I once drove a car that generated somewhere between 400-450ft/lb at 1700 rpm. It was a gas motor with two turbos. You could easily stick it in 3rd gear, and drive around pretty comfortably. In 6th gear at 30mph, it would still accelerate more than adequately. Gears in that car were effectively arbitrarily.
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Wired? I thought they had bloody great levers to change gear. I saw a report that in early T34s in winter, the loader often had to help the driver change gear till the oil warmed up.
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Not only that my grandfather once let me set the points for a Deltic. He loved them. No cinders, no soot, very little vibration. Kind to his points. Mind you, he didnāt have to maintain them. That was a nightmare.
Sleeve valves are the enemy of modern emissions regulations. Soot.
What I think may be coming as the last incarnation of the ICE is a reversion to 1800s technology - the gas engine.
LNG and LPG can both work with much higher compressions than gasoline, but multifuel engines donāt provide that. The new Mazda engine design which only uses a spark to initiate compression ignition might work with a two stroke uniflow engine with piston ports at the bottom and big exhaust valves at the top - like marine engines.
The potential for an LNG engine burning methane is Diesel-type efficiency but half the carbon dioxide per kWH. Rolls-Royce has it working for a ship engine, and what happens on board ship tends to reach the car market progressively fewer years later - in the 1920s marine was probably 30 years ahead of land design, now it might only be 10.
Given that most of the world hasnāt got the infrastructure for EVs but LNG can be trucked, something like that could be a good interim.
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That explains the fishy smell.
Seriously, is isnāt generally not good for a car to leave it one gear like that? Though I suppose the best answer would be āit depends.ā
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Quite right, itās very bad.
I must try to stop my tendency to lecture but someone in the audience just asked a question. Thank you.
First, in manual gearboxes each pair of gears is only in use part of the time. To save weight, except in things like racing engines and dirt pluggers, the less used gears are designed for a shorter life. In the traditional British 4 speed box, top gear was direct (straight through) so the pinions did no work, whereas first gear (usually only used for a short time when starting) only needed a short life. The main gears were third and fourth. I donāt know about Camaros but I suspect running in second gear all the time would be bad for second gear. Running in third, not so much.
Second, however, piston speed and gas pressure are important in engine life. High gas pressure increases force on the cylinder wall, high piston speed increases rubbing wear.
IIRC large US V8s werenāt very happy with long periods above 3000 rpm and in marine use they were usually rated no more than 2500. Staying in second gear has two bad effects: too much pressure at low speed (because a large throttle opening is needed to start off in second gear) and too much rubbing at high speed because the engine revs in second will be well over 3000 rpm at freeway speeds.
So yes I agree with you entirely.
I have a car with a CVT which means the computer can always keep revs at the optimum. Itās instructive to watch the tachometer where safe to do so. The computer likes to keep the revs between 1500 and 3000 despite it being a small short throw engine (but with nitrided cylinders and carbonite slippers). Put it in S mode and it will cheerfully hit 6000 rpm if asked to accelerate up a steep hill, dropping the revs back to the peak of the torque curve as speed increases. It does in S mode what a very, very skilful human driver would do, in fact, if they wanted to get from A to B as quickly as possible but with an eye to fuel consumption. In E mode it ambles along being kind to the engine and transmission.
This is why I am not nostalgic at all about manual gearboxes.
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Thank you! That was a very clear description.
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oh how i do appreciate any Dead Milkmen reference i can get. 
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And he didnāt get arrested because his dadās the mayor
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Iām talking 1960, not 1945.
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The little port sleeve valves, yes. I was talking about using the whole sleeve, moving up and down against the head. No one made one as far as I know, certainly not combined with poppet valves. The whole sleeve sort of becomes a poppet valve with at least as much again the port area as the ohv. You have to decide which to cool and which to make the intake.
But yes, the two and four stroke motors with the sleeve ports and valves were all bad for emissions and consumption.
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My most recent stick shift vehicle was my 1994 Toyota Hilux. I suppose if a CVT transmission were available in 1994 for a pickup truck that cost $7500 brand-new I might have gotten some benefit from itā¦ Itās possible, but I kind of doubt it. That truck is still running up in Alaska with over 250,000 miles on it. Itās on its second clutch, and the gearbox has never been apart. Itās carried plenty of payloads, done some light towing, driven several long interstate trips, and done a shitload of urban commutes, and always delivered a comfortable, reliable drive with 30 mpg economy.
I was happy to rely on my skill as a driver over advanced technology in that instance. On top of everything else, it really was fun to drive.
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when you are in the mood and road conditions are favorable, a manual shift lets you really enjoy driving to the fullest. but most of the time, driving is just a chore irrespective of transmission.
I like bicycles, which have even more complicated gearing. There is actually a CVT for bikes now, but it is so heavyāmore than double a comparable derailleur set-upāand there is some question over efficiency lossesāa much bigger deal when you are the power source rather than pressing an accelerator from the comfort of a cushioned reclinerāso nobody really wants it. not yet, at least. It seems cool, but over 5.4 lbs is a little fat, although thatās down from the initial 8.5 lb model at least.
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Not for me. Iāve always enjoyed driving. Iām gonna miss it when Iām obliged to hand over control to my robot overlords.
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I enjoy driving in Euro Truck Simulator and Grand Theft Auto, but in real life, Iād much rather the robots do it.
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EuroTruck and GTA? Do you ever get confused about which game youāre playing?
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I enjoy driving sometimes, but not the routine kind. I hate commuting. Iād be happy to have a robot drive me to work, and happier to have robots drive everyone else to work.
Better yet, Iād rather not have to drive to work in the first place, but our company hasnāt quite embraced WFH and Iām honestly not sure how well Iād do it without being distracted. Which is why I buy lottery tickets once in a while 
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See remark above about mudpluggers. The Hilux is the utility vehicle of the Third World. Its design makes immense sense, and it needs to be maintainable by brute force and ignorance. One company I worked for considered offering an armoured cab and turret for the third generation. It is a soft shell vehicle so it would be wrong to say itās bulletproof, but it is pretty idiot resistant.
CVTs have only really been developed recently and the power ratings are going up slowly. They were limited to about 100BHP, now itās 140. Technical problems mean I donāt think that they will ever get over about 200BHP.
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Well, yeah, but my use-case scenario was just a cheap and reasonably comfortable way to get to and from work; the utility of the truck bed was just a bonus. My sister-in-law bought a new Ford Ranger at the same time, similarly equipped except with an automatic. Both were base-model two-wheel-drive four-cylinder trucks, except mine was more comfortable and mine lasted four times as long. The Hilux is a sturdy beast, as has been well documented, but even the versions (like mine) that were not built for rugged off-road use managed to give long life, ease of use, and simplicity (and rarity) of repair needs.
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