Optimal Working RPM's
 

This question is for 08/09 owners. What RPM's do you try to hold when climbing a hill on the freeway. For example in my Excursion the sweet spot is 2000-2200rpms. If I'm not hitting the hill in that range the speed suffers and I have to downshift.

I see the H2's max torque is rated at 4300 rpms. So is 4000-4500rpms the sweet spot for the H2 or is that too high? Again I'm coming from a diesel, I would never rev it over 2500rpms, so I'm completely in the dark on this one.

Again, this is when the H2 is working hard not flat land travel.

Thats pretty high. Too much of that and the motor will start running hot. Between 2000-2500 is where it's at for me. Before I did my gears I would usually try and drive 80 mph everywhere because that put me a tad over 2000 rpms and it just drove so much better with less shifting to maintain speed.

How about towing up hill? I think 2500rpms will not get the job done.

It's flat as flat can be here, but there is one place that has an extremely steep incline. Next time I make my way into New Orleans, I'll try to look at the RPMs without getting killed.

I did some towing yesterday with my 4000lbs TT to test out the air helper bags. The air bags worked great by not letting the rear end sag so much. Also it handled much better.

Anyway. Here's what I found out w/ the tranny in tow/haul mode. 6th gear is out of the question, it's very unlikely you'll see 6th gear while towing unless you are going down a hill. On flat at 65mph I was in 5th gear at around 2200 rpm's but even that was a bit of a struggle.

On the slightest incline I was in 4th gear at 65mph at around 3000 rpm's. When the hills got steep I was in 3rd gear at 60mph and 3500 rpm's.

Coming from a diesel, 2000rpm's is cruising and 2500rpm's is about max for short periods of time.

Is cruising at 3000rpm and 3500rpm for short periods too high for this engine?

For short periods no. But longer than 20 miles or so and you will start to see engine temp slowly climb.

From what I've been reading (and it's not specific to the H2), it seems like it's better to run at 3000rpm than to run at 2200rpm and have the tranny shift between 4th and 5th often.

I will keep an eye on engine temps. The most I've seen is 235 (the line between 210 and 260). Which seems really high to me but I guess this engines likes to run hot so I'll go with it.

That's about the hottest I've seen as well.

Here TFLTruck is running the silverado w/ the same 6.2/6l80.


Unfortunately you can't see the tack very well in the video, but the truck seems to be at it's best over 3000rpm and the guys are talking about 5000rpm.

Here's the climb w/ the 2015 w/ the 6.2 and 8 speed. It's always over 3500 and easily gets over 5000rpm.


So I feel better about running the H2 at 3000rpm most of the time and 3500-4000rpm when needed.