Make Your Car Run Faster on Uphills
There are two generalized choices in making a car go faster up hills. Driving technique can be changed or the engine and power train of the car can be adjusted. Here are a few suggestions for both that may help.
Contents
Steps
- Tune up the engine to enhance its performance. Depending on the mileage and service history, this may include changing the air filter, spark plugs and plug wires, and in cars built before the early 1980s, adjusting the carburetor, engine spark timing, and valves to peak out the engine performance.
- Check tire inflation. This may not help much, but properly inflated tires, leaning slightly toward maximum inflation pressure, have lower rolling resistance which transfers more engine power to propelling your car, as well as giving better gas mileage.
- Increase horsepower by upgrading the car engine if the need to increase speed and your financial situation warrant it.
- Install a lower ratio differential (rear end). A rear differential with a 411 gear ratio will give more torque to the pulling wheels than a 243 gear ratio. Consider the effect on gas mileage, though, since the 411 gear ratio will increase the engine revolutions per tire revolution, and in other driving situations this means the engine will need to turn many more RPMs to maintain normal driving speeds.
- Remove all excess weight from the car. Look in the trunk, behind the seats, and anywhere you may find heavy cargo stashed away. One of the methods the new car manufacturers are increasing auto fuel efficiency is by using the lightest weight material they can find in building new cars. A drastic measure for increasing your speed might mean buying the smallest cranking battery available, reducing the amount of gasoline in the tank to the minimum to make your trip, leaving the spare tire and tire changing tools at home, and even possibly removing some of the non essential accessories from the car.
- Turn off the air conditioning. This one accessory drains a significant amount of engine power to operate the compressor.
- Drive the car at peak torque and horsepower. This means downshifting when the gear you are driving in begins to lose power, or "pull". You need to keep the engine RPMs close to the maximum to get the maximum speed from the car. This is easier to do if your car is equipped with a tachometer, but listening to the engine gives you a fairly good idea how it is doing. Automatic transmissions will down shift by themselves, but high RPM driving can overheat the transmission fluid, so do not maintain high torque conditions for long periods.
- Accelerate your vehicle on approaches to steep hills, especially short ones. Truck drivers pulling heavy trailers will get maximum speed up when they see a steep hill ahead to prevent the need to downshift on the inclined grade.
Tips
- You should consider the reason for needing more speed driving up hills before buying your car. If you drive on steep hills regularly, you may want to buy a car with more horsepower, going to a V-6 or V-8 instead of a 4 cylinder.
Warnings
- Drive carefully, and hopefully at or near the speed limit at all times. Hills pose driving hazards and trying to get maximum speed from your car will cause increased wear on your drive train components.
