how long can i ride 4th gear untill i have to shift into 5th.I know i might sound dumb but i learned how to drive a stick real quick.I just dont know that much about them.All the info is great and very helpful

 

Until you hit your redline or max RPM for that given gear. Just shift before your tach gets into the red. Best shift points and such is a whole different matter. I assume you are talking about WOT and not just hanging the car in gear.

 

yea i mean wot.I dont drive fast just curious if im on the highway driving 65 in 5th gear and then i drop in forth and gun it at what speed should i go into fitth before i damage anything or put alot of stress on it

 

That won't hurt anything if you know how to shift properly. Hell, just about anything made before 1980 didn't have an overdrive gear anyway, so they were going down the highway at 65mph in a gear the same as your 4th gear.

 

There is no need to rev it to high heaven when you are just driving normally. You only need to rev out every gear when you are trying to go as fast as possible. Under normal driving I shift both my manual f-bods under 2,000 rpm and at 2,500 if I am skipping gears in the process. The only way you will hurt/stress anything is if you abuse the tranny or over-rev the motor.

 

thanks for the lesson.I have one more question i just bought the car and already had to put on a new alternator[bad luck i hope]but before that everyting sounded perfect but after my buddy put the alternator on i have noticed a slight but fast knocking sound comming from under the hood on the drivers side.Could the new alternator have anything to do with it. the car is a 91 z with 66000 miles and has been kept in mint condition.I hope its not serious

 

this occured after your buddy put the alternator in? Well check your plug wires then He could have bumped one enough to give you a miss on a cylinder or two

 

No knock before new alternator.Ill take a look at the plugs.Thanks for the info.

 

Make sure the altinator is bolted in all the way first. I am sure he did not touch any of the plug wires when changing the alternator. Just double check all the bolts on your front accessory bracket. It is not too uncommon to have a bolt break off in the head. It recently happened to me.

 

Looks to me like you probably have a TPI motor, NOT the HO motor. So for the sake of accuracy, you should remove that from your car's description.

That being the case, TPI basically quits making power at around 4500 RPM, as an unavoidable consequence of its "tuned" acoustic effect, which enhances cylinder fill at about 3600 RPM. So, what that means is, the car will go faster if you shift it at or about 4500 RPM. Which also means that if you wind the car up in any gear very far past 4500, you're slowing yourself down. 4500 in 4th in your car would be around 90 mph.

A SBC motor should be able to run at 4500 RPM almost continuously, indefinitely; like they do when used as a boat motor.

 

I was looking at an RPO code booklet and it listed the TPI motor (Vin F) as a 305 HO MPI V8.

 

Thats what it is vin f listed as 305 HO.I just put down what it is listed at thats all.Could you get a different 305 in a 5 speed that made less horsepower than 230?

 

There were cars that had badges on them that said "5.0 Liter HO". They weren't TPI. They were carbed, and were available from 83 to 86 in these cars; and up until whatever the last year of the Monte Carlo SS was, in those, which was 88 I think but I don't recall for sure. I know it was at least 87.

In 91, there were 2 "versions" of TPI 305s; one with a single cat, one with dual cats. If yours has the dual cats, then it has more HP than the one with a single cat; either of which had more HP than a TBI 305 would have.

"HO" has become about like "from a Vette" or "police interceptor" or "Vortec" nowadays. It's been turned into nothing but a buzzword, whereas it used to indicate a specific model of these cars. People apply it to everything that has more output than something else, whether there was an actual "HO" model of whatever (car, motor, etc.) or not. Those of us whose cars have "HO" on the side find the misapplication of our model label mildly irritating; about like reading those ebay ads for "84 IROC" or "88 IROC original LT1 car" or "91 Formula SS" or the like. I guarantee, you wouldn't appreciate somebody with some 6-cyl car calling their car a "Z28" either; for the same reason.

 

Why would dual cats make it go from 205-230 horsepower

 

ive read where the G92 package added dual cats and also a better cam which makes the 25 hp difference.so if you had a 5 speed 305 without G92 package it had 205 hp if it had the G92 option it had 230 hp

 

Yep, that's right. In fact, the cam used in the dual cat "higher output" 305 was the same one used in the 350 for that year.