lets say im doin 60 in 5th gear and im coming to a stop. i usually just press the clutch and put bak in 4th then 3rd then 2nd then 1st and neutral. is that a bad way of driving.

its hard for me to do that but thats what yr supose to do from what i heard...

i heard your suppose to rev match. is that good for everyday driving. does my way of driving cuz more wear and tear on the clutch or its fine

i just pop it into N and use stright brake....

so with the clutch all the way down you go from 5>4>3>2>1 then N without release the clutch? i dont think its good

so with the clutch all the way down you go from 5>4>3>2>1 then N without release the clutch? i dont think its good

No he is saying he goes from 5 > N. Then uses the brakes to stop.

I do some rev Matching during city driving.

I would put to N straight away with clutch pedal down, put to 1 to move again.. =)

I rev match definitely and slight brake all the way down to second or third before putting it into Neutral and just using the brakes. I have never used 1st to slow the car down, scared it will put too much strain on the transmission. This is what I do...

Scenario:

Going at 60mph, and the car ahead of me is slowing down...
I am in 5th gear, I ease off gas to decrease speed....then sink the clutch and tap the gas twice to bring the rpms up just to where I THINK 4th gear will engage and slowly let off the clutch until it easily transitions without using the transmission to entirely slow down the car...then I just continue doing that till third and depending how close you are....just put push on the brake and then slip it into neutral....

You dont want to be going fast and putting the car into neutral and just pressing the brake....because then u put too much strain on the brake pads and will wear it down faster....try to use both transmission and brakes to slow it down...

When you learn to REV match, it works like a dream..

Good luck

If you have the clutch pedal pushed down the entire time then it is not necessary and probably just adds extra wear to the transmission to "row" down through the gears.

If you want to practice downshifting while braking then google "heal-toe" and read the technique.

single clutch downshift or heel toe.

If not..just press brake until you meet the red light....then throw it into neutral.

Not safe to just throw it into neutral and then brake. On coming car situations...you won't have the reaction time to get yourself in gear and throttle away from accident.

I would put to N straight away with clutch pedal down, put to 1 to move again.. =)

thats f'ed up :iwdumbass:

I downshift through every gear in the city usually. But when coming to a quick stop, I just throw it in N and use the brake also. I admit it's not good if a car is coming up on your ass quick.

I also keep it in N until I'm ready to take off again. To save the clutch and/or clutch fork a little. Maybe it will prolong it's life some.

I also downshift through my gears when coming to a stop. Engine braking is good for your car you brake wear and even your gas mileage if done properly. Another good thing to do is go into first before you drive in reverse. Youd don't need to drive in first but just shift into it before your select reverse. Over time this will save wear on you transmission mesh. At a stand still I also leave it in Neutral unless on a step hill. Just my 2 cents.

I rev match definitely and slight brake all the way down to second or third before putting it into Neutral and just using the brakes. I have never used 1st to slow the car down, scared it will put too much strain on the transmission. This is what I do...

Scenario:

Going at 60mph, and the car ahead of me is slowing down...
I am in 5th gear, I ease off gas to decrease speed....then sink the clutch and tap the gas twice to bring the rpms up just to where I THINK 4th gear will engage and slowly let off the clutch until it easily transitions without using the transmission to entirely slow down the car...then I just continue doing that till third and depending how close you are....just put push on the brake and then slip it into neutral....

You dont want to be going fast and putting the car into neutral and just pressing the brake....because then u put too much strain on the brake pads and will wear it down faster....try to use both transmission and brakes to slow it down...

When you learn to REV match, it works like a dream..

Good luck

Muahah its funny how you mentioned that you hit the gas twice haha... I just was noticing this in the evo... My g35 is a single blip to get it up to rpms... evos flywheel is soo light that you need to boost rpms a little higher than where you would want them after the downshift :p

You guys should try to "heel and toe" to slow the car down, gets you the best of both worlds.

While ive only been driving a manual for about two weeks now (i had learned when i was 16 but hadn't driven a manual since), heel and toeing is awesome for deceleration.

For those of you who are unfamiliar or lazy to wikipedia this, its the process of using your heel to slow the car down and your toe to blip the throttle and rev match while down shifting. The trick is to keep the pressure on your heel consistent to avoid jerky stops and rev match through 3 gears or so. While Im in no way really good at it, im learning pretty quickly.

For instance, from 60, holding brake with heel, at 45 punch the clutch drop into 4th blip throttle drop the clutch.

Not really necessary for the street really but when you are at the track, this is absolutely crutial for quick lap times

You guys should try to "heel and toe" to slow the car down, gets you the best of both worlds.

While ive only been driving a manual for about two weeks now (i had learned when i was 16 but hadn't driven a manual since), heel and toeing is awesome for deceleration.

For those of you who are unfamiliar or lazy to wikipedia this, its the process of using your heel to slow the car down and your toe to blip the throttle and rev match while down shifting. The trick is to keep the pressure on your heel consistent to avoid jerky stops and rev match through 3 gears or so. While Im in no way really good at it, im learning pretty quickly.

For instance, from 60, holding brake with heel, at 45 punch the clutch drop into 4th blip throttle drop the clutch.

Not really necessary for the street really but when you are at the track, this is absolutely crutial for quick lap times

I been driving stick for quite awhile now, and I know how to heel-toe downshift. However, I cannot do it with the X. Does anyone notice that the throttle pedal is a bit too slim, its hard to keep your toe on the brake and swing your heel that far to reach the throttle.

I just put in N when im close to stopping.

this is the most newbie thread ever. and Mavericks 124's response did not suprise me in the least .....

its hard for me to do...


seriously? downshifting is hard for you to do?

:wtfsign:

this is the most newbie thread ever. and Mavericks 124's response did not suprise me in the least .....




seriously? downshifting is hard for you to do?

:wtfsign:


lol You love Maverick don't you

Two of my friends (both drive manuals) think I'm weird for rev matching and engine braking as opposed to their excellent methods of putting it in neutral and just using the brakes or coasting.

Its fine, they can make fun of me all they want, but they'll be the ones replacing their brakes and cleaning the brake dust off twice as often:p

They used to teach you to drive and change through gears as you slow, but now they teach you to be hasty in downchanging, and "block changing" is better for your gearbox (skipping all the way to the gear that suits the revs)

But i drive like a maniac round these country roads and i drop down a gear and put my foot down :freak:

The more use use your gears the more you wear them and the syncros down. The only people that should be downshifting to come to a stop are truckers pulling heavy loads.

Now that being said you should downshift on hills to slow the car down instead of braking so you don't warp your rotors.

Two of my friends (both drive manuals) think I'm weird for rev matching and engine braking as opposed to their excellent methods of putting it in neutral and just using the brakes or coasting.

Its fine, they can make fun of me all they want, but they'll be the ones replacing their brakes and cleaning the brake dust off twice as often:p


LOL... well according to the manual in some states it's illegal to coast in neutral. Tell them that if something comes up and you need to give it gas to avoid an accident that they will be screwed while your fine.

I was actually told to leave it in the gear that you are in till you get to about 500 rpms above idle rpm then pop it into nuetral. It saves your gears and your clutch. I also heard, but can't validate that the injectors are supposed to actually turn off when you do this since the wheels are keeping the engine turning over. It's supposed to be the loss caused by this that slows the car down at the same time it lowers your rpms. I do this now and it allows me to stay in a gear to avoid people (actually had to do this once).

The more use use your gears the more you wear them and the syncros down. The only people that should be downshifting to come to a stop are truckers pulling heavy loads.

Now that being said you should downshift on hills to slow the car down instead of braking so you don't warp your rotors.

this is how i feel/think about shifting. yeah i still down shift but i rarely downshift into 1st gear unless im coming to a complete stop.

basically i downshift for complete control during situations/normal aggressive drivnig. otherwise its purely for fun :)

downshifting to 2nd 3rd and 4th is fine it doesnt hurt your synchro as long as you push the clutch in and it wont wear your clutch as long as you rev match. downshifting to fisrt is another story tho that will fk your syncro up.

^^^ double clutch ftw

I was actually told to leave it in the gear that you are in till you get to about 500 rpms above idle rpm then pop it into nuetral. It saves your gears and your clutch. I also heard, but can't validate that the injectors are supposed to actually turn off when you do this since the wheels are keeping the engine turning over. It's supposed to be the loss caused by this that slows the car down at the same time it lowers your rpms. I do this now and it allows me to stay in a gear to avoid people (actually had to do this once).


I don't know if the injectors "turn off" but they shouldn't be injecting gas unless you are giving it gas. At least thats what i always thought/assumed. The only exception would be when the computer gives it gas to maintain idle rpm speed. But the amount that you are pressing on the pedal i believe directly correlates with the amount of fuel that is injected into the cylinder during each cycle. obviously the more gas then the more power. But heck, if you want to get technical the car would still slow down even if there was a tiny amount of gas being injected as long as the power generated from burning that fuel isn't enough to counter the power lost due to friction/wind resistance. heck, this is pretty obvious at highway speeds when you have to constantly give it a significant amount of gas just to maintain a constant speed.

is this seriously a thread? how to properly down shift? you should be driving an mr if you are still confused at this point..

is this seriously a thread? how to properly down shift? you should be driving an mr if you are still confused at this point..

:+1:

Depressing the throttle pedal opens the throttle body to enable air to flow into the cylinders. When there is air present fuel is needed obviously. When the throttle isn't being depressed the throttle body is closed, therefore no air which in turn requires no fuel. So to summarize, fuel is not being injected once you lay off the throttle.

Depressing the throttle pedal opens the throttle body to enable air to flow into the cylinders. When there is air present fuel is needed obviously. When the throttle isn't being depressed the throttle body is closed, therefore no air which in turn requires no fuel. So to summarize, fuel is not being injected once you lay off the throttle.

Well not entirely true, there is still fuel being injected and air still going in even though your not on the throttle. When your TB butterfly valve is in the closed postition there is a bypass port that allows a specific ammount of air to be pulled through to maintain idle. I don't know the specifics on this car as of yet but most are maintained by a idle screw or electric IAC. Thats why older cars tend to have irratic idles, over the years the ports become gummed up or the IAC's burnout.

WIth the MIVEC on these engines I would imagine there is a very complicated series of butterfly valves in the air intake system. I would love to get my hands on their engineering design drawings to check them out.

Does this include upshifting? For example, being in 3rd gear at 5k RPM then shift straight to 5th?
They used to teach you to drive and change through gears as you slow, but now they teach you to be hasty in downchanging, and "block changing" is better for your gearbox (skipping all the way to the gear that suits the revs)

But i drive like a maniac round these country roads and i drop down a gear and put my foot down :freak:

Well not entirely true, there is still fuel being injected and air still going in even though your not on the throttle. When your TB butterfly valve is in the closed postition there is a bypass port that allows a specific ammount of air to be pulled through to maintain idle. I don't know the specifics on this car as of yet but most are maintained by a idle screw or electric IAC. Thats why older cars tend to have irratic idles, over the years the ports become gummed up or the IAC's burnout.

WIth the MIVEC on these engines I would imagine there is a very complicated series of butterfly valves in the air intake system. I would love to get my hands on their engineering design drawings to check them out.

I know, I was driving home and was like wait I was so wrong on that post! LOL

But yeah the car is at idle I botched that bit of info badly, whoops :slaphead:

Does this include upshifting? For example, being in 3rd gear at 5k RPM then shift straight to 5th?

I've been taught to go up sequentially lol
but whatever floats yer boat i guess ;)

I've been taught to go up sequentially lol
but whatever floats yer boat i guess ;)

LOL.

Classic.

Gotta love the 3rd to 5th upshift. ;)

defenietly an interesting thread.

defenietly an interesting thread.
Definitely a retarded thread. I cant believe its gone on this long.

Definitely a retarded thread. I cant believe its gone on this long.

lol agreed. You would think car guys could drive a manual correctly.

Holy SH** 4 pages on down shifting. I never read this thread till just now, but WOW. 4 pages on downshifting. We really do have some members that need to go to EAA

Jeez..you guys cant handle the gearshifting... how are you supposed to manage 300+hp:shades:

Retarded? maybe not. . . I still haven't seen all the correct information posted and a lot of wrong information.

The primary purpose of downshifting is to be in the correct gear (keep engine within a usable rpm), not to slow down. For whomever said that it saves brakes, I rather change brake pads more often then put more wear on the drivetrain. Don't believe me? Ask any competent pro road racedriver and see how many downshift to slow down in racing. Don't have access to a pro driver? Go pick up the Skip Barber book or something (pg. 91). Brakes are much more efficient then using the engine (excluding long descents as someone here mentioned). Saves gas? I'm not so sure, give me a plausible chain of causation and I may entertain it. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is so marginal I don't see much reason to do it, although I could be wrong.

Shifting Sequentially or Skipping Gears:
It's mainly a matter of preference whether you skip or go through the gears sequentially, of course the timing and blip severity (bigger blip for skipping) changes depending on which you choose.

In race situations, I suggest skipping. Unless they practice it, I doubt many people can threshold brake properly (the threshold of course is contingent upon the tires, track surface and many other factors, but a rule of thumb is that the tire is rotating approximately 0.85:1 relative to the ground). Even many professional racers have a difficult time maintaining consistent pressure (modulation is still present of course) for threshold braking while blipping the throttle (easily seen by taking a glance at telemetry traces).

Taking this into consideration, the less often you have to blip the more consistent your braking. For instance Jeremy Dale skips gears for this very reason as do many others. The caveat is that some tranny's may not take too well to skipping (i.e. more difficult to match revs to input shaft than normal), in which case it may be better to go down sequentially.

Heel and Toe:
On the street, the main purposes are for a smooth ride, being nicer to the drivetrain, and practicing for the track (if you want to be super nice to your syncros, besides the obvious of not jamming your tranny into a low gear when you're flying, you'll have to double clutch); in race conditions assuming a competent race car driver is in the cockpit, the purpose is to avoid breaking the driven wheels loose since all traction should be used for de-acceleration and/or cornering; the additional engine braking would only cause you to exceed available traction and drop overall attainable traction (again, it depends on many factors but a rule of thumb for traction decrease is approx. 30% assuming you are at pretty large slip angles or have some wheel lock. This is also the reason why drifting is so much slower).

Clutchless Shifting:
Only for the very experienced. There's a very small window to do it, and if you don't do it correctly. . . I hope you can afford the consequences. Generally not worth it unless you have a lot of mechanical empathy, since it probably wouldn't even shave a thousandth off your lap time.

Skipping Gears on the upshift:
No reason to, unless you don't mind your engine bogging down and losing precious seconds on your lap time. Oh, just thought of a reason. . . maybe if you're driving on ice/wet grass with those monster 450hp+ tunes some of you crazy guys are doing.

Forgot to address another major misconception posted earlier.

Someone mentioned using toe and heel to slow down, if anything toe and heel shifting reduces engine braking. The engine braking results from the difference between the engine rpm and the input shaft on the transmission once the clutch is engaged, the engine forces the input shaft (and ultimately the driven wheels) to slow down. Of course this causes the engine rpm to go up temporarily once the clutch is engaged, but the resistance from the compression of the engine is what is causing the de-acceleration.

So if you toe and heel you are matching the engine revs to the input shaft, thus reducing some of that compression resistance (because you're speeding the engine up; toe and heel is for avoiding upsetting the balance of the car remember? which entails minimizing that compression resistance; not too big a deal on the street, but may cause a loss of control at the limit). If your goal was to slow down using the engine braking, you'd slow down a bit more if you did not toe and heel.

Also, you don't use your toes or heel during the process, the name is just a remnant from decades ago when in most racecars the throttle was in between the clutch and brake.

You brake with the ball of your foot, and roll over your foot to blip the throttle with the outside of your right foot. For threshold braking and modulation to adjust to varying traction levels, the heel is not nearly as sensitive as the ball of your foot (prick the ball of your foot and the heel with a needle and see which one hurts more). If, however, your brake and throttle is really far apart, then you might have to get into some contortionist position and brake with your toes and attempt to hit the throttle with your heel.

In a properly setup race car though, its the ball and outside of your foot, although sequential tranny's are the rage nowadays. Which brings up another point, someone mentioned a lot of race cars go down through all the gears when racing, that's probably becuase they're using sequential tranny's. Lot of touring car series, WRC, F1, they're all on sequential tranny's not to mention the MR.

Geez, whose gonna bother to listen to me, I'm just a n00b. It even says so under my name.

Brakes are use to STOP!:omg: The gear are use to GO!:rock: Use your brakes and not your gears.:amen::shades:

:yeahthat::clap:

That is all fine and dandy. The whole concept of brakes are to stop and what was it? Gears are to go?

F1 cars go down through the gears because they are sequential, uh? Heel and toe reduces engine braking as well?

I really wasn't going to get back into this thread yet again. But since we have so many "professional drivers" on her spewing utter rubbish, well I just couldn't help it, but I will keep this short and sweet.

Two years ago the FIA banned engine braking in Formula 1, the impact was that every car on the grid lost 2 to 3 tenths of a second per lap because of it. Why? Because drivers couldn't brake as deep into corners due to lower efficiency.

It is the way I learned to do it, go to any performance driving school and one of the first skills taught is heel/toe. If you were to solely use your brakes at the track, a) You would need to begin slowing down before everyone else. b) Your brakes would be running hotter than everyone else's which would result in brake fade and therefore make your braking into corners even worse than your previous lap. c) Your lap times would be horrendous.

For those of you that still think engine braking is a mockery I recommend investing in some beefy carbon ceramic brakes, you are going to need them.

Last piece of info. Formula 1 cars are no longer using a sequential transmission. They are running seamless gearboxes.

i feel stupid for reading all this...
but very interesting haha