Just a quick question here. What rpm do you guys typically shift gears at? 

Hard question to answer. Around town I can find myself in 5th at 35 mph. On the highway or in the country all different. Me I just shift when it feels right, no set rpm.

Thats all empty by the way. Towing is bit different as in higher rpm, but still nothing set in stone.

Normal driving around 1600 if I want to go faster 22-2400 so when I shift turbo can still spool and egts are lower. If I'm being stupid 3200 is where my rpm limiter set, but I have went to 3500 on few occasions. I know power should be around 22-2800 but for whatever reason my truck still pools hard at 3200. Maybe because of timing being at 30 by then. 

Ok thanks guys. I seem to shift about 2000 - 2200 normal and 24-2600 when I’m getting on the happy pedal. I was just not sure if I was shifting to low or to high. 

one thing you dont want to do is lug the engine load or no load.   my old #6 piston can tell you why not to do it.

3 hours ago, CUMMINSDIESELPWR said:

one thing you dont want to do is lug the engine load or no load.   my old #6 piston can tell you why not to do it.

Do you mind telling me what happened, I know you mentioned something about scoring on cylinder walls, did the Piston start to melt too

Now since I changed to 245s tires I'm shifting up at 1,500 to 1,700 RPMs easy. I'm in 4th gear by 25 MPH and in 5th gear by 35 MPH... NV4500 transmission.

Normally around 1800 to 2000, but if I'm towing heavy I'll run it up a little higher.

NV4500 

10 hours ago, Dieselfuture said:

Do you mind telling me what happened, I know you mentioned something about scoring on cylinder walls, did the Piston start to melt too

was in 6gear towing a dual axle overfilled uhaul trailer doing 70 from utah on 80 eb into wyoming and there is a huge valley with a very long downhill and a very long uphill.   well i didnt realize that the truck was still trying to go uphill in 6th at 70 of course struggling and i realized i was slowing down and looked, egt were pegged, rpm was about 1600 in 6th full throttle (cruise) i caught it just as #6 started to melt in the bore.

 

what happened was the lugging made metal on the mains and clogged the squirters from 6 moving forward...  #6 was first to go

 

all the mains were ruined, #6,#5 rod bearings gone

 

$4500 later and its all rebuilt. Lesson learned.

 

the only time im in 6th now is on flat road, no load and cruising above 65. otherwise im in 5th or below with a load.

Edited September 13, 20186 yr by CUMMINSDIESELPWR

This is a loaded question.  It really dependson traffic, tuning, loads. You can't be shifting at 1700 rpms and expect to get anywhere soon in heavy traffic. I'll usually take it up to 2200 rpms in these cases. Ideally I would shift at about 1800 depending on any load I have. For havier trucks you may wanna shift closer to 2000.  When I put about 2 tons in my bed the truck really likes some extra rpms, with that being said, I have found that the turbo does kick in faster when loaded. That also brings in a whole other part of the conversation, tuning. If you got say a smarty or an edge ez tuner set at position 3 then you'll find you really don't need to rev much or give much TPS to get power. If you have a quad with say a big turbo odds are you're not running very fat down low and may want to rev it over 2000 to get some acceleration and vice versa. 

2000 - 2500 rpms

With the valve train I got now I can shift at 7000  I just don't see that happening anytime soon