Transitions (up and down) should be smooth. We have talked about downshifting and blipping the throttle. The blip is almost imperceptible. For up shifting, the clutch is released slowly while the gas is depressed slowly.

Casual driving should be smooth and effortless. After a couple of hundred thousand miles practice, it comes natural.

 

Rev-matching is your friend; for both upshifts and downshifts. Learn it, practice it, and your shifts will be as smooth as those on an automatic.

P.S: Wikipedia has info on rev-matching.

 

Nice wheels!

I think you got the idea. sabrefanpc’s training exercise is a good one. Don’t hesitate to try it.

Make sure you rest your left foot on the foot rest and not on the clutch pedal. That can cause premature wear on the clutch assembly and is not a good practice.

Also, most turns are made in second gear. No coasting in neutral or with your foot all the way on the clutch. You have to get comfortable with the car in gear with the engine driving the wheels. You will use the gas pedal eventually to learn and vary the front to rear weight distribution to tighten or widen your turn. So get this out of your way immediately. Clutch in, shift, clutch out and back to the foot rest.

No need to “anticipate” your gear shift either. Both hands on the steering, your right hand goes to the shifter only when you do your shift. Don’t rest it on the stick as it causes your synchro forks to wear. Passenger’s leg is fine to rest your hand when cruisin’ of course…

Don’t worry about rev-matching, double clutching and such for the moment. It will just get you distracted and these are not techniques you need on the street. Tons of topics have been written on the subject.

 

Thanks. Nothing like the fit and style of OEM! A little paint to make it unique.

Well, acually a have tracked my car on a few ocassions with low levels of success. So, this techniques as well as heel and toe are needed for me. I will try the exercise.

 

If your still confused about the whole "slipping thing" this is pretty good.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/clutch.htm

 

DRIVING STICK (COOK BOOK) 1st edition :

1. Stick key in key hole
2. Put gear in neutral and hold clutch in and start the car.
3. Hold clutch in, put gear in first.
4. Without applying any gas, release clutch slowly and find (what i like to call) the "SWEETSPOT"

SWEETSPOT: When the car starts to vibrate and you feel the engine is going to shut off.

5. REMEBER THE SWEETSPOT!
6. Apply 2k-2.5k of RPM, continually releasing the clutch
8. At around 3K-3.5K of rpm, while releasing the gas apply the clutch change to the next gear and repeat steps 4-5.
7. Drive safe and make sure you have the hand brake released :P

 

I’m all the way OFF the clutch way before 2k !!! Giving gas as your release is a plan to cook your clutch really fast.

If you must give it gas, get the rpm between 1k-1,3000 rpm and hold it there. Get the clutch to partially engage and let the speed build until the clutch actually locks and the car is no longer accelerating. Then you may give more throttle. But not before the clutch has stopped slipping!

With practice, you’ll be OFF the clutch pretty much at the same time you start to give it some gas. All that will happen below 1k rpm…

 

Very good points by kolia about not going around corners in neutral... using the dead pedal instead of resting your foot on the clutch, and keeping both hands on the wheel instead of using the shifter as a hand rest.

In this particular instance I would not say that rev-matching should be saved for later. No better time than now! Failing to revmatch is just as bad as ignoring any of the 3 rules above. I would guess 90% of manual drivers constantly violate at least 1 of the above 3 rules, and even a lot of them already know how to revmatch. The main thing about smooth shifting is simply good timing. Once you know how to revmatch, your shifts should become a lot smoother simply because you will understand exactly what needs to happen (and when) for a smooth shift (up or down) without beating on your clutch or pissing off your passengers.

 

whoa! thanks for all the replies and advice. i suppose the problem is that i do think about shifting way to much still and even though i know where the engagement point is i over think the shift with either too much gas or not enough. ill probably try shortening the clutch with that one thread because its way too long before it come to the engagement point, for me anyways.

also ive always wanted to autox or something because it seems to be of a bit help in learning how to drive stick....or am i wrong? thats the impression ive got from reading threads around here.

thanks a lot guys....any more advice and opinions are still welcome even though most of the posts here seem to cover a lot of ground

 

As members have mentioned, casual shifting becomes automatic, effortless. Your statement about over thinking reminds me of downhill skiing. Its possible to over think the run: your brain is filled with a dozen techniques that you are trying to incorporate. Usually the results are poor. Stop thinking, feel the snow, and react naturally.

Autocross is helpful because everything happens fast, and the results of mistakes are easy to recognize. If the front of the car is plowing through turns, then you know immediately to pick-up the front.

Open road racing is a bit different. Stuff happens fast because the car is going fast. Many turns are long enough to give you time for moderate corrections. HPDE courses may mark the entrance and exit points for you. If you get the line wrong, you have the next lap to get it right.

Members may disagree but all racing techniques are used on the street. They are a bit more conservative, but invaluable.

Enjoy the ride.

 

okay so i adjusted my ride height and shifts are a lot easier and a lot more smoother....but now i have a high pitched whine when decelerating in 2nd and 3rd....and i dotn remember if it did that before....but i remember my friend mentioning it to me when he test drove my car.....any ideas?


and thanks davidv for your words of wisdom .....i love reading your posts both the good and bad sounding ones theyre always helpful

 

...and funny. Since you have been such an influence for all of us (davidv, that is) maybe you can post a picture yourself. Don't go putting no Ricky Martin pictures cause we'll know you're lying. And no pictures from the 80's. We know your age. We want a new 2006 one.

I know, pictures are posted in the "Off Topic" section...

 

I find it that the hardest part is getting out of first smoothly for me. Usually holding the gas around 1K rpm and releasing the clutch at the "perfect" timing will get you rolling as smooth as an auto. Taking a second or two pause while shifting and releasing clutch waiting for the RPM to drop and slow releasing the clutch is the smoothest for me. (Granny shifting at 2K you'll have to shift fast, but at 3K+ this applies ) Always feels good when you found that sweet shift. I feel great when I can shift into 2nd smoothly. Most the time a fast shift or a very slow shift into second makes a loud annoying clunk noise. But if you pause 1-2seconds and shift into second slowly its smooth as butter.

Lol You guys know your shifting smooth when your passengers head doesnt bobble backward and forward. I found that as my motivation to drive smoothly. But its pretty damn funny to see a girls head move back and forth XD.

 

learn anything yet? lol u have soooooooooo much advice here

 

yeah he did

 

hahaha i knooooooooooow these guys are great on the forums i actually did the clutch length mod today and drove around all day after i read everyoens advice, just feeling out the new clutch length and figuring what i might be doing wrong if i had a habit or not and trying to get off smooth in first, which by the way is a lot more easier with the clutch length a lot shorter.....shifts seemed smoother since i didnt have that whole time of the clutch length to think about when the engagement point was coming, cuz i knew where it was and it came faster and overall everything was jsut great today

thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanks a bunch again for all your guys' advice

 

hahaha good idea

 

Take it from someone that has done scores of clutch installs ---Smooth shifting has its place--Notherwords going from one gear to another as if it were an automatic. For one it teachs u good hand to foot coordination. But ur not driving Mrs Daisy and if u want ur clutch to hold up for a long time once u get rolling engage and disengage smartly. No slip, No wear. I have 52,000 on my JWT and I dont baby my car--I drive hard. My Ford Diesel F350 had 175,000 on it and both are just as tite as the day I installed them.
The clutch in my Z was shot when I bought it with 15,000 miles on it ---and he was a Smooth Shifter, He was real proud of it.

 

Proper shifting is smooth and clutchwork is swift. The clutchwork with improper smooth shifting is sloowwwwww and drawn out to make up for the poor timing/mismatched speeds.

If your shifting is herky-jerky... or you have to let the clutch out reallll slowww to get a smooth shift.... chances are you aren't doing something quite right.

 

I have an 2006 6MT. I noticed that the difference between each gear is about 500RPM. So if you shift from 1st to 2nd, for example, while at 3000RPM, the engine speed will drop to 2500RPM. If you shift from 2nd to 3rd at 3500RPM, the revs will drop to 3000RPM. The same applies when down shifting but the RPM will rise by 500RPM.

Therefore, to get a perfect upshift or downshift, decrease or increase, respectively, the RPM by 500 just before releasing the clutch. If you are able to do that, it doesn't matter how fast or smooth you release the clutch.

I hope that was clear.