no...the shifter is mechanically linked to a selector shaft that goes into the tranny...if you put the car in 1, it will not override 1st and go into second...the only thing you cant do is hold it in a higher gear than it should be in...(ex: starting off in 3rd, or cruising in 4th at like 20 mph)...you can start in second (00-02 cars i believe) by putting the shifter in 2....first gear, 3rd and 4th are completely locked out. good for snow.

but to answer your question...yes , you really are shifting manually...if you have the car in 2 and are approaching the rev limiter, it wont override your decision and shift third.

i dont think the trans would work with a M6 pcm in...

as for overriding a bad downshift....well i did think that the PCM would protect against a high speed downshift....i was wrong....i ACCIDENTALLY slipped the shifter into 2 after coming through the traps...i was trying to go into OD and i hit a bump just as i put my hand on the shifter....at 95 mph, the tranny kicked down to second at least for an instant, the car bucked hard and then i got it back into neutral before anything else happened...it ate a sunshell a week later...i guess the converter ate up the extra rpm and prevented the mechanical over-rev...but it was not pretty...

YES I MANAGED TO PULL THE INFAMOUS M6 2-3-2 SHIFT IN AN A4...FEEL FREE TO LAUGH.

 

well that settles that, i guess manually shifting bad idea.

 

Wow, what a debate this has been.
Do a comparison test next time your at the track but this time leave the starting line at the same rpm on each test. With my stock t/c, shorties,borla and bald F1's I ran a best of 12.84 with 1.9 60". My best times were leaving from an idle with the stock t/c. Good luck.

 

i'll just reprogram my computer thank you hptuners.com

 

only if you do something dumb like i did....i STILL dont believe UPshifting the car manually hurts it..but maybe its just me.

 

yah but whats the point of manually upshifting with programming?

 

I had my car tuned last year with LS1Edit and upped the shift points, deleted TM, quickened the shifts,etc. On the dyno the car was shifting exactly were it was supposed to. Went to the track and autotapped some runs manually shifting and automatic. Left in D the car was shifting at 5850 rpms on the 1-2 shift. Manually shifting I consistently shifted the 1-2 at 6300 rpms and ran better ET's and traps. I posted on here and no one could explain it. I went back to have both shift points fixed and only the 2-3 is shifting where it's supposed to. The 1-2 shift is still at 5800-5900 rpms. So in my case regardless of what anyone says manually shifting will net me a better ET.

 

odd i'll investigate this with hptuners maybe your ls1edit was old/buggy?

 

NOW WE'RE TALKING!!!
People talking about manually shifting is bad without any evidence... this post is for you.

We now have 3 cars saying they had better ET manually shifting than letting the computer shift for them... and one of them has LS1 edit tuning!!!

I think its going to be a hard task proving us manual shifters we are doing something wrong when we keep running better and better ET's shifting.

Thanks BLKTA for letting me know that even LS1 tuning might not help out with the shift points.

 

Tragic - The reason I manually shift at the track is to take advantage of the LS6 cam I run. I feel if the 1-2 shift was where was it supposed to be, there would be no difference from auto to manual shifting. The thing about manually shifting is you have to anticipate and shift early because of the time lag to when it actually shifts. With the tuning there is no lag, it's a quick firm shift that just happens. LS1Edit really woke the tranny up and makes it much more fun to drive especially with a converter.

An odd side note - When the LS1 F-bodies first came out, it was common practice and actually advised by members on LS1.com to leave the car in 2nd, so the PCM would shift 1-2, then manually shift the 2-3. I ran my best stock ET like that. Go figure.

Samz28 - The car was tuned by a local shop who purchased the program last year. I'm bringing it back again with a atap file so they can see it themselves.

 

I want to know more about the 1L60E in my 98, like....
1) What are the stock shift points?
2) At what rpm does it hit the rev limiter without tuning?
3) How bad does an aftermarket MAF effect it without tuning?
4) How do I get rid of TM (torque management)?
5) Is a TransGO shift kit worth it?
6) At what rpm does the tranny shift to 2nd gear from 1st when the selector is in 2?

If anybody knows the answer to ANY of these questions please let me know. It will be greatly appreciated. I need to know what mods to add or take away and how to get better at the track.

 

someone with ls1edit or hptuners could read in your tune and tell ya

big maf = no no in general without tuning on an A4. the line pressure and all that shiz is scaled off the maf. so if the base voltage and ramp rate of the new maf is not equal to the stock maf, you are skewing data to the a4 code on a stock tune.

with a tune of course this could be fixed before tearing up the trans.

 

2)stock rev limit is 6250 RPM i believe.
3)MAF= no no
4)LS1 edit
5)yea, just dont go nuts and set it on the hardest setting...my friend used to break tranny mounts constantly from the firmness of ths shift.

im not an expert and i dont know anything about shift points so im not gonna guess.

 

i suggest you take away the maf for now. and if you can't afford a tune go find a local with hptuner with your model year to do some tweaking.

cam+verter most defo needs shift point tweaking and redline uppering

dude above me has a nice set of mods, cept the hpp3 part great times though

 

thanx a lot sam. ...i just use the HPP3 for speedo correction and fan operation....not tuning or shift changes...

 

Still ... no one has come forward to offer reasons as to why manual shifiting is supposed to be bad. This is surprising given the number of people who say it. I would really like to hear somebody make that case.

 

heh heh...he's on a mission here....

 

i dunno i manual shift on my burnout, otherwise my current ecm programming shifts into 2 too quickly. I have to reprogram it i guess, or have a "track" program and a "street" program (very likely since i will be hptuners).

Track and strip are different. I want economy, i dont race on the street. So i will likely reprogram the ecu at the strip (and datalog).

I think as more people have access to such tools, manual shifting will be less necessary as you can store profiles that are optimized for each.

ecu can be made to work faster than you can, a more comparative test would be to actually tune the car for strip, then compare the results of manual versus auto shifting. untuned, or poorly tuned i see where manual shifting would be better.

Thats how i'm going to go about it... tweak run tweak run tweak run till i got the best results. If they aren't optimal for street no biggie, 30 seconds hptuners, bam back to street mode. (i do not race on the street, its pointless and too risky). My focus for street is optimized mpg with a verter and smooth running. I can add safety as well by say leaving more tq mgmt in during street driving giving the tranny a rest since my strip time is limited to max every other weekend AT most.

Only thing i can think of is if the ecu anticipates the shift, it can alter line pressures/etc, but if you force it, the parameters (line pressure etc) may not be updated fast enough to remain safe. If you haven't noticed the ecu isn't exactly a powerhouse. This is another question, perhaps the ecu is overwhelmed at the strip, too many things going on (high rpm, etc) at once, and reaction to highly modified cars exceeds the cpu's ability to respond.

If that was the case, then i'd say yeah manual shifting might indeed be better. Ever wonder why the rpm gauge is lagged? Why is it? Because the ecu isn't capable to spitting the signal out fast enough? Who knows. Someone at GM probably does.

Might need to hack the code and make a stripper version for the track. Gut all the diagnostics that not needed out and free up some cpu time I've heard someone mention that the goat's have some issues datalogging at wot (not confirmed). They have a few more features i'm guessing (DBW,higher emissions standards ULEV etc) that force the cpu to do more work.

I'm way off topic, but on vw cars i tuned, normal supercharged and linear in boost, we had to cut out the diagnostic code for a very fast spooling turbo, the result was the air fuel tracked the rapid boost onset "more" accurately.

something to chew on.

remember the ecu's we have are like 10 year old macintoshes with some support circuitry and a buttload of tables and data to process. Not exactly p4 powah

 

Picked up .19 sec and 1.9 mph shifting the car manually, 13.4 at 104.9 vs 13.59 at 103. Same day, track, launch rpm, 60', cool down time, and the car was bone stock. The stock shift point is too low. That's why manually shifting the tranny helps with ETs and MPH. Some like to poke fun and say you can't shift faster than the computer. I agree, but I can hold the shift longer than a stock computer and that's what helps.

On a side note, picked up another 1.5 mph after lid, filter, catback, HPP3 when I finished the 1/4 in 2nd gear. My car has 2.73s and I'd shift 1-2 at 6400-6500 and finish at about 6500, rev limiter would kick in just after the last 66' mph lights. Car pulled all the way through to 6500 no problem and went from 106.5 to 108 mph.

 

you all keep saying you run faster et's manualy shifting, but you also say that you shift at 6300 or so enstead of 5900. no **** sherlock, you'll run better. my car shifts about 62-6300 because thats where my shift points are set. my rev limiter is also set at 6600. really, get the computer to do the work for you and everything will live longer.