In my mustang I was able to rev up in 5th gear and drop it down to 4th. On the freeway I would be in 5th at 2rpm rev to about 3.5 and shift and had no problems.

Today in the Z I was in 5th gear going about 50mph at 2000 rpms. I reved up to about 4000 rpms and shifted in. The rpm gauge went left and right about 5 times. The clutch stayed in and released in a matter of seconds. After on the way home I had a weird smell. Did not smell like a clutch though. Not sure where it was coming from, I poped the hood and it smelt more electical than anything. Do you think I already ****ed the car up? Or is the smell growing pains?

Hopefully it settles over night.

 

Did you have the clutch fully disengaged when you 'rev'd to 4000 rpms? I'm guessing you did, and meant to say you were trying to rev match when you downshifted? Sounds to me like you burned the clutch hard. Your clutch is probably okay, but you definitely don't want to make a habit of it.

 

+1

 

sounds like the clutch from what you've described. i agree with taurran, all should be fine. let us know what happens next time you drive it.

 

Clutch....the ol' rustangs slush box can do silly things. The Z's gearbox is straight forward, be nice to it and it'll be nice to you.

 

Is 5th@50mph really 2K rpms? I thought it'd be a little higher...
Well anyways, I think if you're at 2K rpm and in 5th, and you want to drop it in 4th, revving to 4K rpm might be a little to high...i'd figure for each gear downshift its like somewhere between 600-700RPMs. But even if you revved it to 4k and dropped the clutch, I doubt it'd really burn that much for you to be able to smell...maybe the clutch got stuck or something..who knows.

 

Yeah sounds like the clutch got stuck, it's happened to me a few times unfortunately.

 

Was scary. It is a new car, I'd hate for something to already go out. Reving from 2 to 4 and shifting is obiously bad for this car. What would you reccomend?

 

So you guys are saying blipping the throttle from 2k to 4k,
4k to 6k, etc. isn't good when you rev match?

Hmmm when I watch those guys driving in Tsukuba circuit
in Best Motoring International, they rev the rpm up almost to the
redline when they do hill-and-toe downshifting.
Like when they enter the corner on third around 4-5k,
they blip the throttle to nearly redline before dropping into 2nd gear.

I'm very confused

 

Join the club. I always thought you could do that with no problems. **** you can shift from 6th to 2nd in this car.

 

And they are experts...

 

I just took the car for a spin. There are no unusual smells and seems to be shifting fine. Now I have this doubt stuck in back of my head. So everytime I drive the car is going to feel different.

 

yea u burned the clutch.... it happens to almost everyone when they drive a car they never drove for the first time...

It sounds to me like u rev-matches and then still had the clutch patrially engaged and was adding gas.

Just dont do it too much and you should be fine....

 

Engaged? As if I did not let it all the way out and gave it to much gas?

 

The 350Z is ideally suited for heal-to-toe rev matching at any RPM. But here is the key:

At every speed there is a corresponding RPM for each gear. The problem with going from 2K - 4K in his example was that 4th gear at 50mph is not 4K RPM, therefore he hadn't rev-matched. Had he popped it into 3rd gear instead of 4th, 4K would have been much more suitable RPM.

If he wanted to be really aggressive, he could have blipped it up to about ~5400 rpm and popped it into second, however, if you are going to drop into second gear at higher speeds, you better have it matched very closely or you are going to lock up your tires on the freeway!

 

That sounds fair. Do you think I caused extreme damage to the car, or it can handle it?

 

I'm not sure what really happened, what you described as a result of what you said you did is a little strange, but either way, I doubt you did much damage at all, maybe took a few thousand miles off your clutch life, but as others said, as long as you don't make a habit of it, you should be fine.

I royally cooked my clutch twice when I first had the car doing something stupid. I now have 27,000 miles on my car and the clutch is still holding strong, what you did was nothing compared to what I did. So I wouldn't worry.

 

Thanks

 

i think a simple rule is to always try and rev match. give it some time, you will get the hang of it.

 

Don't want to be the bearer of bad news but same thing happened to me about two weeks ago then last week the clutch started slipping badly. The dealer says that the clutch and flywheel are shot and need to be replaced and they consider it normal wear and tear so it is not covered by warranty and will cost me $2000. Car has 14K on it and have complained to dealer and head office with no success so off to small claims court next.