For all you standard driving freaks out there.

NocturnalPS

NocturnalPS

?¿That's Odd?¿
Staff Emeritus
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Tx, Alamo City
XRaptor529
I know i know Im 23 and never successfully driven a standard before. I seam to kill the car every time I try and put it in 1st. After that then im pretty good to go, well up till I have to stop and start all over again. My question is if im to get a new car will it be pretty easy to screw up the transmission me being new at driving standard? (Getting a SRT 4 next year or at the end of December)
 
Well, you can:

1) Burn out the clutch

2 Destroy the syncros

Practice, practice, practice!! I suspect you are letting the clutch out too fast. That's what I did. Practice getting the car moving without using gas. You'll learn the feel of the clutch (and where it engages) pretty quickly.

Good Luck! :)
 
Don't put it in first... :D Most cars will set off nicely from 2nd gear with no trouble at all - and mine is a 63hp 1.3 and does it just fine.

1st gear is more or less a manoeuvring gear, for very low speed things like parking and 3-point turns. You don't HAVE to use it at all (and indeed you should never change down to first while the car is moving).

But it'll come to you with practice - learning a car doesn't take long at all.
 
Originally posted by Famine
Don't put it in first... :D Most cars will set off nicely from 2nd gear with no trouble at all - and mine is a 63hp 1.3 and does it just fine.

1st gear is more or less a manoeuvring gear, for very low speed things like parking and 3-point turns. You don't HAVE to use it at all (and indeed you should never change down to first while the car is moving).

But it'll come to you with practice - learning a car doesn't take long at all.
Click to expand...

ok forget what i said, Famine just basically covered it ;)
 
You have to feather the clutch more to get started in second. This leads to more clutch wear. Not to mention that many cars will lug the engine when starting in second. However, I usually leave the car in second while moving.
 
Hey Noc, maybe we could learn together!! :D

I'm starting to get a good feel for how and when the clutch engages-- I still occasionally kill the engine in low-speed 1st gear maneuvers, and I've yet to successfully start the car when it's parked facing uphill (:scared:), but otherwise, I'm *starting* to get the hang of it... Practice is definitely the key (and knowing that the clutch engages/disengages at a certain point helps too :D... before I realized that, I just thought it was a kind of random thing)
 
Ahhh, good old "biting point"... :D

The trick for a good hill start is to put on the handbrake (parking isn't an emergency, so handbrake will do for now), slip it into first and gradually lift your clutch foot until the car gently digs down. Give it a little gas, lift off the handbrake and off you go :D

As risingson said, to learn where your biting point is, try doing some gentle trolling around the local car park, with no gas. Just lightly lift the clutch in 1st until the car rolls forward. Then you can lift off totally and, providing it's falt enough, the car will keep on going happily.
 
like everyone else said it just comes down to practice, you will get it eventually, i remember learning in a Fiat Strada about 14 years ago now at the back of a
royal mail car park :lol:
 
And now he drives a car that would bite your arm off if you messed up a gearchange... :D
 
Bash the stupid clutch, bash the stupid throttle, don't let the clutch go until you freaking start moving then bash the throttle some more and let the clutch come up gently. Or something...
 
Hey, Noc, the SRT has a pretty tough transmission and clutch. It's quite an order stronger than the standard Neon gearbox, which is pretty tough itself, unless abused - I mean abused - with lots of burnouts and such.

For simple start, rev to about 2500-3000 rpm, and release the clutch pretty quickly just till it starts to grab, then slow your foot and ease it the rest of the way out. As the engine takes the load of moving the car forward, ease in some more gas to keep the revs up a little. Once you're rolling, remember that the car won't come to an instant stop when you put the clutch in for a shift. You've got time to make a smooth shift and release again while the car coasts.

It really is just a matter of practice.
 
Originally posted by risingson77
2500-3000? That would make for a rather...spirited launch. :eek:
Click to expand...
I was thinking the same thing.:D
As for starting on a hill, another technique is to put your heel on the brake and toe on the gas. As the car takes the load (hits the "biting point") raise your heel and gently drop your toe. Done right, off you go.
 
do this: put the car IN 1st gear! then SLOWLY!! let out the clutch. then as soon as the car starts to move start to give it a little gas and your off!:D
 
Hey, I remember learning how to drive. I learned in my friends Supra.
Imagine how hard it is to learn the stick when your buddy is yelling at you not to **** up his 25 k car. Now all he does is try to drive my RX-7 and "even out" the torture I put on his car when I was learning. And that was 3 years ago, so you can see how much torture still needs to be clocked on my cars. Haha. :D
Just be careful on hills when youre facing down, not up. I once rolled down the hills not able to get it into first and we almost mashed up into a 9 inch curb. Im sure going down backwards would be worse, but that never happened to me.
 
you want to take off without stalling?

hold the throttle on limiter
dump the clutch and hold on:D

*joke*
 
HAHAHA I've had many fun expirience learing to drive with a manual transmisson....at first I had the same problem as you I let out the clutch too fast and killed it...so I figured I'd rather peel out everwhere I go than stall it and look stupid....eventually I did what risingson77 said and I learned better....then I jumped into an auto and kept getting pissed off because I wasn't used to not having a clutch and kept trying to "shift" the automatic lever...lol...now I'm used to both....

Then I got to drive a skyline....shifting with your left hand is the wirdest thing I have ever done... you should try it....:lol:

BTW if you think that 3000 RPM is a "spirited launch" try launcing at 7000 RPM in a skyline :D....can you say whiplash?
 
Originally posted by risingson77
2500-3000? That would make for a rather...spirited launch. :eek:
Click to expand...
I was thinking that - I am notably stingy on launch revs though, and in the first three months we had the Legacy/Liberty, I stalled the Super Sube at least once a week. AWD just sucks up the torque.

It really is a matter of developing feel for the clutch and transmission - mind you, it's worth it, manuals are really the onyl way to develop a true mechanical feeling for your car.
 
Originally posted by vat_man
I was thinking that -
Click to expand...

Not if you let the revs drop once you've passed the 'biting point'

I drove for about 2 hours on both Saturday and Sunday the weekend previous, and didn't stall it once, even though dad's ute is such a hunk of ****.
 
Yeah, I typically launch from about 2500. If I'm looking for what I call spirited, I launch from about 3500-4000.

I'll try to pay attention to where I launch when I'm not first in line at the light, and report back.
 
What's weird about shifting with your left hand? I do that all the time... :D
 
Actually, when we visited the UK a couple years ago, it had been a while since I drove a manual. It wasn't any harder to pick up the left-handed rowing than it was to just get back in practice anyway.

Now if the pattern or the pedals had been reversed, all bets would have been off.
 
My dad had a Ford Maverick, which had, alongside the main gearstick, a switchable high2/high4/low4 box... Now that thing confused the hell out of me... :D
 
Well, I paid a little attention on the way in to work toiday, and yeah, I launch between 2500-3000. It's not really that exceptional, though I am usually the first out of the light, unless there's someone in front of me.

80,000 miles on this clutch, and it's still nice and tight, too. I'm not that hard on the car.
 
Originally posted by Famine
What's weird about shifting with your left hand? I do that all the time... :D
Click to expand...

yeah but I had never done it before in my life....that and for me everything was reversed....the turn signal and headlights were on the opposite side...i kept wanting to get into the wrong side of the car....and I felt as if I was driving on the wrong side of the road for some reason.....anyaway it was funny at intersections becasue the other driver was right next to me beacuse of the LHD and RHD differences...
 
I know - I was just messing with you...

I drove my dad's Mazda MX-3 for a week - it's right-hand drive as it ought to be, but the indicators and wipers were on opposite sides of the wheel. I made the mistake ONCE - I went to flash my headlights and washed the windscreen instead.

Then I got home, back to my own car and tried to turn left with the wipers...
 

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