Hi all, the gears i'm particularly talking about is a 6th to 4th downshift. Although i don't race, when i'm driving home at night and there's no traffic, i like to practice my down shifting. 6th to 5th, 5th to 4th and 6th to 4th. I am having the most difficult time going from 6th to 4th because it always feels like it's being blocked or i'm hitting something.
It never engages smoothly and sometimes i even enter 2nd. I was wondering if it's just me or if others find the same difficulty.
P.S. I only feel this restriction or difficulty when the car is under load. if i'm in my car with it off or on but at a stop i can go through all the gears in any order without any difficulty at all.. please shed some light on this thank you.

 

lol.... are you rev matching?

 

downshifting will always be a lil harder under high speeds or rapid acceleration. I'm sure everything is fine Dropping 2 gears especially from 6 to 4th is a bit of a jump since thats your cruising gear

 

Yes I always rev match hehe.

 

Edit: nevermind

 

My only advice is to that you should go from 6th to 5th then from 5th gear you can go into any gear without problem, granted that you are rev matching.

If I am not mistaking 6th the only gear that doesnt use the synchros, so skipping from that gear will cause the problems.

After all 6th is just a large cruising gear, its not one that is use in spirited driving, jumping around up or down from 2-5th gears have never been a problem for me. When just cruising around I dont jump any gears, so I have never experienced what your talking about, and cruising around is the only time I ever use 6th

 

ic i understand what you're saying. for me whenever i'm on the freeway and at least 60 mph I always drive in 6th gear to save gas. but if i'm planning on downshifting then i shall try it from 5th gear. thx.

 

Ok , i dont know if you guys refer to rev-matching as some people refer to double-cluching or simply both terms have the same meaning, but however, my 07' does not have any problems downshifting, but rarely has problems upshifting from 1st to 2nd when the car is cold. I do downshift alot and i double cluch it. works perfectly, 6th to 3rd, 4th to 2nd, F*** it if i need to pass i do it as i down shift, so everybody can hear me, probaly that is the reason why my second gear grinds OFTEN,

 

+1. You need to double clutch whenever skipping any gears during a shift. I usually double clutch from first to second and sometimes second to third.

 

I'd find it hard to go from 6th to 4th myself. Just awkward to do.

Double clutching is NOT necessary.

 

Double clutching and rev matching are not the same

Double clutching was needed before transmissions had synchros, even then only race cars really need to do such a thing. It is pointless to do this in a modern car

however rev matching is a important thing to do and learn.

rev matching--clutch in, rev to correct rpms while selecting gear, clutch out

double clutching-clutch in, change to neutral, clutch out, rev to correct rpms, clutch in, select gear, clutch out.

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To the OP, am not saying you cant shift from 6th to 4th, I do that from time to time when I pass, just be aware that you must rev higher then the miles and rpm require for 4th and ease out on the clutch. If you simply trying to drop into 4th from 6th, I think your problem your experiencing is due to the fact that 6th doest use the synchros.

 

Yep. Not necessary at all. Skipping gears is not the best thing for your synchros. On my car, I avoid doing that.

 

Going from 6th to 4th is a little tricky and takes some practice. It’s much easier to go 6th to 5th to 4th, and truthfully you can get there almost as fast going through 6th directly to 4th gear. Usually, I run in 6th gear on the expressway, but I go down to 5th for its torque when I know I may want to get to 4th gear quickly.

I always rev-match for smooth downshifts (I guess you could call this double-clutching, but that’s a different discussion and I agree with comments here that say double-clutching is not the same as rev-matching).

--Spike

 

5th and 6th gear both have single cone synchros... even if 6th didn't have a synchro that wouldn't have anything to do with getting out of gear and into another.

 

^^ +1 and good point. I was confused by his post since synchro has nothing to do with leaving a gear.

--Spike

 

Double clutching while downshifting can save the synchros some work if done properly. Although the synchro lets you get into gear without double clutching, the closer the revs are matched before going into gear the less resistance you will feel (i.e. the less work the synchros are doing).

 

rev-matching is pointless, what does it do ? helps you feel less resistance from the engine, the whole secret is locked behind the double cluching if you ask me, it saves the synchros, and also matches the rpms if you are good enough. is it needed? not on new cars, i agree, but if you consider yourself a well rounded driver, i wont say a good driver, you need to master the double cluching, personally , i double cluch alot, it is a habit, so whenever i downshift, i do it.

 

Well without a synchromesh to bring the selector and gear to the same speed, they are prevented by a baulk from making contact. When synchronization occurs the blocker ring is moved, and bring everything in alignment. In case it would have something to do with a gear change

Even if 6th does have a synchro, a drop into 4th would require that his rpm be fairly high to match properly, otherwise you would experienced the blocking of 4th gear that the OP mentioned.

but maybe I am talking out my ***, its late and am tried

 

What?...I don't usually bash people but you have no idea what your talking about...

and double clutching IS rev matching. except double clutching is done in double the amount of steps.

 

That’s what I’m thinking, but maybe I am missing something here. My understanding of rev-matching is depressing the clutch (and therefore the transmission is in neutral), blipping the throttle to up the engine speed (rpm’s), and shifting to the lower gear while engaging the clutch.

Double-clutching is very different. That is something I had to do on my old
Dodge PowerWagon which had no synchromesh. Whether I was up-shifting or down-shifting, I had to double-clutch. If I started out in 1st gear, I had to shift into neutral, rev-match the engine to the tranny, depress the clutch while doing this, and select the next up-gear. If I did it right, it went smoothly. If I missed, the transmission would grind and stubbornly refuse dropping into the gear I selected. Down-shifts presented the same challenge.

You don’t have to do this exercise with the Z since it has synchromesh in all forward gears. You simply depress the clutch pedal, blip the accelerator for a nice rev-match, shift, and release the clutch pedal.

--Spike