Manual Transmissions - Lugging vs. Revving

I have been curious about this for a long time.

My father always told me, "If you never lug your engine, you will never have to replace a head gasket in your life"

Does anybody with any expertise know if there is any truth to this? It makes sense to me that running your engine at higher RPMs would lower cylinder pressure, cylinder temperature and avoid unnecessarily high stress on your clutch pressure plate, but I have no scientific evidence to back that up... just my intuition. And no, I am not talking about running at redline constantly either.

If you lug your engine, it would seem your cylinder pressures would be higher, thus causing higher cylinder temperatures, higher loading on your connecting rods and higher stress on your pressure plate.

The reason I am curious is, I see a lot of 4cyl (and 6) owners with head gasket problems with relatively low mileage, while others are getting 300,000+ without so much as turning a wrench.

I have always been a revver, and have never blown a head gasket in my life. I never, ever, shift below 2500 RPMs unless I am going down a hill. I am not concerned about fuel economy either though. Fuel economy, to me, is more or less just an indicator for how well my engine is running... If it drops suddenly and drastically for no reason, I know I may have an issue.

I am very curious to see if there is a correlation between revving/lugging and head gasket failure rates. I have googled this, and nobody (that I have found) has really addressed this point blank, so I was curious if any of you guys knew the answer.

 

your correct in the theory lugging causes much more heat build up.

Lugging is having the rpm lower then it should be for the gear selected with a Auto trans that is not your choice

This problem is far worse in Diesel engines

There can also be many other causes for head gasket failures

Funny I seldom Rev the engine higher then 2500 rpm In truth I have no idea what gear I am in unless I look at the shifter Millions of miles will cause that

 

Where are you hearing about head gasket failures in the 4-cyl?

 

In all practicality you should never lug your engine OR rev it like mad... both situations are, in general, putting unneeded stress on the components. What you want to do is keep the truck in a gear that's comfortable for the power band and situation. For the most part I drive conservatively and in as high a gear as I can for the situation -- never lugging it down, of course – and I've never had to replace a head gasket, either, over 30 years and probably 3/4 of a million miles. 95% of that in manual transmission vehicles.

 

I wouldn't lug the motor, that's a great way to overheat especially offroad. I try my best to keep RPMs in the 2.5k range.

 

So I had the 2.7L and I would lug the truck or I would always be revving the crap out of it. I got 140k miles out of my stock clutch, and I had to replace my catalytic converter around 150k. Never had a head gasket issue when I sold it.

Wondering if it was he combo of those two things that made the cat go bad, or my clutch... I did haul heavy loads too, never towed.

I hear the 2.7L are known to have Cats go bad prematurely...could this be from the short distance driven and not allowing the cat to get hot?

 

140k out of a clutch is good, that's a little over the average lifespan of most.

 

I got 188K on my first clutch. I only replaced it because my TOB started making noises. My clutch still had some life left in it too.

Still really curious if anyone who has had a head gasket failure can chime in on this... As I mentioned, I am wondering if there is a higher failure rate for those who lug their engines.

I have ridden with people who lug the crap out of their engines to save on fuel, it just seems like a terrible idea to me. I am trying to figure out if it is those guys who are blowing head gaskets.

 

I have seen a few on this site, and it may just be my impression that the 4 cyls are more prone to this issue.