how do you drive manual properly?

[Viscount]

Although mine isn't turbo I think my say is still valid. I just downchange at the start to get me down to a lower speed (say around 40kph). During this I'll rev match to decrease engine wear (accelerating slightly as you change down the gear in order to match the target rev range of the gear - for eg. say you are going 50 in 3rd which on my car would be around 2500 rpm, if I change to 4th after braking slightly, say around 40 and change down, I'll rev to around 3000 rpm which is the rough rev level of 40 kph in 2nd - this will stop the car from jolting or the engine from being revved to frequently). Once I get to around 20 kph I'll just put the car into neutral to give my left foot a rest when I've stopped.

[DAN00H]

some strange driving styles here.... I use what ever i feel like!, sometimes coast to lights in netural - what do you think happens in an AUTO!!! (some people said is bad to coast!!!) Don't forget it is possible to blow the engine on downshifts (rev limiters can't prevent over rev on downshift.....)

[doxximus]

i downshift in ever car i drive.

the colt is the best because you can almost feel the engine dislodge

[KIL.08S]

I like to upshift at about 4K just as the turbo is coming onto boost.

Downshift, i usually heel toe and will keep it in gear all the time (don't roll to the lights in neurtral). I like to heal toe just cause the car rides smoother and the syncro's seem to take less abuse.

[Yotis]

some strange driving styles here.... I use what ever i feel like!, sometimes coast to lights in netural - what do you think happens in an AUTO!!! (some people said is bad to coast!!!) Don't forget it is possible to blow the engine on downshifts (rev limiters can't prevent over rev on downshift.....)

Agreed that you drive whichever way you feel comfortable with, however puttin it in neutral is definely a bad practice what mcnamg mentioned is a very good example. Also if you dont agree how about when you go for your manual license put your car into neutral when you are slowly stopping

As to your statement of AUTO!!! Are you saying that it shifts to neutral automatically? :confused: if so then why is there a neutral gear that you have to "shift" to, if you want to put the car in neutral?

Oh yer. when I drive a manual I do use the gears and brake to slow down the vehicle to a halt. Also downshift going into and out of a corner as well.. just a habit I guess. This is going to sound weird but I also do the same thing in triptronic cars. :Paranoid:

My 2c worth.

[Bass Junky]

Actually, in racing situations, a lot of the time cars wont down change unless they are sequencial gearboxes.

The car's are set up to brake with the braking balance, and adding the engine into that upsets the balance.

A V8 supercar will brake to the required speed, pick the appropriate gear for that speed then accelerate. This was tought to me by professional race driver.

Rally and F1 will downchange through the gears but only because they have to.

[blind_elk]

Usually 'round town, if I see the red light a few hundred metres ahead, I'll simply back off and coast in (still in gear). For cornering (at intersections), I'll generally drive up to the corner in 4th, brake, heel-toe straight to second, turn, power out.

Heel-toe gets to be second nature after a while - even try to do it in autos LOL

[MLCrisis]

Geez guys, some interesting driving styles here! A coupla points:

Double de-clutching up and down the box was the norm until some clever chap invented synchromesh for your gearbox. Down the box, you stick in a rev of the engine. Up the box, you don't. As described by others, aim is to match speeds.

When driving a car with a crash box (so called because so many people got it wrong and crashed the gears!), to be in the right gear for a corner or whatever, you had to brake at the same time. Some clever bloke realised that if the pedals were arranged appropriately, you could work both throttle and brake at the same time with your right foot.

My Dad, who learned to drive on a car with a crash box, when double de-clutching was part of the UK driving test(!!), always told me that double de-clutching on a synchro gearbox wore out the synchro. Back in the Sixties, he was probably right. These days, most boxes will take whatever you throw at them.

Coasting in neutral is illegal in many countries (dunno about here). Reason being that the brakes could fail / fade, but also many of your power assisted systems are just about in the operational zone., i.e. barely working! So if your car has power brakes and PAS, then coasting in neutral means you are on the verge of them not working. Also, your engine may stall (especially Skyline! see all of those threads about low rpm stalling!) - which then leaves you with no PAS or PAB. Not good!

Using the gearbox to slow down will increase your

fuel consumption. Stay in a higher gear as long as you can and change 5th to 3rd or 5th to 2nd.

If you want to have fun and pretend you are Fangio/Stirling Moss/Jack Brabham/Ayrton Senna/Michael Schumacker/all of the above, heel and toe and blip the throttle to your heart's content.

And by the way, if you are cornering in the 'burbs, with the revs in the meat of the boost range in 3rd - you're speeding! One other thing - with a turbo car, watch your revs in the corners, if you come on boost half way around a corner in second (even on about half throttle) you could lose traction. Not pretty to enter someone's garden backwards!

Here endeth the sermon!

Cheers.

[Ronin-R]

Schumacher...

[Edge]

To highlight the most important point that MLCrisis answer gave...

The skyline's 'vacuume assist' brakes work best when you brake with the car in gear.

If you turn off your engine and coast you'll find the brakes are almost useless on the second pump, due to the vacuume pressure assist running out when the engine isn't running.

This same can happen when all you have is the car on idle in neutral and you pump the brake a few times, try it on a straight stretch of road at high speed. Be careful because you won't have much brakes by the third pump.

'riding the clutch' is a very very bad habit, as you are idling when braking, if you need to emergency stop in traffic right after having already braked to a slow speed you may well find you have unresponsive brakes that are next to useless and you end up rear ending the car in front!

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Rewording for doubble clutching.

absolutely no need for doubble clutching at all with syncromesh. The box already does meshing syncro speeds.

If you don't have a syncromesh gearbox it is still better to rev match using heel toe than doubble clutching. Using the clutch friction point to get the feel for when the drive train has matched revs.

Doubble clutching still needs to be done on a 5 tonne tractor though, cause the engine rev speed is virtually only two settings high or low.

Thank goodness cars have such a versatile rev range these days!

And for heel and toe.

This is very useful for making the gear changes smooth. Meaning you have no sudden shock of force from shuddering through the drive chain causing a loss of traction.

Having this skill is being gentle with your car while driving it hard and helps prevent you from losing traction in corners.

Syncromesh and engine braking is ussually designed to work best ie smoothest if you change down through every single gear. Second it helps keep your car in the powerband ready for that millisecond change from deceleration to acceleration at any time at maximum power.

Turbo's suffer from a bad shock as you lurch forward when the turbo boost comes on which wrecks your traction in a corner. You deal with this by either microcontrolling the accellerator or geting anti lag feature in your computer.

I find that even going over a bump in the road makes my foot go up and down on the accelerator, causing power swings from engine braking to acceleratiion a few times.

The skyline accelerator pedal is so sensitive and responsive!

Which leads me to ask, has anyone tried putting a bigger spring or damper under the accelerator pedal? Did you end up with more control? Or are better shock absorbers the way to go?

[drunkenmaster]

The police told her later that if she had put the car into second that she would not have been pushed into the oncoming traffic and would probably only have suffered minor brusing.

Unless she waited with the gear in reverse, I think its pretty safe to say the car is going to go forward regardless when it is rear ended?

[Pablo]

you're approaching a red light and slowing down, the light turns green and you want to accelerate quickly but you'd be too bogged down for 2nd gear, you want 1st but try as you might the gearlever won't go...

a double de-clutch will put the lever into 1st like butter and you'll be outa there.

in general - synchromesh is great but once you can do better (read smoother) job you'll never look back. in addition you'll place less stress on your gearbox.