real life manual cars questions.

  • Thread starter Thread starter ddldave
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ddldave
wait, so you have set the car in neutral first before you start rev matching? and what's the throttle mean? and how do i know how much rpm to shift to? what car do you drive and when do you rev match on every gear? teach me please.
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No, I was just trying to describe the process in easy-to-understand steps. Really, the rev-matching occurs during the time I'm shifting out of the higher gear and into the lower gear, and I don't really spend much time in neutral.

Again, the "technique" I'm referring to is a lazy form of rev-matching a downshift -- no braking is involved (at least not during the shift), and as long as you hold in the clutch, you can take as much time as you want in matching the RPM. It's meant for slow-paced daily driving, not track lapping.
 
ddldave
do you need to know how to do toe and heel to properly do a rev match without leaving the car in neutral?
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Yes, you do if you're braking, but don't worry about heel-and-toeing yet. I drove for several years before I taught myself how to do it. Get the basics down pat before you try to finesse it with tricks like that.

You don't need to rev-match upshifts, because your revs fall naturally during the shift, and they will be lower anyway in the higher gear, so it happens by itself. You only really need to rev-match downshifts. And as I said, a few months or a year of not bothering is not going to kill your car. Some people never bother learning. Get comfortable with the basic mechanics of operating clutch, throttle, and shifter first.

I can tell by the tone of your posts that you're a little nervous. Don't agonize about it. Just do it. You're not going to destroy the car if you do the wrong thing a few times. You don't need to shift like Lighting McQueen - the car will not come to a screeching halt when you have the clutch in. Take your time, shift, let the clutch out, move on.
 
Driving a manual is not that hard.
It is best to start out in a car with a fairly "forgiving" clutch.
IF the clutch is "on/off" like a light switch, the experience for a first timer will be bad.
If the clutch is like the one in my Ranger, then you could learn if you only had one leg and had not taken your anti-seizure meds for a month.

One of the best exercises I can think of is to find a calm empty place with a very slight incline and practice holding the vehicle in place with only the clutch.
You will learn pretty quickly where the "friction" point is.
After you have that down, adding throttle is only a minimal jump in difficulty.

As for upshifting/downshifting/driving off from a standstill, listen to the vehicle. It will tell you if you're doing it wrong.
If you're grinding the gears, you're definitely doing it wrong.
IF the car stalls, you've done it wrong.
IF the car lurches and bucks off the line, you're getting closer, but you've done it wrong.
IF you smell a sickly sweet smell, and have a light smoke coming from beneath the car, you've not only done it wrong, but the car needs a rest, and so do you.
 
Gil
If the clutch is like the one in my Ranger, then you could learn if you only had one leg and had not taken your anti-seizure meds for a month.
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:lol: Very true! Although then the problem is that you lack finesse when going to a car (there was a period of time when I was switching between a manual Ranger and a manual Outback almost every other day, and my left foot got a bit confused).
 
Sage
:lol: Very true! Although then the problem is that you lack finesse when going to a car (there was a period of time when I was switching between a manual Ranger and a manual Outback almost every other day, and my left foot got a bit confused).
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It is possible to stall the Ranger taking off. I did it once.
My kids that can drive a stick all learned on that Ranger.
It is a great confidence builder.
My oldest son's Geo is a bit finicky about clutch let off. It usually takes me about ten or twenty minutes with it to regain "proficiency".:lol:
 
My best friend and I learned how to drive clutch in his step-dad's crappy old Ranger with a V6 swap (and stock inline-4 tachometer). The clutch was old and worn but very grabby and easy to stall, the tachometer read high so you had to rev "higher" when launching or before shifting, and the stick didn't have much of a centering spring so the classic mistake of shifting over and up to try to get to 3rd was even easier to make.

By the time we moved on to "normal" cars with decent clutches and shifters, it was a piece of cake.
 
I took out the PT Cruiser again today and did a hell of a lot better on it. I pretty much have the clutch learned. I only stalled one time and it was because I put the car into 3rd instead of 1st. My aunt told me she was having the same problem earlier, so I don't know what that was all about. Only other mistake I think I made was not putting on my blinker when turning on a green arrow. I was too busy downshifting and stuff, but I'll have the prescience for it next time.

That said, I wish there were some good hills without any traffic here in Florida.
 
Good point, I did notice that its a bit more flat than my area back at home...

If you can, I'd probably drive on some of those bridges and such in Ft. Lauderdale (thats where you are, right?). Good practice and such. Otherwise, I'd head out to a local mall and try it out in a parking garage.
 
YSSMAN
Good point, I did notice that its a bit more flat than my area back at home...

If you can, I'd probably drive on some of those bridges and such in Ft. Lauderdale (thats where you are, right?). Good practice and such. Otherwise, I'd head out to a local mall and try it out in a parking garage.
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key words: without traffic. The last thing I want to do is stall on a bridge. Plus, bridges don't afford you the opportunity to start from a stop.

The parking garage idea sounds nice, but, again, traffic. However, there's a big empty one here at the fashion mall. Thing is, I don't know if you're allowed to go in it because they condemned the building.
 
Gil
It is possible to stall the Ranger taking off. I did it once.
My kids that can drive a stick all learned on that Ranger.
It is a great confidence builder.
My oldest son's Geo is a bit finicky about clutch let off. It usually takes me about ten or twenty minutes with it to regain "proficiency".:lol:
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I learned on a 97 Mazda Miata, which made the learning process easy. It had a very light clutch and a smooth transmission with precise gates. The small free revving engine also made it easy to match the revs on downshifts. I got the hang of it in about 10 minutes.

Both of my cars are manual but it's an odd feeling going from one to the other. My beater car is a 96 Maxima SE and my weekend car is an 04 Mazdaspeed Miata. The Maxima's clutch pedal engagement is higher, the shifts are longer & more notchy and lastly, it's a 5 speed with reverse in teh bottom right. The Miata is a 6 speed, 6th gear being in the same spot as 5th in the Maxima so when I'm driving the Maxima, I have to think before I shift otherwise I'll kill reverse at highway speeds. lol The Miata's transmission is the exact opposite of the Maxima. The engagement is lower and more abrupt, the throws are short, very precise and smooth.
 
If u get really good u can also switch gears with out the clutch. I wouldn't recomended it tho if u dont know what ur doing.Reason being u gotta hit it at the right rpm wich is like a split second oppertunity .
 
*gasp in horror!*

CHANGE GEARS WITHOUT THE CLUTCH?!

Excuse me for the capitals, but wouldn't you like....just totally wreck the driveshaft and clutch and the gears? The conversation is generally about how to smoothly shift to preserve the clutch, gears and have a nice safe journey with a manual car.

I can see reasons for shifting without a clutch for dragstrips, but nothing else apart from that. And the car won't last long doing that....
 
Actually, you can do it without harming the transmission much. All you do is pull the transmission out of gear, match the RPM for the next gear, and gently nudge the stick until the synchros and dog teeth match up and it goes into gear.

That said, the vast majority of people have no reason to shift without the clutch the vast majority of the time. It's only useful for when you lose operation of the clutch (hydraulic failure or snapped cable), so unless that happens, just shift normally.

Anyone who jams the stick from gear to gear without the clutch for purposes of "racing" is just shortening the life of their transmission for very little time saved.
 
A dog box has all forward gears engaged with the input shaft all the time. What happens is the shifter fork, moved by the gear lever, engages the selected gear with the output shaft via splines on the shaft.

For whatever reason they are more expensive but shift more quickly than a regular manual. They're kind of between a regular manual and a sequential manual.
 
Duke
A dog box has all forward gears engaged with the input shaft all the time. What happens is the shifter fork, moved by the gear lever, engages the selected gear with the output shaft via splines on the shaft.

For whatever reason they are more expensive but shift more quickly than a regular manual. They're kind of between a regular manual and a sequential manual.
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Is that like a short throw shifter?Becuse u totaly lost me on that one buddy!
 
No, it's nothing like a short-throw shifter.
 
As I understand it, (from Duke's explanation) all the gears are on one input shaft, and the are all "semi-engaged' at the same time.
So it is a simple matter of of using the shift lever, or paddles to "fully" engage the gear of your choice.
Because of the arrangement, you can use to clutch only for starting the vehicle rolling and when coming to a complete stop.
 
Duke
A dog box has all forward gears engaged with the input shaft all the time. What happens is the shifter fork, moved by the gear lever, engages the selected gear with the output shaft via splines on the shaft.
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Maybe I'm understanding you incorrectly, but that sounds like the basics of any manual transmission. (For anyone interested, HowStuffWorks.com's Manual Transmissions article has some great diagrams that show, well, how they work. :dopey: )

The difference with dog boxes is that the collars and gears meet by the meshing of the dog teeth alone -- in other words, no synchros. What makes them different from old, synchroless roadcar transmissions is that the holes the dog teeth can engage with are elongated quite a bit, allowing the collars and gears to engage more easily (and quickly) without fully disengaging the clutch or worrying about rev-matching perfectly. This makes for a sloppier transmission, but in racing -- where throttle application is more or less on/off compared to normal driving -- it works well enough. If you're familiar with the chattering noise that racing transmissions make when you lift off of the throttle, now you know what causes it.

Speaking of racing transmission noises, the reason why they're louder than normal transmissions is because they use spur gears where a roadcar transmission would use helical gears. Spur gears are louder, but more durable.
 
Duke
A dog box has all forward gears engaged with the input shaft all the time. What happens is the shifter fork, moved by the gear lever, engages the selected gear with the output shaft via splines on the shaft.

For whatever reason they are more expensive but shift more quickly than a regular manual. They're kind of between a regular manual and a sequential manual.
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Gil
As I understand it, (from Duke's explanation) all the gears are on one input shaft, and the are all "semi-engaged' at the same time.
So it is a simple matter of of using the shift lever, or paddles to "fully" engage the gear of your choice.
Because of the arrangement, you can use to clutch only for starting the vehicle rolling and when coming to a complete stop.
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Right, it kinda sounds like one of those systems (I believe Mercedes) that would electronically engage the gear above and below the gear you were currently on, as soon as you started to shift, or at all times. For example, if you were into third, the car would also ready the fourth and second gear with their own cogs lined up and ready to receive the gear change which seemed to theoretically lead to almost no missed gear changes and a better, longer life of the gearbox.

Thinking a bit more about it, it might actually have been in F1 racing in the past year.

Am I right in thinking along those lines?
 
Guten tag! I learned how to drive manual on an 04' SVT Cobra in San Fransisco of all places.:lol: It must've taken me an hour to figure it out. It has a hydraulic clutch, which makes the clutch feel kinda fake. My personal car now is a 92' Camaro RS with a 5 speed manual. Its certainly not the best car to learn in considering that the throttle pedal is so stiff, but after a year of ownership i figured it out.:)
 
Wolfe
If you're familiar with the chattering noise that racing transmissions make when you lift off of the throttle, now you know what causes it.
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My friend has owned 2 Miata's, both which started doing the lift off chattering sound after he purchased a lighter flywheel. Do you know what could cause this? I know he has syncros.
 
Submerged
Right, it kinda sounds like one of those systems (I believe Mercedes) that ... gear changes and a better, longer life of the gearbox.

Thinking a bit more about it, it might actually have been in F1 racing in the past year.

Am I right in thinking along those lines?
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That might be VW's DSG gearbox you're thinking about. The even and odd gears are on two shafts, so while one shaft is being driven the other accelerates to match the next gear change up. When it changes gears it saves only fractions of a second but that's still enough to make a noticeable improvement in performance.
 
Perfect Balance
My friend has owned 2 Miata's, both which started doing the lift off chattering sound after he purchased a lighter flywheel. Do you know what could cause this? I know he has syncros.
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My guess would be that there's still some leeway where the dog teeth mesh with the holes, and the lower rotational momentum of the lighter flywheel allows some bouncing back and forth with a sudden throttle lift.
 
somebody
That might be VW's DSG gearbox you're thinking about. The even and odd gears are on two shafts, so while one shaft is being driven the other accelerates to match the next gear change up. When it changes gears it saves only fractions of a second but that's still enough to make a noticeable improvement in performance.
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Ah yes, that's the one. Thank you for clearing that up for me :)
 
Wolfe
My guess would be that there's still some leeway where the dog teeth mesh with the holes, and the lower rotational momentum of the lighter flywheel allows some bouncing back and forth with a sudden throttle lift.
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Well, a sudden throttle lift does it a lot more, but even when it's stopped bouncing back and forth it still does it.

I guess you could say it's not really a "chattering" sound since it only bounces back and forth when lifting off suddenly, but its kind of a "gargly" grinding sound. The same as when lifting off, but it continues until you are almost at idle rpms.
 

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