How do you guys downshift and not damage the engine in the process?

[Fat Tyre]

Hey, well the thread title pretty much says it all. Today I was trying my luck at tuning the almighty Mazda 787B at Road Atlanta and after about 10 laps I switched on the telemetry and went to damage only to find the engine damage was at 21%. So I did an extra lap and noticed when downshifting from 5th to 1st I was hurting the engine.

Now in real life I've only driven automatic cars, I have no track day sort of experience and a few months ago I was playing Gran Turismo which doesn't simulate this kind of things at least in career mode which is the one I mainly play. Mind you I have a TX wheel so I am using manual without the clutch.

Now the real question is, How do you properly downshift from say 6th to 1st? Do you just brake and then select the right gear at the last second or do you go one by one slowly? I would imagine that in a real manual car you would put in on neutral while you are braking and then hit the appropriate gear at the last second. This TX wheel is only sequential so I can not select neutral.

Another question that I have is how do you go from say 5th to 3rd, like preparing for a medium/fast corner. Is it the same process or does it require a different type of technique?

Any help will be welcomed. I am aware this is a noob type question but truth be told I am quite sucky as a driver although I am trying to improve, hopefully I'll be able to be consistent and clean soon.

 

[doctorrg]

You shift down one gear at a time, from 5th, to 4th, to 3rd, to 2nd, and then to 1st. Same process if you just go to 3rd, you shift to 4th first, and let the engine help you brake. Don't worry, the first time I was given an automatic I didn't know what to do either.

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

Hey, well the thread title pretty much says it all. Today I was trying my luck at tuning the almighty Mazda 787B at Road Atlanta and after about 10 laps I switched on the telemetry and went to damage only to find the engine damage was at 21%. So I did an extra lap and noticed when downshifting from 5th to 1st I was hurting the engine.
Now in real life I've only driven automatic cars, I have no track day sort of experience and a few months ago I was playing Gran Turismo which doesn't simulate this kind of things at least in career mode which is the one I mainly play. Mind you I have a TX wheel so I am using manual without the clutch.

Now the real question is, How do you properly downshift from say 6th to 1st? Do you just brake and then select the right gear at the last second or do you go one by one slowly? I would imagine that in a real manual car you would put in on neutral while you are braking and then hit the appropriate gear at the last second. This TX wheel is only sequential so I can not select neutral.

Another question that I have is how do you go from say 5th to 3rd, like preparing for a medium/fast corner. Is it the same process or does it require a different type of technique?

Any help will be welcomed. I am aware this is a noob type question but truth be told I am quite sucky as a driver although I am trying to improve, hopefully I'll be able to be consistent and clean soon.

As soon as you said you shifted from 5th to 1st I knew it had something to do with playing the GT series. GT has never simulated correct damage at all especially not mechanical. So yes you need to instantly break your habit of shifting from the highest gears to the lowest gears.....This is not GT. Also if you are in the habit of wall riding from GT, you don't want to do that anymore either.

With that said @doctorrg had the correct answer. You downshift 1 gear at a time while braking. 6,5,4,3,2,1. Welcome to Forza

 

[ImaRobot]

Not fast either, let the RPMs drop enough so that way you don't just bounce off the rev limiter when you drop a gear.

 

[Fat Tyre]

You shift down one gear at a time, from 5th, to 4th, to 3rd, to 2nd, and then to 1st. Same process if you just go to 3rd, you shift to 4th first, and let the engine help you brake. Don't worry, the first time I was given an automatic I didn't know what to do either.

Thank you that is helpful but what do you mean by letting the engine help me? Complete noob I know...

As soon as you said you shifted from 5th to 1st I knew it had something to do with playing the GT series. GT has never simulated correct damage at all especially not mechanical. So yes you need to instantly break your habit of shifting from the highest gears to the lowest gears.....This is not GT. Also if you are in the habit of wall riding from GT, you don't want to do that anymore either.

With that said @doctorrg had the correct answer. You downshift 1 gear at a time. 6,5,4,3,2,1. Welcome to Forza

Don't worry I've stopped wall riding a long time ago... I am more than happy with Forza especially with things like damage and having to heat up your tyres and having to pay more attention to the details.

Not fast either, let the RPMs drop enough so that way you don't just bounce off the rev limiter when you drop a gear.

That is I think the main problem. With that Mazda 787 it brakes so fast that doesn't give me time to really do it smoothly or at least try to. It is bang! and you are down from 300 to 80 Km/h.

I found this video. Seems way better than what I was doing.

EDIT: HArd braking zone I was talking about is at 1:13

 

[SlipZtrEm]

As a fellow player who migrated to Forza after years of GT, I knew what you were talking about too, like @CAMAROBOY69 : GT doesn't penalize us for over-revving an engine to a theoretical 30,000RPM by downshifting from 6th to 2nd in half a second approaching a hairpin. In Forza, you need to do it over the course of the braking zone, timing it so that you're not downshifting too early and burying the needle in the red of the tach. My best advice is practice; each car's throttle sensitivity is different, and a race car's revs will drop far faster than a modern road car (especially if the latter is turbocharged). You'll get the hang of it eventually; it took me a few months to get accommodated to Forza's shifting needs, especially with adding the clutch into the mix, but now it's the only way I can play, and I don't even think about it.

 

[doctorrg]

Thank you that is helpful but what do you mean by letting the engine help me? Complete noob I know...

Slowly downshifting has a braking effect, aka engine braking. You'll get the hang of it once you start using the gears in between.

 

[SlyNine]

Slowly downshifting has a braking effect, aka engine braking. You'll get the hang of it once you start using the gears in between.

Plus controlling weight transfer (and threw that, understeer/oversteer) by modulating the throttle. When I figured out how to do that it took my driving to a new level of fun.

 

[Havok_]

Plus controlling weight transfer (and threw that, understeer/oversteer) by modulating the throttle. When I figured out how to do that it took my driving to a new level of fun.

+1! Forza is a much different beast than any other racing game I have ever played. Balancing that knife-edge of being in control to the point of almost losing the front or rear end is exhilarating. So rewarding when you get it right!

 

[TenEightyOne]

Revdrop-change-revdrop-change-revdrop-change-revdrop-change

With practice you'll know you approach Corner X at in gear 6 and you need to be down to 2nd (as an example), you'll get into the rhythm of downshifting "1-2-3-4" as you brake. Then you'll find that some cars "grab" more at the back as you do it and learn to adjust. It really comes very quickly

 

[Speedster911]

Don't know if anyone else has noticed, but why is there so much reverb on every track now?

 

[Alutec]

You need to let go of the accelerator as you downshift.

 

[Aftrbrnr]

Even if you drive with automatic shifting on, you can see the the game downshifting for you one gear at a time, it doesn't drop from top gear to first. The thing is most people who drive on the street will brake and come to a complete stop usually without rowing down the gears first as people would rather not go through the motions as it doesn't seem as necessary in non-performance or competition situations, which is where i think some people get this habit from.

I am going to assume you are playing with the clutch set to "automatic" mode, having the clutch on "manual" mode brings in a whole new set of challenges as I do think Forza simulates to some degree the drivetrain shock and loss of traction from merely just downshifting without rev matching.

 

[ImaRobot]

Even if you drive with automatic shifting on, you can see the the game downshifting for you one gear at a time, it doesn't drop from top gear to first. The thing is most people who drive on the street will brake and come to a complete stop usually without rowing down the gears first as people would rather not go through the motions as it doesn't seem as necessary in non-performance or competition situations, which is where i think some people get this habit from.

I have a habit of doing exactly what you're saying most dont

 

[SlyNine]

Even if you drive with automatic shifting on, you can see the the game downshifting for you one gear at a time, it doesn't drop from top gear to first. The thing is most people who drive on the street will brake and come to a complete stop usually without rowing down the gears first as people would rather not go through the motions as it doesn't seem as necessary in non-performance or competition situations, which is where i think some people get this habit from.

I am going to assume you are playing with the clutch set to "automatic" mode, having the clutch on "manual" mode brings in a whole new set of challenges as I do think Forza simulates to some degree the drivetrain shock and loss of traction from merely just downshifting without rev matching.

Especially with a digital clutch!

 

[Speedster911]

Even if you drive with automatic shifting on, you can see the the game downshifting for you one gear at a time, it doesn't drop from top gear to first. The thing is most people who drive on the street will brake and come to a complete stop usually without rowing down the gears first as people would rather not go through the motions as it doesn't seem as necessary in non-performance or competition situations, which is where i think some people get this habit from.

I am going to assume you are playing with the clutch set to "automatic" mode, having the clutch on "manual" mode brings in a whole new set of challenges as I do think Forza simulates to some degree the drivetrain shock and loss of traction from merely just downshifting without rev matching.

It does. Every time you downshift through a turn, the tail gives out just enough to get more grip in the front. Similarly, if you're not careful to let go of the throttle completely while upshifting, there's a loss of traction in the rear. This mostly happens though in cars with very good transmissions.. low shift-time/high response and everything; F430 or the One-77 for instance.

 

[Sgt Giggles]

Hey, well the thread title pretty much says it all. Today I was trying my luck at tuning the almighty Mazda 787B at Road Atlanta and after about 10 laps I switched on the telemetry and went to damage only to find the engine damage was at 21%. So I did an extra lap and noticed when downshifting from 5th to 1st I was hurting the engine.

Now in real life I've only driven automatic cars, I have no track day sort of experience and a few months ago I was playing Gran Turismo which doesn't simulate this kind of things at least in career mode which is the one I mainly play. Mind you I have a TX wheel so I am using manual without the clutch.

Now the real question is, How do you properly downshift from say 6th to 1st? Do you just brake and then select the right gear at the last second or do you go one by one slowly? I would imagine that in a real manual car you would put in on neutral while you are braking and then hit the appropriate gear at the last second. This TX wheel is only sequential so I can not select neutral.

Another question that I have is how do you go from say 5th to 3rd, like preparing for a medium/fast corner. Is it the same process or does it require a different type of technique?

Any help will be welcomed. I am aware this is a noob type question but truth be told I am quite sucky as a driver although I am trying to improve, hopefully I'll be able to be consistent and clean soon.

Add me on XBL: M107Sniper50Cal, I can help you practice