80 bucks, not bad for a set of 4. I meant 20 each. HA.

 

I always downshift and break in my Stealth. We have a problem with warping rotors though, and I have some cross drilled$ rotors on and don't want to wear them out. I have not noticed any clutch wear. I did it that way in my 4 Runner and Dodge Shadow also, and have never worn out a clutch.

 

In a modern car you should only use the brakes for slowing or stopping. The drive train (engine/trans) is not for slowing the car.

The only reason to down shift is to be in the correct gear as you acclerate out of a corner. You need to be able to heel & toe to do that correctly.

For example, you approach turn 11 at Sears Point in fourth at full throttle. When you hit your brake marker, you brake hard with your "toes" and blip the throttle with your "heel". (I actually use the side of my foot.) Then shift into second and roll back on the throttle.

You don't go from fourth to third to second. That only takes longer to do. Use the brakes to slow the car.

If you were driving or racing a 1955 Whateveritis then you would use the drive train to slow down because 1955 brakes were very poor.

 

Right on. The "big boys" are braking waaaay too hard in order to get any compression braking to help. They heel-and-toe in the braking zone because it is the only opportunity to downshift without upsetting the car.

I disagree with your statement about compression braking on the street. I find using heel-and-toe everyday to work keeps me in shape for the track. Plus, in the Z, it sounds sooo cool.
I can't stand brakelight-happy people...only use the brakes for when you really have to slow down. Yeah, it may put some extra wear on the driveline, but in the 200,000 miles most cars see, it won't be that bad.

 

I drive mountain roads alot and want to speed corner the right way.

Are you saying brake(only) into the curve until your revs are low enough to downshift and accellerate out of the curve. That is, no clutch and downshift used to decellerate the car at all???

Now I tend to use the brake and then the lower gear to slow down going into the curve-guess this is wrong.

 

I TOTALLY agree.

 

HE GUY'S BRAKE MATERIAL IE: PADS ARE VERY EASY AND RELATIVELY INEXPENSIVE TO REPLACE......AND YES IT FEELS GREAT AND SOUNDS AWESOME TO D/S.....LET YOUR WALLET GUIDE YOU.

 

I think I confused you. What I'm saying is that your brakes better be doing the majority of the work during a downshift if you're gonna plow into a corner. If I have to slow up a bit to keep from running into slower traffic on a straight road, I'll just rev-match and downshift otherwise.

Downshifting alone causes only the rear tires to do the braking, and physics tells us this is bad, even if you're going in a straight line (the car becomes an unstable system). Here's the break down when braking into a corner while just downshifting (no brakes):
1) After the downshift, the rear tires want to slow down because the engine is acting like a giant air-compressor. This causes the weight of the car to "shift" forward. This is good in that the front tires (used for turning) now have more traction because they have a higher normal (downward) force and flatten out a little for a bigger footprint.
2) Since the weight transferred forward, the rear tires are now unloaded (smaller footprint) plus the engine is trying to slow the car with them. Pretty similar to pulling the hand-brake.
3) This situation really causes the car to wanna turn like a "******"...which may sound good, but is really bad since the car will 'over'-turn (oversteer) and go into a spin or drift. You don't have a lot of control in either case.

Don't buy it? Well, try going around a corner and rip the hand-brake...you'll see what I'm talking about. It really should be avoided, so ALWAYS use the brakes when going into a turn because it stabilizes the car instead.

One note: FWDs are a little different since they can compression brake with the front tires. For this reason (and others) it is quite hard to oversteer with them. The only way I can get my Cavalier to oversteer is to a) pull the hand-brake or b) trail brake into the corner. Both simulate the condition stated above.

 

Understand that road driving isn't racing, but many of these things still apply.

If you are racing, you finish braking and downshifting before you start to turn, on your average turn.* Remember this: Brake, Shift, Steer.

If you can blend the braking and shifting together, you can enter the turn that little bit sooner (though not necessarily at a higher speed), because you were able to finish braking and shifting in less time, allowing you to start braking later.

*The exception to this would be where you intend to use some slight braking into the turn, to shift the weight transfer onto the front wheels reducing understeer around a very tight bend. But even in that case, you finish your speed reduction braking before entering the turn, and use only slight braking for the weight transfer.

Remember, it's not how fast you enter the turn that counts, it's how fast you exit.

Understand I'm no expert on this, but this is the stuff they teach us amateurs. :-)

 

I WAS an avid downshifter until i read this post. Time to start rev matching and heal/toe-ing it!!! Thanks all!

Great thread