Can anyone tell me what the highest RPM they feel comfortable running the 3.5 V6 in the Trooper at for extended periods like very long hills?

Thanks!

I have more of a generic answer. When the temperature gauge starts climbing towards hot and if the oil pressure starts droppping.

As far as a specfic rpm something like 4000-4500 on extended long hill pulls. At least on 3.4 and 2.6.

Mine has no problems with extended RPM's, it'll spin 4500 to 5000 with out loss of oil pressure or the temp climbing. When we were pulling my Snow mobiles up the mountain couple of weeks ago we had no problems running running that RPM to keep from shifting to 3rd and bogging down, for about 15 min. total and nothing was hurt except fuel mileage. BTW I have a 2.6L- 3.5 has great torque, as long as your below redline you should be fine and only use High rpm's when you absolutly have to, I dont like to run High RPM's unless I have to.

I say 5000-5500 is pretty normal

Post deleted by all we'll drive

About 6000 on the rebuild and YES ITS STEEP.. the higher we went up the less air it would get. its really dumb how they set that mountain road up here, with the gearing this thing has 1 st was too low, 3rd was too high. The higher up we got the more it wanted to Bog down and we were Pulling a Heavy trailer with 2 snow Mobiles (2.6L) Loaded with Gear ect. Put it together, I was Milking it all I could to try and shift to 3rd to drop the RPM's but no go. No smoking, no Loss of oil Pressure, nothing went wrong, I still have NO problems at all, and I think it liked to Spin that fast. It sounded Like we were going 300 MPH really we were going 15 to 20 average....LOL. Small Engine+ Lots of Load= No Power going up Steep Grades.

Thanks guys, that was exactly the information I needed. I have about 3,000 miles on a rebuilt engine and it is breaking in nicely.

Why am I in such a hurry? Well, truth be told, I'm not. But I live in Colorado and spend a lot of time on I-70 and running a 32" tire (tall 265's in the future, currently short 285's) with stock gearing in third gear is the slow end of what I consider a safe speed. In second gear, I'm running about 5,000 rpm and 5,500 rpm for short bursts if I need to get around someone.

The hills are not that steep at about 8% grade for a few miles at a shot.

I don't have an oil pressure gauge yet (though I intend to install one in the future along with a trans. temp gauge), but the engine temp does not rise by any perceptible amount.