Topic: Uphill battle on CA Hwy 5

[bigchelis]

I drove from San Jose to Dana Point (North CA to South Ca).  Upon reaching interstate 5 my 70mph speed was set to a sudden halt.  It is basically a 5500 foot climb over several miles. It might be even higher, but thats the sign I saw along the climb.

I had no extra weight other than a suitcase and my passenger. 

I had to downshift to 4th gear to maintain it at 50mph, but soon after (3min) I had to drop it to 3rd to keep it going 40 to 45mph.  That was the best the jeep would do.  The rpms were around 4k.

I have 33's, 4:88, and 4in superlift with factory soft top.

[bigchelis]

Forgot to add............

Is this normal? Was my TJ unusually lagging in performance?

Anyone suffer similar lack of performance uphill?

I expected to slow down uphill,  but maybe down to 60mph not 40mph.

[Jeffy]

That area is known as the Grapevine.  And yes, it's steep and windy, even cars struggle a bit.  The first time I went over it I was stuck in 3rd doing 55mph screaming around 4000rpm.  Second time I was in 4th and steady at 50mph and around 3700rpm after some tweaking.

HP does nothing to help you here, it's all about torque.

[stan98tj]

yea i have the same issue as well...ill drop down a few mph on slight inclines...whats the most annoying is having to punch the throttle all the way, wait for the jeep to decide to shift and accelerate, and then it upshifts, makes dramatic "engine roar" sound and im back up to 65 lol...by the way, is there anything i can add to give her a bit more boost to counteract this annoyance?

[smashcoast]

The Grapevine is a killer on a 4banger! 4th and 3rd all the way! Half up hill half downhill though.

I used to work for a Heavy Moving and Rigging co. and we did a lot of work for power utilities (moving 400,00lb sub station transformers), so driving the Grapevine in a 53' trailer loaded with 80,000lbs of steel beams at about 10-15mph is a little rougher thou!