Jim Will

You were right, car pulled strongly right up to redline, and a little past (tach shows redline to be 6500 in my car) I actually ran to 7000 in first, and still didn't find any limiter, very odd. Ran 1st gear to 7000, 2nd gear to 7000, then gave up. Each upshift put the car into the "meat" of the next gear, and 90 mph came up very quickly. Definitely quicker than shifting at 6, 5700, and 5700.
My next question:
The moment I left my dealer after my first service, I immediately noticed that my car was running much stronger. Not just my imagination, as before the service, you would get good acceleration. Now afterwards, I can feel my big *** getting shoved into the seat. My fiance' noticed it also, so Iknow it's not just me.
Any ideas?

Paul99SE

You used to be the king of automatic launches in your Maxima, IIRC.

Jim Will

but I couldn't find your e-mail addy.
I just dug up your cell number. I'll be looking you up in the future. Got a few questions for you.

Augie

Jim, the shorthand here is to shift when the horsepower right at the shift point in the current gear equals the horsepower in the next gear after the shift. Therefore, you don't shift until well after the power peak, which is at 5800 if I'm not mistaken. Although I don't know what the power curve on a 2.7T looks like, shifting out of first gear at 6500 leaves you at about 3500 in second gear, which almost certainly means you're down on power after the shift, so consider the 6500 redline pretty much mandatory before shifting :-).

A good rule of thumb in passenger cars is to go at least 10% over the power peak before shifting.

You can plot your own theoretical shift points if you know the power or torque curves and the transmission ratios, but if you do, subtract around 5% from the calculated one-two shift point to account for drive train inertia, the effects of which I'm not going to explain right now :-).