acceleration and the sound of the RPM's at good shift points agreed with the tack at the proper shift points.

Pretty soon the tach became redundant since I was still shifting from the sound and feel but then checking the tach just to see what the actual RPM's were.  It was pretty consistent.

After a while, everything in our lab was being designed for digital functions.  So on a lark I put together a digital tach.  How cool it was to see actual numbers for once.

It was cool to see the numbers instead of the pointer of a meter.  Pretty soon I found with a couple of impromptu drag races, that the digital tach was useless to me.

My revelation personally, was that I used the rate of change as an indication of the analog tach for when to shift and not the absolute number at that instant. 

With the digital tach, it simply flared all the digits so during the time I really needed to anticipate when to shift, the digital tach was useless to me.

That was when I realized that the rate of increase of the analog tach needle let me anticipate the upcoming shift point.  Rate of change of RPM's was more important than the absolute value. 

I thought of constructing an analog readout that displayed the rate of change instead of numbers, but that idea got lost in the times.

Rate of change meter would have resulted in an indicator that read peaks of the change of the increase of the RPM's and when the rate of increase started to drop off, the shift points would have been determined. 

A  differentiation of the change in RPM's, if you will.  So you would only have to shift when the needle popped up to it's maximum and then dropped off and no numbers to add confusion.

The digital tach was only good to tell me the absolute RPM's at a given point.  I had no way to anticipate the upcoming shift since the display was changing so fast you couldn't read it.

As a conclusion, I went back to analog tach's and never looked back.

One time I was in an unplanned drag from a light and I looked at the other driver.  I watched him shifting by his tach and I simply shifted when he did. 

It was hilarious, since I barely beat him but our mutual shift points were very similar.....

It was a good lesson in just how similar small block V'8's had gotten.

Edited February 8, 2021 by janice6

[holyjohnson]

11 hours ago, gwalchmai said:

'sfun, though...

and that is the point of it all.

[Eddy Current]

Granted, tachs weren’t that common in the old days, but I hated seeing gauges being replaced by idiot lights; it just seemed to represent the dumbing-down of the driver. All the nanny features of today’s vehicles seems to reinforce that. I love the driving experience, and like to have all the info on the dash that I can, and I use the tach all the time on my tow vehicle, usually when downshifting more than anything.  

[railfancwb]

10 hours ago, crockett said:

 

So you can keep the engine in a lower gear with higher RPM and more power while pulling a trailer up a hill. The auto may try to shift up, just to put too much strain on the engine, shift back down, rinse and repeat. That back and forth can be very annoying and isn't good for the trans / torque converter either.

My 2014 4x4 F-150 has a trailer tow package. Among other things it takes the transmission out of sixth aka overdrive. Also can activate electric brakes if the trailer has them. But the changed shift setup when towing fits this discussion. 

[crockett]

6 minutes ago, Eddy Current said:

Granted, tachs weren’t that common in the old days, but I hated seeing gauges being replaced by idiot lights; it just seemed to represent the dumbing-down of the driver. All the nanny features of today’s vehicles seems to reinforce that. I love the driving experience, and like to have all the info on the dash that I can, and I use the tach all the time on my tow vehicle, usually when downshifting more than anything.  

 

For the most part it depends on the price you are willing to pay for a new car or truck. That cheap ass $15,000 Nissan Versa only comes with the minimum idiot lights because the manufacturer has to cut a lot of corners to make that price happen. Any 60k plus car or truck I know of has a tach, and a digital display that can show everything from water temp to tire pressure plus another 127 data streams. Way more than the 3 or 4 analog instruments back in the day.

[crockett]

6 minutes ago, railfancwb said:

My 2014 4x4 F-150 has a trailer tow package. Among other things it takes the transmission out of sixth aka overdrive. Also can activate electric brakes if the trailer has them. But the changed shift setup when towing fits this discussion. 

 

Yeah, I assume that Norton's small pick truck doesn't have a trailer / tow package, or he doesn't really trailer a lot, otherwise he would know what manual mode is good for in a truck. Not even sure if they offer tow pack or air break on a Colorado. Both my GMC 2500 Diesel had that, stock.

[railfancwb]

My 2014 previously mentioned has a temperature gauge plus extra radiator capacity for the transmission. 

[M&P15T]

On 2/7/2021 at 9:36 AM, gwalchmai said:

My Miata has a big tach in the middle of the instrument cluster, with a smaller speedometer to the right. I understand that a tach is important in a sports car, but I disagree that it's THAT important. One of the big selling points of the little roadster is how "together" the car and driver are, and IMHO a driver should be able to know when to shift by sound and feel. If I'm driving "spiritedly" I want to be watching the road, not the tach. I'd prefer a centrally located speedometer, scaled in realistic numbers (like up to 120) and a tach where I can see it peripherally, with maybe a red LED that flashes at 90% of redline (maybe).

But the meat of today's whine is why in heaven's name is there a big tach taking up valuable space in the instrument panels of my automatic pickup truck and my wife's little CUV? These vehicles will never be raced, but if they were who would manually shift them? I think that, like ChinaVirus masks, tachometers have become a useless fashion affectation that we accept uncritically. Think for a moment - before the 60s, almost every family sedan had a manual transmission, and tachometers were virtually unheard of. Today almost every new car has a auto, and a totally unnecessary tachometer.

Change my mind.

Tachs provide a lot more useful information than just engine RPMs. They can also tell you if something is wrong with the vehicle, before something catastrophic breaks.

Cars have lots of other gauges/screens of info. They're only unnecessary if you don't know what they mean, and/or don't pay any attention to them.

[gwalchmai]

6 minutes ago, M&P15T said:

Tachs provide a lot more useful information than just engine RPMs. They can also tell you if something is wrong with the vehicle, before something catastrophic breaks.

Cars have lots of other gauges/screens of info. They're only unnecessary if you don't know what they mean, and/or don't pay any attention to them.

Pretty sure my tachs only show engine RPMs. I may interpret that information to decide if something's wrong with the vehicle, of course, but the tach's not saying that.

One could say that speedometers can tell you if you're breaking the law, as well, but COME ON, MAN!

[jmohme]

I learned to drive commercial trucks in a 1971 F model Mack that only had a Tach and learned two things about that truck.

1: 2100 rpm in top gear was 57mph

2: 57mph was as fast as that old Mack would ever go.

[Wyzz Kydd]

On 2/8/2021 at 2:29 AM, Rabbi said:

I daily a new, stock,  full size truck or a 1000 + hp tuner car. 

On the Tuner car,  the tack is critical. I agree, it is pretty meaningless on modern, non performance vehicles. 

Yep.  Do I look at the tach in my wife's Accord, never, but I do look at the speedometer.  Do I look at the dash at all in my Camaro, no.  I use the HUD so I can keep my eyes on the road, my ears for non-spirited driving, and the Christmas tree if I'm getting into the throttle.  The difference in sound between 5500 and 6500 rpms is not much in my car, they're both very loud, unless I turn on stealth mode, which I never do.

[Wyzz Kydd]

11 hours ago, railfancwb said:

My 2014 previously mentioned has a temperature gauge plus extra radiator capacity for the transmission. 

One of the things I like about the Camaro is the cooling.  Three radiators, an oil cooler, a transmission fluid cooler,  a rear differential cooler, and 10, yes 10 quarts of oil.  That sucker is not going to overheat.  At 90 mph she's barely working turning 2,000 rpms, and getting over 20 mpg. 

[crockett]

[railfancwb]

23 hours ago, janice6 said:

I liked manuals and drove them in the muscle car era.  I didn't have a factory tach in the cars I drove early on, so one day I decided to build my own.  It's relatively easy and I found it interesting to use.

I also found that the feel of the acceleration and the sound of the RPM's at good shift points agreed with the tack at the proper shift points.

Pretty soon the tach became redundant since I was still shifting from the sound and feel but then checking the tach just to see what the actual RPM's were.  It was pretty consistent.

After a while, everything in our lab was being designed for digital functions.  So on a lark I put together a digital tach.  How cool it was to see actual numbers for once.

It was cool to see the numbers instead of the pointer of a meter.  Pretty soon I found with a couple of impromptu drag races, that the digital tach was useless to me.

My revelation personally, was that I used the rate of change as an indication of the analog tach for when to shift and not the absolute number at that instant. 

With the digital tach, it simply flared all the digits so during the time I really needed to anticipate when to shift, the digital tach was useless to me.

That was when I realized that the rate of increase of the analog tach needle let me anticipate the upcoming shift point.  Rate of change of RPM's was more important than the absolute value. 

I thought of constructing an analog readout that displayed the rate of change instead of numbers, but that idea got lost in the times.

Rate of change meter would have resulted in an indicator that read peaks of the change of the increase of the RPM's and when the rate of increase started to drop off, the shift points would have been determined. 

A  differentiation of the change in RPM's, if you will.  So you would only have to shift when the needle popped up to it's maximum and then dropped off and no numbers to add confusion.

The digital tach was only good to tell me the absolute RPM's at a given point.  I had no way to anticipate the upcoming shift since the display was changing so fast you couldn't read it.

As a conclusion, I went back to analog tach's and never looked back.

One time I was in an unplanned drag from a light and I looked at the other driver.  I watched him shifting by his tach and I simply shifted when he did. 

It was hilarious, since I barely beat him but our mutual shift points were very similar.....

It was a good lesson in just how similar small block V'8's had gotten.

NASCAR did its part to make all V-8s equal. 

[TBO]

Sent from my Jackboot using Copatalk

[Wyzz Kydd]

20 hours ago, crockett said:

Not loud enough.  Ditch the minivan and get a Camaro.

[gwalchmai]

30 minutes ago, Wyzz Kydd said:

Not loud enough.  Ditch the minivan and get a Camaro.

Yam, damn, and full of Cam.

[crockett]

4 hours ago, Wyzz Kydd said:

Not loud enough.  Ditch the minivan and get a Camaro.

Just gonna put 1000 pounds in my trunk. Same thing lol

[Fnfalman]

Manual Shifting by hearing alone isn’t sufficient for performance driving. If it were then there would be no need for the tachometer. 
 

you don’t shift at the red line. You shift at the RPM that is best for certain gears. 
 

if your power curve peaks out in third gear at 5000-RPM, then why would you want to rev to 8000-rpm redline then shift?

[Wyzz Kydd]

15 minutes ago, crockett said:

Just gonna put 1000 pounds in my trunk. Same thing lol

Come on!  Unless that 1,000 pounds is made out of unobtainium there's no material dense enough to get 1,000 pounds in the 'trunk' of a corvette.

[crockett]

15 minutes ago, Wyzz Kydd said:

Come on!  Unless that 1,000 pounds is made out of unobtainium there's no material dense enough to get 1,000 pounds in the 'trunk' of a corvette.

I could strap a barn door to the front bumper, that will make things equal!