(Manual noob) Had a little trouble starting in 1st gear at test drive
 

I learned manual on a beater Ford Taurus and while I know the basics, I'm definitely still a novice on manual trans (been driving auto since I learned to drive). The only reason I'm learning is because I want my Z to have manual. So after I learned the ropes I went and test drove a manual Z34. I figured it would be much different than the Ford and my suspicions were correct. Overall I didn't have too hard of a time but my biggest problem was first gear starts. Basically, I couldn't start smoothly every time, I was getting bucking/jerking when letting out the clutch. It was particularly hard because my shoes were wet from the rain and my foot was slipping all over the place but really it's just my lack of manual experience and what to do in those situations. I never actually stalled the car but did have a tough time on the first gear starts. I was hoping you guys could give me advice specific to the 370z (or manual cars in general) so that on my next test drive I can fix this issue and not embarrass myself as much. Any help is appreciated! :tiphat:

Don't sweat it. Even experienced manual drivers sometimes need a bit of time to get the feel of a new clutch as they have different release points and may require different rev points for a smooth start.

What you are experiencing is due to letting out the clutch too quickly and not giving it enough revs while releasing the clutch.

It really just comes down to practicing with the feel of the clutch. Ask the dealer to let you take the car around the back of the dealership where there is some room to practice your starts. Once you have it down, hit the street. Good luck...

I've been driving stick for almost 20 years... I still wasn't smooth when 1st driving my G or the new Z. It just takes some getting used to. Just try to be deliberate and accurate with your shifts and letting up on the clutch. You'll be fine. Practice makes perfect.

Z likes higher rpm (2k) and a slightly longer slip than most manuals I've driven. Otherwise as mentioned, she bucks like a sick donkey when fully engaged. :D don't worry about burning the clutch unless you're reving 3k before engagement.

Ahh. I know I definitely wasn't getting up to 2k, I was probably closer to 1k or maybe even less, although I wasn't really looking at the tach. My guess is you guys hit the nail on the head that I was releasing too fast and not giving it enough throttle.

Yeah, I knew I wasn't going to be able to drive it perfectly the first time, so I'm not beating myself up over that. I just feel like sometimes I don't have enough knowledge about it to figure out what I'm doing wrong. Like, I probably would have been afraid to rev to 2K if you hadn't mentioned it.

It didn't help that the guy giving me the test drive was basically a douche and offered zero feedback to me (he knew I was a novice manual driver). Oh well.

Hey man don't sweat it. I learned to drive stick on my Z pretty much. You'll get the hang of it pretty quickly. At first I had to rev around 1.5k 2k to get a smooth start but once you learn properly you can do it with less revs smoothly.

This car isn't easy to drive compared to "normal" cars. I drove my moms wrangler for the first time recently after driving my Z and it felt almost impossible to stall or buck compared to the Z lol

i can tell you that even between my G and Z the clutch and throttle feels very different so the first 1mile of driving in the Z is like my adjustment period each time. :D

ive been to a mazadah dealer where the salesbag had no experience with MT and he asked me to pull a car out for another customer while i was waiting for another unrelated car to test drive. :rofl2:

I can honestly say I stalled once on my test drive, and I had a 400WHP Camaro before this. Every clutch is different, and takes getting used to. Dont sweat it.

Oh, best advice? A little more gas and a little slower on the clutch and you should be fine.

Liar liar liar, experienced drivers get the feel of the clutch the moment they touch it, they squeeze it once and they know how to get to the winning spot :p

As Roadster4Us pointed out, don't sweat it and keep working on the clutch feel. Just relax and try not to be too self conscious about your feet are doing. clutch handling is just like dancing, you don't have to see what your feet are doing, just feel what they are doing and you'll get it.



Careful there, that's not a hard set number, if you are on a 0 degree angle surface with no resistance, 1k or even 1.5k might suffice. If you are going down a hill from a stop, 1st will likely not be needed, you might want to let the car roll then engage in 2nd gear or even 3rd gear based on your speed and surround traffic. If you are going up the hill from a stop, you might need a slightly higher rev. All depends on the situation and how you work the clutch. The salesman job is not to give you feedback on your driving. He won't risk losing a sale because he told you that you probably needed more practice handling manual transmission (If anything I would be glad that the dealership let me test drive a manual transmission car though I was still learning :tiphat:)

I'd give you $100 if you didn't stall, and didn't smoke the tires on my buddy's old car the first time you tried to start it.

MightyBobo, where do I send in my Western Union info? Disclaimer, I might deliberately smoke the tires on your buddy's old car especially if he has the old American Muscle car :tup:

I accept cold cash in the mail too ;)

2k just to start in first gear? Unless it's uphill or you're trying to get moving quickly, it's not really necessary to go above the 1-1.5k mark.

if you going down hill you dont even need the engine turned on.

Challenges like this get me every time. Like calling Marty McFly yellow or chicken.

What kind of old car is it?

2000 Z28.

The clutch was set up so that it grabbed probably...95% as SOON as it left the floor. And I'm not exaggerating. It was kinda ****** up, so it needed adjusting, but he drove it like that for a long time. Care to guess what happened to that clutch in no time? :-p

BTW, the pedal was extremely stiff to boot - probably triple the pressure needed over a normal clutch pedal, so your leg could easily get tired just holding the fucker in at a light lol. It was a pain in the ***.

Read post I just made. Trust me, we bet a LOT of people dude. All in fun of course. Nobody ever did it.

Although mentioned in numerous posts, the friction point of the Z's clutch is very high. I've been driving manual transmission coupes and sedans for over twenty years in daily drivers and it took me several weeks to get used to the release point on the Z to obtain a smooth launch from first gear. Once you get used to it, the clutch and transmission are very smooth.

I learned to drive stick on the Z. Very tricky compared to other manuals I've driven since. The transmission isn't exactly super smooth in the lower gears, so having a clutch that has a relatively high engagement point can be frustrating. There's no trick to get around it. You just need to practice and get use to it. It took me a few weeks to shift from 1st to 2nd smoothly in this car....and I still encounter "shift shock" every once in a while.

I have trouble driving manual 370Z's smoothly (on the few test-drives I went on). I know other people that do, too (owners, even). Have driven stick for a decent part of my short life and never had an issue before. Ford, by FAR has the best feeling clutches. Nothing is wrong with you, or the Nissan, you just need to learn it's feel better as it is different. Once you get it, you will be fine, if you invest the time to learn it.

That being said, I disagree with the comments about smoothness lacking in the 370Z's shifting. Then, I have owned F-bodies, a mustang, and a Z06. All of which had Tremec's of one breed or another in the tunnel. However, I loved the 370Z's shifting characteristics. Just not the clutch.

He'll man just keep at it. Everytime I get back from overseas that first week is the roughest obeying traffic laws, watching my speed and trying to get the feel of the clutch again. When I'm first home I always stall in reverse lol but once I'm driving for a bit everything is good.

I found the 370Z clutch tricky to get used to as well. I had an '08 Civic Si before and the clutch / transmission in that car was crazy smooth. I'm fine with the Z's setup now and I'm certainly not complaining but it couldn't be more different from the Si. I've only ever owned manual cars but once you get used to a setup it's hard to just switch over. The Z doesn't like to be driven like it's a Civic btw... it took me a few days to get rid of that driveline shudder with the clutch at low speed.

OP, like everyone said clutch release points vary per car and so does the "gas resistance".

Here's my advice. Dont try to 'move' the car the first time you press the clutch/gas! I do this just before driving any new manual. 1) Put in N. Left foot on brake. Right foot TAP the gas to get feel of the needed pressure to get it rev some. (I'm not talking FLOOR it. Its a light press as if you were about to start moving) 2) Still in N. Right foot brake. Put in first. SLOWLY lift left foot till you feel where the engagement point is. You wont stall cause you depress clutch when you feel the spot.

3) You just trained your gas foot and clutch foot. Now drive out of there.

This is good advice and I've seen this before. I was feeling pretty rushed during the test drive but on my next one I'll be sure to do this first.

i learned to drive a manual on my z and it took a while to get used to it. the point where the clutch engages is pretty high so that will take a little to get used to. I test drove a mustang GT a couple weeks ago and i felt like it was impossible to stall. it was almost too easy. so idk what makes the Z more difficult but you will get used to it once you get a feel for it.

As "difficult" as our Z's seem to be to drive, it always made me feel good to drive it again after I originally learned in my dads '78 911sc targa. That ******* cable clutch feels like it snaps your leg off compared to the Z lol

I have a question. When you are reversing, do you typically just let the clutch engage part way and use that motion to complete the reverse maneuver? Do you add gas at all or just use the manipulation of the clutch? Do you ever let the clutch fully engage? I tried letting the clutch fully engage once and the car started bucking like crazy, even as I was giving a little bit of gas. Perhaps I wasn't giving enough gas, or it's a bad thing to let the clutch all the way out in reverse? I just want to make sure I'm doing my reverse procedure correctly and not excessively wearing the clutch. Thoughts?

Also, what do you do in the situation where you need to stop at a stop sign and then move a few feet forward in order to get a better view? Do you just fully stop and then put it in first and let the clutch slip with no gas?

Also, if you're doing a "rolling stop" where you slow way down but don't stop, say behind cars at a light that just turned green or while you're in a parking lot - do you put it into first or second? I tried taking off from second one time and I must have been going too slow or something because the car didn't seem to like it and bucked a little bit.

When you press the clutch in to disengage, do you hear any noises at all, mechanically speaking? I don't hear anything with the windows up but when I have the windows down and sound off I can hear the clutch make a clicking noise or something and since I'm a manual noob I'm not sure if that's normal or not. I'm assuming it's normal.

Thanks in advance! I'll provide rep points for answers. I know I'm being very specific and somewhat paranoid right now but I just want to become a better manual driver.

yah, usually my reverse is half-clutched with a slight blip to get the car moving, but depends how far i need to back up if i need to fully engage or not.

for crawling forward, same thing. if there's no grade i can do half-clutch with no throttle.

clutch makes a light knocking noise on mine when depressed which is a characteristic of the car. you will hear the transmission spinning when you clutch out in neutral. this is normal.

You shouldn't hear any noises when engaging the clutch, so that is normal.

Like Kenchan stated, fully engaging or slightly engaging the clutch depends on how much you are reversing, how tight the area is etc...

For me to go into 1st, I have to be at a real crawl, almost stopped, otherwise 2nd is fine.

Your bucking issue is that you just did not have the rpm's high enough when you engaged the clutch.

All of this will come in time with practice. Nothing to worry about.

Don't feel bad... When I was 15, I somehow got a Subaru dealer to let me drive a brand new STi... And I stalled 3 times :( I immediately went home and drove my friends 5 speed Accord for a few hours so I'd never stall again... Didn't help. The next high-hp car I drove (Fox body Mustang, 500ish whp) I stalled.

Wait, did you mean I *should or *shouldn't hear noises? I'm confused by that part.

I think many 370's make a "clatter" sound when you disengage under load - for example in first gear, slowing down and not touching the gas. Apparently it's normal for this car. The way to avoid it is to press the clutch in gently, rather than just stomping on it. Ease it down through the engagement point the same way as if you were trying to start in first gear. After a few weeks you will be able to predict when you need to disengage in this manner.

Not hijacking, but I saw your name and felt like saying, Im heading back to Buffalo in 2 days for leave :)

Smooth shifts, usually no noise. Rough shifts, or as Armonster stated, under load you might hear a littler chatter. Either way nothing to worry about.

You're overthinking a lot of this. Just get some time behind a manual and everything will fall into place...

I know I know, I even said in my post that I know I'm overthinking all of this, but that's my process and how I learn stuff so it helps me to get the details.

Yes, the word "chatter" is best to describe what I was hearing with the window down when I disengaged the clutch, and I remember I was pushing it in rather fast, so that must be it. For some reason I thought pushing it in slower would be harder on the clutch but maybe that is backwards thinking?

:tup: I'm in lancaster :hello:

I can confirm that on my car if I push the clutch in fast there is indeed drivetrain chatter. This is inherent for our car and nothing to worry about. The Z's are known to have that cement mixer sound. If you look on the net you'll find a lot of threads regarding it. Hope that helps put you at ease.

I've stalled 3x ever since I got this car. All the stalls were basically at a stop because I wasn't thinking. One at a dealership, that was the most embarrassing stall yet lol. For some reason I still had the car in first and I let go of the clutch. I was intending to turn the car off, guess the stall works haha.

Just wanted to drop a line! It's been 5 days since I bought my Z, and 5 days since I learned to drive a MT car.. I think it helps to know that 370z is less forgiving when it comes to clutching—don't be discouraged. You're probably a lot better than me still :)

There seems to be a reason it's tough to shift smoothly in the Z and the culprit seems to be the clutch helper spring. In Nissan's effort to make the clutch pedal easier to push, they took away all feel for clutch engagement point. Many have solved this annoyance by disengaging the helper spring or replacing the OEM helper spring with a lighter spring. I've replaced my OEM spring with a lighter spring and my shifting has dramatically smoothed out. I had even better feel without the spring at all, but I preferred to keep the clutch mechanism as fully intact as possible. Here's a link discussing one of the best and cheapest mods available.

http://www.the370z.com/engine-drivet...er-spring.html

Very good point. I did this too, and it's great. Equally awesome is a stainless steel clutch line. The SS line combined with the helper spring makes the 370z clutch almost feel like a normal car (which is saying a lot).