Manual Transmission Shifting Advice Needed

houkouonchi

As for downshifting:

I think you are generally better off just letting off the gas (leaving it in gear) until it gets down to < 2000 rpm in whatever gear you are in before you put it in neutral and just coast.

That being said I personally like to engine brake so I often downshift to slow down and don't use my breaks at all. This does put some more ware on both your engine and your clutch but if you do know how to properly match revs on your downshift (or you have sports package and SRM enabled) the clutch wear should be reduced significantly. I have found most people who drive manual's do not blip the throttle well and doing this creates a lot of wear on the clutch.

I personally like engine braking for a few reasons:

1) I don't have to use my brakes as often and its hard to say the plus/negative gas wise (when your just de-accelerating with foot off the gas the car uses 0 gas vs a small amount for idle, but then the blipping of the throttle could negate this).

2) I like to be in gear so if I have to suddenly accelerate for some reason I am able to easily do so without shifting.

3) Blipping the throttle (manually) is half the fun of driving for me. It gives me something to do!


Many people who I see that downshift do not give gas at all and slowly release the clutch while downshifting which is really bad IMHO as that puts a lot of wear on your clutch.

If you do this right you won't have clutch problems, I can almost gaurantee it. My dad has a 350z with 170 k miles on it and he is still on his original clutch and he drives exactly like I do in regards to downshifting/sync matching. He is jealous of my 370z with its SRM though as he wished his 350 had it =)

I would say that coasting is definitely a valid option to I just personally don't like to do it that way.

I almost never downshift first.

As for grinding in second:

I find this happens sometimes to me when I am accelerating aggressively and shifting a bit too fast. It only ever happens from 1st to 2nd for me and its always when I have the RPM's really high in first gear (7000+) doing a *quick* shift to second. I have done it 5-6 times in my Z's lifetime and if you don't do it often I would not worry about it.

I believe its caused because the higher RPM difference when at high RPM in 1st gear and the difference is too great (I am not waiting long enough for the RPMs to come down) for the synchro's to cope with the RPM difference. I could be wrong though.