How do YOU downshift?
01-13-2011, 11:28 AM
#1
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Thread Starter
How do YOU downshift?
This is for the 6MT owners out there.
G37 is my first manual car, over the months, I learned how to drive manual and gotten pretty smooth at it(upshifting mostly). One of the problem I have is downshifting swiftly.
What is your sequence when you downshift? here is what I do.
1. clutch+shift down in 1 movement
2. blip the throttle(usually spikes up by 1000+rpm)
3. wait for the rpm to drop down to the appropriate speed(obviously still at a higher point before downshifting), let go of clutch smoothly.
Although this is not slow(1-2 seconds), what do you speedshifter out there do to achieve <1 sec downshifts and still remain smooth?
G37 is my first manual car, over the months, I learned how to drive manual and gotten pretty smooth at it(upshifting mostly). One of the problem I have is downshifting swiftly.
What is your sequence when you downshift? here is what I do.
1. clutch+shift down in 1 movement
2. blip the throttle(usually spikes up by 1000+rpm)
3. wait for the rpm to drop down to the appropriate speed(obviously still at a higher point before downshifting), let go of clutch smoothly.
Although this is not slow(1-2 seconds), what do you speedshifter out there do to achieve <1 sec downshifts and still remain smooth?
Last edited by lzzhang10; 01-13-2011 at 02:24 PM.
01-13-2011, 11:40 AM
#2
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Location: Saint charles, Missouri
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This is for the 6MT owners out there.
G37 is my first manual car, over the months, I learned how to drive manual and gotten pretty smooth at it(upshifting mostly). One of the problem I have is downshifting swiftly.
What is your sequence when you downshift? here is what I do.
1. clutch+shift down in 1 movement
2. blitz the throttle(usually spikes up by 1000+rpm)
3. wait for the rpm to drop down to the appropriate speed(obviously still at a higher point before downshifting), let go of clutch smoothly.
Although this is not slow(1-2 seconds), what do you speedshifter out there do to achieve <1 sec downshifts and still remain smooth?
G37 is my first manual car, over the months, I learned how to drive manual and gotten pretty smooth at it(upshifting mostly). One of the problem I have is downshifting swiftly.
What is your sequence when you downshift? here is what I do.
1. clutch+shift down in 1 movement
2. blitz the throttle(usually spikes up by 1000+rpm)
3. wait for the rpm to drop down to the appropriate speed(obviously still at a higher point before downshifting), let go of clutch smoothly.
Although this is not slow(1-2 seconds), what do you speedshifter out there do to achieve <1 sec downshifts and still remain smooth?
01-13-2011, 11:42 AM
#3
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Thread Starter
Do you really need to downshift in less than a second on the street? Im not even sure you can speedshift and get it as smooth as I think your talking about. rev-matching is pretty much the only way I can think of for getting as smooth as downshift as possible. Obviously the better you are at it the smoother it will become. But as far as racing or tracking the car smooth really isnt in the picture
Just trying to see if anyone has tips on shifting faster, at least similar to the automatics(possible?) haha .
01-13-2011, 11:46 AM
#4
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The faster you shift the more wear and tear your going to cause on the transmission. Rev-matching is the best way and it just takes time to get fast at it. Dont cause yourself to go to fast to cause the gears to grind and to miss gears.
01-13-2011, 11:55 AM
#6
Registered User
Thread Starter
haha this is how i measure the smoothness of my driving
01-13-2011, 02:23 PM
#7
This is for the 6MT owners out there.
G37 is my first manual car, over the months, I learned how to drive manual and gotten pretty smooth at it(upshifting mostly). One of the problem I have is downshifting swiftly.
What is your sequence when you downshift? here is what I do.
1. clutch+shift down in 1 movement
2. blitz the throttle(usually spikes up by 1000+rpm)
3. wait for the rpm to drop down to the appropriate speed(obviously still at a higher point before downshifting), let go of clutch smoothly.
Although this is not slow(1-2 seconds), what do you speedshifter out there do to achieve <1 sec downshifts and still remain smooth?
G37 is my first manual car, over the months, I learned how to drive manual and gotten pretty smooth at it(upshifting mostly). One of the problem I have is downshifting swiftly.
What is your sequence when you downshift? here is what I do.
1. clutch+shift down in 1 movement
2. blitz the throttle(usually spikes up by 1000+rpm)
3. wait for the rpm to drop down to the appropriate speed(obviously still at a higher point before downshifting), let go of clutch smoothly.
Although this is not slow(1-2 seconds), what do you speedshifter out there do to achieve <1 sec downshifts and still remain smooth?
And keep in mind that rev-matching like that will actually preserve the life of your clutch and sychronizers because you're really pretty much taking them out of the equation when you down shift like that.
Last edited by MSCA; 01-14-2011 at 07:17 AM.
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01-13-2011, 03:28 PM
#9
Right, but once you get really good at it, you can do it by feel/sound alone. I don't even look at my speedometer or tachometer when I down shift.
01-13-2011, 03:35 PM
#10
The way you're doing it is called single clutching. A even better way to do it is to double clutch to reduce any possible wear on your synchros.
I usually do this in about a second:
-clutch in
-shift to neutral
-clutch out
-blip around 2k rpm (this really depends on gear, the lower the gear the higher you need to blip) <-- called the rev match
- clutch in
-shift to the lower gear and clutch out
A smooth shift depends on whether you can get the engine and transmission to be at the same speed during shifting.
Reason why double clutching is better is because when you blip while in neutral, the engine and transmission are still connected and it helps to match both of their speeds before you downshift. Single clutching on the other hand relies more on the clutch to match the speeds and produces some wear and tear to your clutch if you blip it wrong or you will produce wear on your synchros if you try to force it into gear too fast.
I usually do this in about a second:
-clutch in
-shift to neutral
-clutch out
-blip around 2k rpm (this really depends on gear, the lower the gear the higher you need to blip) <-- called the rev match
- clutch in
-shift to the lower gear and clutch out
A smooth shift depends on whether you can get the engine and transmission to be at the same speed during shifting.
Reason why double clutching is better is because when you blip while in neutral, the engine and transmission are still connected and it helps to match both of their speeds before you downshift. Single clutching on the other hand relies more on the clutch to match the speeds and produces some wear and tear to your clutch if you blip it wrong or you will produce wear on your synchros if you try to force it into gear too fast.
Last edited by Ken; 01-13-2011 at 03:45 PM.
01-13-2011, 03:39 PM
#11
Registered User
Thread Starter
The way you're doing it is called single clutching. A even better way to do it is to double clutch to reduce any possible wear on your synchros.
I usually do this in about a little over a second:
-clutch in
-shift to neutral
-clutch out
-blip around 2k rpm (this really depends on gear, the lower the gear the higher you need to blip) <-- called the rev match
- clutch in
-shift to the lower gear
Reason why double clutching is better is because when you blip while in neutral, the engine and transmission are still connected and it helps to match both of their speeds before you downshift. Single clutching on the other hand relies more on the clutch to match the speeds and produces some wear and tear to your clutch if you blip it wrong or produce wear on your synchros if you try to force it into gear too fast.
I usually do this in about a little over a second:
-clutch in
-shift to neutral
-clutch out
-blip around 2k rpm (this really depends on gear, the lower the gear the higher you need to blip) <-- called the rev match
- clutch in
-shift to the lower gear
Reason why double clutching is better is because when you blip while in neutral, the engine and transmission are still connected and it helps to match both of their speeds before you downshift. Single clutching on the other hand relies more on the clutch to match the speeds and produces some wear and tear to your clutch if you blip it wrong or produce wear on your synchros if you try to force it into gear too fast.
01-13-2011, 04:37 PM
#15
When downshifting, double clutching isn't necessary at all because you are increasing the revs to match the faster speed (higher RPM) from the lower gear that you are shifting into. In other words, if you blip the throttle perfectly, you won't use the synchros at all because the shaft speeds inside the transmission will be equal.