hey, im kinda confused about the order of rev match and downshift. is this it?

clutch, blip, shift...but do u keep ur foot on the gas? or let it go after u shift it? then let go of clutch while applying gas to make a smooth shift? cuz what i did was i clutch, blip, shift, kept foot on gas and let go of clutch and it was a bumpy shift. so im not quite sure.

 

you depress clutch, blip gas, release gas, shift, release clutch, reapply gas as needed.

At least thats how i do it, and my dshifts seem smooth to me.

 

No, everytime you shift and your clutch is engaged you should not have any gas applied. Only apply a little gas while letting go the clutch in first gear. If you let the clutch slip everytime you shift it will eat up your clutch, also this slipping is going to slow down your acceleration.
So: let go the gaspedal while stepping on the clutch, shift gear (UP OR DOWN), then let go of the clutch and step on the gas...
It's that simple.
I'm from Europe and pretty much all the cars have MT...

 

Can you elaborate on what you mean by letting the clutch slip?

 

That's slowly letting go on the clutch, while applying gas. If you do it that way the clutch is "slipping", compared to let go on the clutch faster and not applying gas...

I hope this will explain it.

Greetz

 

If you blip the throttle right before you release the clutch, you get the engine revs closer to what the wheels are doing through the drivetrain. If you are slowing down rapidly, say, to enter a corner, and you don't try to rev match, you can upset the balance of the car. That, when entering a corner is what we call "bad".

Slipping the clutch will wear out your clutch faster. This is not what he is asking about, though.

I'm not the best at rev-matching and/or heel-toe shifting (which is a method of rev matching), but there is a reason to try to blip the throttle to get the revs closer to what they'll be as you release the clutch into the lower gear if you are decelerating quickly.

 

DutchZ misunderstood your question, I think ... you are talking about downshifting, right?

MannishBoy and I would do it the same. The only thing I would add to his post is a bit about "modulating" the throttle, or keeping the rpm at an appropriate level to help the revs match so the natural tendency of the engine to return to idle, and the natural tendency of the clutch to drag it down even faster, and the natural tendency of the differential to jerk it back up .... can all be evened out by "just enough" throttle to keep the front end pieces spinning as fast as the back end pieces.

So: clutch, blip if you want (no real need with modern synchromesh) and shift, apply gentle throttle and hold it steady (listen to it!) as you re=engage the clutch. You'll get it with practice and know you did it right if it feels pretty smooth.

Now all of this only gets complicated if you want to speed shift or are doing it in racing conditions, but you don't want to practice that stuff (heel n toe, trail braking, and so on) until you've pretty much mastered going from 4-3, 3-2 on the street.

Good luck. J

 

Once you push the clutch pedal in and disengage engine from tranny, engine revs will drop if you let off the gas. Since you're braking with one foot and clutching with the other, you can't keep a foot on the gas (unless you can heal-toe). So, you blip to bring the engine rpms back up in order to attempt to match the engine rpms with the tranny rpms before you re-engage in the lower gear (when you let off, the engine rpms dropped but the tranny is still spinning much faster with your drive wheels). You can also just hold the gas pedal to the matched rpms, if you can get your right foot free, and then let out the clutch pedal. I don't think it matters when you move the shifter to the lower gear, as long as the clutch is still disengaged (pedal in). Move the Shifter when its convenient to get your hand free in the turn and as long as the clutch is disengaged.

If you have a good match, as you let the clutch out, the tranny and the engine engage smoothly. There's no jerking as the load and engine re-engage. If you don't have a good rev match, you have to slip the clutch slowly letting it engage in order to avoid a jerk and possible loss of adhesion. As Manishboy said, loosing adhesion in a turn is not good and as DutchZ said, slipping the clutch causes it to wear quicker.

If you keep the gas pedal pressed to the floor (power shifting), when you disengage the clutch, engine rpms will shoot up as the load comes off, so you must shift and re-engage the load very quickly. If you're to slow, engine rpms will be to high for the tranny speed and the opposite mis-match occurs. As you re-engage the clutch, the racing engine "bogs down" under the re-engaged load and the car jerks.

I've found that a little rev matching on the upshift is sometimes needed especially in traffic. If you've disengaged the clutch and let the engine speed drop for awhile and traffic begins to move, you may need a little gas to get rpms back up before smoothly re-engaging the clutch even going to a higher gear.

That's my opinion.