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On my car, I find the shift lever to be very communicative. If you use just the right touch, you can feel the synchros at work, and the shift lever will just fall into place when the rpm is matched to the target rpm of the gear you're selecting. If you rush it, you can feel the synchros working harder, and the shift lever will tend to make a "clunk" or "click" sound. But if you give the synchros a little time to do their work, your upshift will be silent, smooth, perfect.
For downshifts at speed, I like to double-clutch. Here's an example of a 5th to 3rd downshift:
1- foot off the gas
2- press in the clutch
3- move shift lever into neutral
4- release the clutch
5- blip the throttle to bring the engine rpm up to approximately where it would be in third gear
6- press in the clutch
7- move shift lever into third
8- release the clutch
9- accelerate/decelerate as needed using the throttle
If you master this, your downshifts will be buttery smooth, and your synchros will last longer.
This is probably overkill, though, in a car with a fully synchronized transmission. You can simply blip the throttle in the middle of the downshift (skipping the intermediate shift into neutral) to achieve the same smoothness.
Another thing I like to do (when shifting into reverse) is to pause for a second or two after pressing in the clutch before actually moving the shift lever into reverse. Although reverse is fully synchronized, the pause makes life easier for the reverse synchro. You can actually feel the decreased resistance moving the lever into reverse!
On cars without a reverse synchro, selecting a forward gear (not fifth) before reverse will prevent a "crunch".
Happy shifting...
Jason
'02 Aero
posted by 192.160.13...
, Fri, 4 Oct 2002 17:23:12, Fri, 4 Oct 2002 11:32:39
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