Hey there my fellow Canuck, 1st gear is your friend in the snow. Plus 1st gear pulls much better when crawling.

Someone explain to me why it is bad to downshift to 1st please.

Mark

 

With modern transmissions the only one I could think of is that for beginning drivers or someone that's new to driving stick it might be too easy to overrev the engine.

 

Its not a bad thing - in fact it is a very good thing.

If you do not come to a complete stop, what puts more strain on the drivetrain (assuming your car has 4 people in it and some shopping and you are going up hill) ?

1) Slipping the clutch in 2nd gear at 6mph and trying to get the car to accelerate up the hill ?

2) A smooth (rev matched ?) change into first, minimal clutch slip and smooth acceleration up to the point that 2nd gear makes sense ?

I habititually rev-match (heel and toe) and I make a point of ensuring that I am in the appropriate gear at all times, if that means that I need to drop to 1st, I drop to 1st.

Now, way back in the old days, some cars did not have a synchromesh on 1st gear to cut costs and complexity, the only way to drop to first was via double-de-clutching and judicious rev-matching, something that is somewhat complex for the average driver, rather than attempt to teach this, it was easier to say that you should not attempt to change into 1st while moving. Virtually every car manufactured in the last 20 years or so (no, not all, I am aware of at least two exceptions, neither of which are Mini's) has synchro on first gear, this advice is now seriously out-of-date.

 

Thats like saying you should never, ever, ever change down a gear ever, you might over-rev the engine

Guess what happens if you select 2nd at 75mph ?

Just about exactly the same as is you select 1st at 50mph

I have noticed that the idea of sequence changing is no longer taught and that the new trend is for 'block' changing - whereby you do just one task at a time - eg brake, then block change from (say) 6th to 2nd for a corner.

Personally I dislike this method for the simple reason that it does make it more likely that you will choose the wrong gear, sequential changes make more sense to me, because I am a biker and on a bike you have no choice, you have to follow the pattern and change one gear at a time, also you tend to use a little engine braking. In a car I took the habit over and it really does work for me.

My step-son blocks his changes and I find it incredibly disconcerting when we are approaching a corner and he is fumbling for the correct gear, especially when the corner appears to be somewhere between a 2nd and 3rd gear one. I would rather be safely in 3rd prior to the apex than still hunting for second 100yds later

 

hey can someone explain wat double clutching is? isnt it when your in gear and u cluth to get out of gear then clutch agian to get into gear?

i rarely go into first gear when the car is rolling,unless im going uphill or i want to have some fun(race).

i do use engine brake a lot because it makes braking a lot smoother and faster(or slower in terms of car speed).

i do rev match when downshifting when i want the ride to be comfortable(driving with mommy)

when i want to have some fun,i dont rev match, the jerk feels more like 'spirited driving' and its fun to scare people out of no where when your on the freeway and the car jerks, probably not good for the tranny and cluth.

when i shift gears like going from first to second, i first 'feather' the gas(if thats the correct term) so i can pull it out of gear without any force really need on the shift ****. while in the process of doing that, i press on the cluth and put it into gear(notice i do it right after each other but i dont actually use the cluth to pull it out of gear.)

i notice this allows me to shift a lot faster and with my old gsr, it doesnt make that noise(or feel like theres a 2 notch instead of one) when going into gear quickly.

i think it puts less stress on the cluth and flywheel because when disengage the cluth from the flywheel, both of them are rotating at the same speed, the car is not acclerating or engine braking;therefore, i think there will be no friction or less which wears down the clutch.

the shifts also feel a lot smoother, no jerk.
well thats my reasoning, anyone correct me if im wrong

 

the previous post, i put spaces between the sentences cuz i ws reading it myself and it was soo hard to read, im not really comment a lot so i dont know about spacing haha. newb here

 

I hope you are using the word "race" in a track context

Mark

 

wat other context is there for race? hahah like ethnicity??

 

I've driven a few vehicles where it was necessary... but never got the feel for it enough to do it quickley. Picking the right points to shift and matching revs seems to work just fine.

As far as wear and tear... there are a few other things in the R56 tranny that I think will go "BOOM!" before the syncros or gear teeth, so I'm not worried about it, myself.

 

Well but you'd still be in the legal speed limit when overreving in first gear. I'm just saying it's more likely for someone that doesn't know how to drive stick to think, oh i'm only doing 40mph, I'll just slow down by throwing it into first.