how hard do you drive your 328's

Drive your car! Do it! All the time. My car likes it rough!

Truely, they were made to be preformance cars. My 328 has 60K and loves 6-7K rpms. Just make sure to love her as well with your preventative maintaince.

 

It won't hurt them. You can bounce it off the redline all day long at the track in Alabama in August year after year. I do this all the time with my 308 QV and it has nearly 98,000 miles on it.

You want to damage it good? Let it sit in the garage most of the time turned off - which is as far from that redline as you can get. That will screw one up for sure.

Keep the oil changed and drive the wheels off it. It will last forever that way.

 

Lugging the engine around at 2500rpm is harder on it than revving it. Warm it up properly, then it's OK to take it past 7000rpm (and the car's happy to oblige). I make it a point to drive the car on roads where it's not just shuffling between traffic lights at minivan speeds.

Also, there's a difference between high rpm and abusing a car; most of it comes down to respect for the gearbox and a smooth rather than 'jabbing' pedal technique. Not sure I'd ever redline the car in 1st or 2nd, but after that things get fun.

 

They come alive at 4K.

My old mechanic (20+ years back) used to yell at me for not revving the Alfa high enough -- it builds up carbon deposits at low revs (Spica/points). The 328 (CIS/Marelli) is a newer system, but it doesn't like sitting at traffic lights or putting along slowly, either.

The 328 is another car where the "Italian tune-up" really does seem to work.

The harder I drive mine, the happier it is.

 

I don't think bouncing it off the rev limiter all the time is going to help it, but it won't hurt it to rev to 7K+ with reasonable frequency. I have tracked mine some and a day of good exercise does make it seem to run better. However, in normal driving I don't go past 6K very often. I have a Subaru STI and a 430 in the garage, so winding out the 328 doesn't produce much thrill in comparison. As noted above, it is more important to drive regularly, warm it up properly and not up shift at 2500.

Dave

 

I have had a number of 328s over the decades, and I have always been impressed by how flexible its engine is. You can drive the car at low/medium/high rpms, and it just doesn't care. Wherever you'd like to be, boss, and how much of a rumpus you'd like to make. In relaxed driving I often skip-shift, and the engine is perfectly happy. An amazingly long power-band. Not to mention the unique music that the engine makes at specific points on that band. After awhile you hardly need the tach, because the sound of the engine tells you where it is.

After sampling the redline a little, just so I could say been-there-done-that, I don't bother to go there much, as the car sounds & feels more happy to me in the mid-ranges. Redline-driving in ordinary traffic also seems a bit "gold chain around the neck" to me. My $.02.

 

I was at a classic car show a few days ago with my 308. An ex Maranello guys came to admire my car. He told me of the amount of problems they had with them when they were new due to people not running them properly.
He said they were designed to be driven; they only fail when they are put away.
This kind of justified my new two position throttle - on and off, and the car loves it.
When warm and the road agrees I take mine to the top all the time, I love the two tone exhaust note, one noise up to 4k and another afterwards (I dint know if this is normal but).
While I had his undivided attention I asked about other issues, notably hollow valves, again, the problem comes from the neglect of under use. With 71k on my car it can’t be accused of that.

 

I like to drive my 308 this hard
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Cool post

 

very cool post...thats what my 328 likes also...

 

Great Paul, I think 308 is a very durable car than what most people think.

 

Oh and the 328 too of course.

 

Tommy, you need to be the voice of ownership! I keep trying to explain to people that their Honda would need new belts every 3 years too if they only put 250 miles/year on it!

 

I've been known to do an occasional burn-out and have never worried about approaching the red-line. I am on top of the maintenance though.

 

I think an occasional spin up the dial to 6500 + RPM is ok... but I would not want to live there, and in city traffic... not advisable at all...

Puttering around is mostly all I get to do... too much dense traffic in Atlanta to really have fun, but on occasion you can go past 5K RPM... that is a rarity for me... but I do say that if you drive them with regularity they seem to be happier... and you will know when stuff starts going bad!... but they are 20 year old cars and I know all the stuff about Enzo made them that way... they also made them with the understanding that owners would be replacing parts all the time... so its a bit of a balance How high you want to go = how much $$$ you want to spend... hose power ALWAYS has a price!

Dive it like you stole it! Just leave your credit card with your mechanic!

 

When I first got my 308 I would cruise through town in 4th at 2500 RPM, thinking it was easier on my fragile ancient engine. No! Drop it a gear or two. Cruise through town in 3rd at 4K and the engine likes it much better. It sounds better too. And less plug fouling! These are engines derived from race cars. They rev! They put the redline down at 7700 to be safe. A 308 can probably sustain 9K+ in limited quantity just fine. They don't self-destruct at redline. Any car's redline is safely derated from the actual RPM that would harm the engine.

 

I would say I never take it to redline in 1st or even CLOSE for that matter. Car just doesn't seem like it is made for it. In second, I have done it once. In third, a few times.

But, I do frequently take it to 6500 in 3rd. Just feels like the right place to take it.

I agree that the car seems to run better when it is usually shifted around 4500-5000 on a regular basis. Any less is criminal.....

 

You're kidding, right?

I have to keep an eye on the tach when I am on the track to make sure I don't spin it up to 8 grand by accident. It will just keep going If I let it.
My Alfa is the same way. In fact I just decided the red line was going to be about 8000 back in 1996. If it breaks I'll rebuild it better. Problem is it hasn't - going on 10 years now. That little twin cam 4 banger will scream.

Talk about a car that,"...doesn't seem like it is made for it" is my 74 MGB. That thing WON'T go to the redline without taking a week to do it and sounding like it is about to explode trying to.

Italian cars love that little red line.

 

No. Not kidding. It just doesn't feel great going to redline in 1st. The power band drops off a TON in 1st, so I just don't see the point. It feels slower close to redline in 1st than it does at 5500 RPMs. I would be interested in seeing the dyno, but I would be willing to bet the power band drops as you get closer to redline in 1st. Feels that way at least.

So I don't take it there. 3rd pulls the whole way to redline. Feels best there..

Just my opinion, of course.

 

You right about 3rd. The TigPrix track down here is a 3rd gear track. That's where I have to be careful.

 

Would you agree about 1st feeling slower as you get closer to redline?? That's why I don't even bother doing it. Risk is greater and reward is ZERO.

What is your "seat of the pants" feeling on it??

 

Now that I think about it, it seems that 1st seems too short to make me want to rev that high. Funny, I just realized that I really don't know and that's odd considering how many years I have been driving these things. Must be because I don't do it in first either. I'll find out this weekend and let you know.

 

The power curve of the engine is the same no matter what gear you are in, so if it "falls off" at the top of the band in first, it would fall off in any other gear at the top too. I'm pretty sure Huskerbill is right that the peak HP on a 3x8 is a tad below redline, so pushing it beyond redline has no real advantage. I agree that first is a lousy place to be redlining the engine because there isn't enough speed in that gear, but in hard acceleration it eases the shift to second by putting you closer to the power band in second.

Birdman