thats only relevant to how competent one is at shifting.

My point exactly

Downshifting like that is really only needed on heavier vehicles (like fire trucks). The reason is to prevent excessive brake wear (would only be good for approx. 10,000 miles or less), and prevent brake fade... For the Z, unless you are tearing up some back road, and need the acceleration, you should just put it into neutral and just coast to a stop... Hope this helps!

To each his own I guess. My point was that you're not really going to wear your clutch or syncros out prematurely with an extra down shift before you stop and keeping the vehicle under power is handy when dealing with shuffling cars on off-ramp stop lights or the lucky just turned green when you've almost stopped city driving.

Addendum: Strictly speaking if you remain in gear without disengaging the clutch and simply apply the brakes you are engine braking. I think this general notion is being somewhat confused with downshifting before applying the brakes. You'll notice that downshifting with syncro-rev on (or blipping the throttle) doesn't provide any engine braking so they really are independent issues.

Firstly, SRM does NOT save the synchronizers. Once you depress the clutch, the engine and transmission are NOT connected. If you shift to neutral, engage the clutch, THEN rev the engine and disengage the clutch and go into gear....sure that'll save some wear on the synchronizers (at the expense of engine wear).

SRM doesn't provide any engine braking within the first second or two after engaging the clutch, but if you downshift, let the clutch out and wait a second, then my Z does engine brake.

I just don't freakin worry about it. Half the time I put it in neutral, half the time I downshift, half the time I don't downshift while braking. Just depends on how I feel. It's not gonna matter at all in the long run.

Late,
Trav

???...Of course it does. When you downshift, Syncro-rev only manages the initial engagement and rev matching. Once that is accomplished you have normal engine braking, just like any other Manual transmission car..

Yes it does provide it after the initial rev match. I overstated my point.

I was trying to provide a contrast between downshifting before you even start braking thereby relying on mostly engine braking for that first initial speed reduction on one hand and using the brakes to slow your speed and then downshifting on the other. I think people were lumping those two scenarios into one and contrasting it with shifting into neutral and using only brakes to slow down.