So the reason I had thought that was because of the turbo diesels, the turbo Cummins makes tons of power real low, @3,000. That might just be a diesel thing, IDK.
It is just a diesel thing unfortunately. The very way they work makes them much better at making torque at low speeds. One way to think of it is a diesel has "slow" combustion that pushes the piston all the way down through its stroke where a gas engine has fast combustion that gives the piston a quick hard push at the top. It's the main reason why you don't see many diesels, even small ones (unless they're indirect injection which is inefficient and no one does anymore except Mercedes) that can rev past 5000 RPM (and that's even pushing it); there just isn't enough time for the diesel fuel to be injected into the cylinder AND fully burn when the pistons are moving that fast. A Dodge Cummins has a redline around 3000 RPM, I think they make peak torque down around 1800 RPM?
