Anyway, I did 800rpm WOT (and even got some positive turbo boost at about 950rpm
). And repeatedly did this for 10,000s of miles.
The reason my car survived this, as well as rapid EOCing (must have been 30,000 EOC cycles easily), may be due to the fact that the CA 8-valve engine is VERY tough anyway, and also that it was low compression, so the cylinder pressure loads were not that high.
On my 1.0 Micra, I did maybe 1000rpm at 60% throttle. My rule is, if the engine feels comfortable (apart from the fact that the power delivery is less smooth as it is at about 15Hz at 800rpm), then lug all you want. If the engine starts jerking at all stop, because that is when you can damage the crank and so on. I never did that in my car.
Another random point - when EOCing, bump-starting with ignition on is, in my opinion VERY bad for the engine. Doing this revs the engine straight up to 1500rpm+, and you are often accelerating at that point, with no oil in the bearings!. Better is what I did - ignition off, and gently tap the clutch up a few times, so RPM goes up to 80, then 150, then 300, then gently lift the clutch till you reach engine speed. Then, 0.5 seconds later, switch on the ignition. This is what I did, and the whole cycle took 1 second or so, once it became second nature.