My Father still tells me ,"Minimum revs,maximum boost."

It seems that was the best way to get the best fuel economy from the Stirlings and Halifaxs he was Flight Engineer on .

It still works that way. If you have an aircraft with a constant speed unit (CSU) the way to improve your fuel consumption is to reduce the RPM setting and adjust your mixture while maintaining sufficient speed keep the drag down.

But the performance suffers, of course

Chris

I think it all comes down to mechanical sympathy - or lack of.

A lot of more junior motorists in particular don't appear to have any notion of what goes on in the engine - that nasty noisy bit under the front bodywork A lot of oily bits go up and down, round and round - somehow.

Learning to "read" the engine was second nature to some raised on cars with chokes, poor batteries/heaters/dynamos etc, unlike today's generation who treat cars as disposable white goods; ie drive it with no maintenace and then sell on when something goes wonky.

There, I'm going to the shed to fondle an old faithfull conrod that served me well

My DSG will regularly change up to 5th at about 30mph and 6th around 40mph, but not if there is too much of a load like an incline. I can force it using the paddles, but it will drop back down after a short period if it doesn't like it.

To be honest I spend most of my driving time at 1500rpm max, whether in town or on the motorway. The car frequently changes up around 1500rpm. But it does have the torque to cope with it. I'm looking for 7th gear when it get to 70mph & about 2100rpm to drop back down to about 1500rpm (not found it yet)