V6 power loss at altitude

[OppositeLock]

I'm at some altitude right now, hopping between 5,000 and 7,200 ft altitude, and my V6 is noticeably weaker. I snapped a quick photo of the performance gauges while floored, pedal to the metal, in 2nd gear, going up a hill. This is at about 5,000 ft altitude. The car manages 82% boost level and 404 N-m (298 ft-lb) of torque. Max torque is 420 at sea level.

I'm not complaining, this is the nature of supercharged and naturally aspirated engines tuned for sea level. My turbo cars take a little longer to spool, but have full power.

 

[767Driver]

This probably won’t help in anyway, I don’t have the knowledge to speak from experience with this motor but, at 5,000 ft there’s a pretty significant drop in atmospheric pressure and oxygen available to the motor.. And at 74 degrees outside, that’s pretty warm for that altitude further reducing air density. in addition you’re only at 5900 RPM so a bit more power to go which would increase those numbers. Those specs seem pretty reasonable to me without some books/ performance tables to reference. I’m sure the real brains and Emira Gurus will have solid data etc.

 

[OppositeLock]

It lost torque. It hits 420 N-m at like 3500 RPM at sea level and stays there, so the effect should only be like 4%, but it feels a lot more than that for some reason, which is why I snapped a photo.

 

[Nic]

I'm at some altitude right now, hopping between 5,000 and 7,200 ft altitude, and my V6 is noticeably weaker. I snapped a quick photo of the performance gauges while floored, pedal to the metal, in 2nd gear, going up a hill. This is at about 5,000 ft altitude. The car manages 82% boost level and 404 N-m (298 ft-lb) of torque. Max torque is 420 at sea level.

I'm not complaining, this is the nature of supercharged and naturally aspirated engines tuned for sea level. My turbo cars take a little longer to spool, but have full power.

This is 100% normal and has happened with every car I’ve taken over the mountains. It’s not going to be really noticeable unless you’re actively driving, and you’ll notice it the most on any incline.

I’ve hear that cars lose 3% performance for every thousand feed in elevation. Not sure how real it is, but driving a low HP naturally aspirated car through the north cascades can be brutal, haha

 

[Ralph2025]

When I was driving through the Swiss alps at 6,000ft in a V6, I can't say I noticed any drop in power, although I wasn't reading the readouts