Hey all–

I picked up my 6-speed F-Type S last Saturday and I love it.

Does anyone know if it has a shift light? Or any other kind of "hey, shift now, stupid!" indicator?

There's 8" of snow outside so I really don't have a way to test it at the moment...

 

Yes. It has a little green arrow with a '+' sign. It appears around 3-3500 RPM range if I remember correctly. I don't pay attention to it ;-)

 

That's for fuel economy, I was hoping for something that popped up 500rpm before redline like my STI. Oh well.

 

Yeah, no rev limit warning. Gotta love the old school solution though: let the engine pitch and volume warn you (especially with the exhaust open) of impending doom.

 

Yep, a few weeks ago while in S mode (auto not manual, please excuse) using the shifter I went to change up from 3rd to 4th at around 6,000 rpm and accidentally moved it the wrong way (I went "up" when I should have gone "down"), so putting it into 2nd gear. It hit around 8,000 rpm instantly, and straight away the pitch and volume told me I had stuffed up!

 

+1. I've noticed it a couple of times, but I find it irrelevant. I'm glad it's green and not yellow like on my pickup truck. It'll show at 3000-3500 rpm as mentioned, but not if you are applying enough throttle to be accelerating. I, therefore, don't see it very often. This car does have a serious rev warning. Hit red line and it starts popping and missing like you just sucked a valve.

 

Interesting...

In the 8-speed XF it's possible to enable a shift indication when the Dynamic mode is selected, the gear indication in the middle screen changes from white to yellow;



I suppose this is not possible on the manual F-Type because it doesn't have a way of tracking which gear you are in...

But I would have thought the same thing would be there on the 8-speed F-Types...

It could be that this is only a feature on the cars with Dynamic Mode option. In this XF the Dynamic Mode switch was retrofitted and the features enabled in the CCF, it doesn't do that normally I think.

Maybe someone with an automatic with Dynamic Mode option can chime in?

 

Thankfully, rev limiter works on this car. It will make popping noises right before and after hitting red line, so you will know by sound.

I was told that hitting limiter moving up RPMs in the gear is not a big deal and would not damage the engine. It is mechanical over-rev that happens on downshifting that you have to watch out for. Maybe someone with extensive knowledge of blowing up things on the track could chime-in here to confirm.

However, F-type gear box will refuse to downshift into second gear when that would cause the car to mechanically over-rev the engine. Maybe other gears too, but I haven't tried. I know because my old method of taking one of the corners was to drop down to second while braking, that would bring it close to the red line, but slightly delay releasing clutch. F-type won't let me do that and I have to down-shift at apex, as I am not good enough to nail the rev match every time and would avoidt shifting when taking turn.

Also, what are you planning on doing with the car that you need to know this?

 

I used to have an MR2. There were several instances of people bending valves by downshifting and over-reving - like going from 5th to 2nd at too high a speed.

 

This be true. The electronic rev limiter cannot protect the engine if you downshift into a gear while going too fast for that gear.

It's only refusing to since the synchronizers are unable to adjust the speed difference between the input and output shafts of the transmission. For any of us who constantly double clutch, it is easy to get into an over-rev condition in any gear. However, as soon as you start to let out on the clutch you get the sense that things will end wrong if you continue the process.

 

In most cars, it's wrong. Of course, a manual is all about personal preference and actually driving the car (lol just a friendly dig, no AT's are fine and yes you'll blow me off the line, but you won't realize I took a left onto a windy road and me and my girl are all smiles)....

My Jeep was SO FAR OFF. I always did assume the green arrow indicator was about fuel efficiency, as mentioned above, but when you start to follow it, it never made any sense.

It seems like a friendly suggestion to brush off, frankly. =)