This is the abuse my car gets every weekend (Friday, Saturday and sometimes Sunday). Never a problem.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=KYyAwBc453I

 

I never really drive my cars hard unless I am in a competition with someone. But that hardly ever happens. It annoys me when I see other people flying around in traffic, trying to race anything with wheels, so I don't do it. It's hard to sell a car when you are 22 and everyone thinks that you are abusive on a car[:'(]

 

Well at the track I beat on mine like it owes me money!!![8D] I launch on the dump and the thing is banging the rev limiter for a second!

Other then that I drive like a normal human being.

 

I have already had to replace my Raptor shift light
as all of the LEDs finally burned out from use. [&:]
And I have it set at 5300 RPMs.
Shetakes what I give her. Hopeshe holds up
for the time I haveher until selling for another.

 

5300?

Mine is set at 6200! No wonder yours is burning out!

 

This is a fatigue life issue, which is rather complex (I've done fatigue analysis as part of my job). The short version you already know - the harder you run it and the more frequently you do so the shorter its life will be. What nobody can tell you without knowing a whole lot more detail is whether that'll be 5,000 miles, 50,000, or 150,000.

I can tell you that harsh clutch engagement beats up the rest of the powertrain far worse than flooring it from a roll ever could. So-called "impact loading" will more than double the stresses in everything behind it relative to just running toWOT at peak torque with the clutch engaged. And doubling the stresses isn't as nice as being the same as two WOT-from-a-roll events - it's more like being equal to 20 or 30 WOT's or maybe in the hundreds of smooth,normal starts from a dead stop.

I can also tell you that you can get pretty decent life out of a powertrain even including regularly running up to maybe 75-80% of redline as long as you:

(1) get at least past the first new-car regularly scheduled oil change before doing that at all
(2) wait until the engine has fully warmed up
(3) perform the regular oil & filter maintenance and at least keep an eye on the other fluids
(4) avoid the harsh clutch stuff.
(5) give it a little cool-down driving before shutting it off

Subject to the above five items, I would say 'no'. But that becomes a 'maybe' once you start running into the tach's red zone and a 'yes' if you run it into fuel cut. Engine fatigue issues are mostly rpm-related.

I can't back it up with any tech at this point, but I suspect that when an automatic tranny downshifts itself two or more gears that the fatigue life of some things just took a much bigger 'hit' than normal.


Norm

 

i usually get on it at least once a trip....i dont think there is a time that i dont get sideways really.....With the soaring gas prices, ive been laying off lately....About to pull the trigger on a Tune/xpipe combo....So I doubt i will be laying off it here pretty soon.

 

Well I rolled up to a light last night with my roomate (Mishri) and there was a C6 next to us. The C6 kinda took off, so did my roomate, and I followed suit. Mishri dog walked me going up the hill there but I think he might've stepped on it before me. Then on the way back we saw a brand new GT500 cruising onto the interstate. I followed him on the on ramp and he got on it because I had it WOT and he was walking away from me. Further up the interstate there was a good spot and I went WOT again just for the hell of it. Hit about 105 and then let off. Finally on the way home some guy in a black GT similar to mine was ahead of us. He moved over, let me get in front, then moved in behind me. I figured he was going to try a ricer blowby on me so I went WOT when the light changed. He never caught up and passed us until I quit running because we were approaching some traffic and a light.

I don't know why, maybe it was the nice weather, but everyone seemed to be out rodding their cars around last night. I had never really pushed my car so many times like that on one drive so I was wondering what people thought about wear and tear - hence this thread.

 

I'm missing the relevance here. Guess you just wanted to share your street racing story.

 

The point was I had never pushed it that many times on a single drive and was curious about how hard that sort of thing is on the car. And yeah I shared some extra details vs. the first post I put up last night. Didn't see any harm in that.

Several replies, particularly Norm's, are exactly the sort of info I was looking for.