downshifting
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On The Tree
Joined: Oct 2004
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downshifting this might be a dumb question, but this is my first manual car, so bear with me.
ok. so lets say i'm cruising down the highway doin like 70 in sixth and i wanna downshift to like 4th, whats the best way to do it? the way i'm doing it now i just ease the clutch out real slow and let the engine natuarlly rev up, but should/can i rev the engine up when the clutch is down so the engine is already at the speed it should be so i can let the clutch out faster?
just wondering. don't want to lose a highway bought to some little ricer because of bad shifting technique haha.
thanks.
ok. so lets say i'm cruising down the highway doin like 70 in sixth and i wanna downshift to like 4th, whats the best way to do it? the way i'm doing it now i just ease the clutch out real slow and let the engine natuarlly rev up, but should/can i rev the engine up when the clutch is down so the engine is already at the speed it should be so i can let the clutch out faster?
just wondering. don't want to lose a highway bought to some little ricer because of bad shifting technique haha.
thanks.
I do it all the time. My car is a stock Z28 M6. Generally if I'm at around 65 MPH or so, I will downshift to third (that's generally at the bottom of third gear). If I'm playing around in town, let's say I'm going about 40 MPH or so, I can drop down into second and be at the bottom of that gear. If I'm at around 50 MPH or so, I can still downshift into second, but I rev just a little bit to get the RPMs up between 2500-3500 or so. It is ok to rev match, just don't shift into a gear that is not capable of doing the speed you are at (without blowing **** up anyway). It takes a little bit of practice, but as you learn your car, you know exactly what RPM to be at when downshifting at certain speeds. From my experience 0-55 = 1st gear 55-70/75 = 2nd gear 70/75-100 +/- = 3rd gear. Mainly just takes practice, kind of hard to explain on the computer.
Edit: i.e. If you were cruising in 6th at 70 MPH and downshifted to fourth, you'd get some acceleration, but dropping it to 3rd (without having to pop clutch) is normally the downshift I go with.
Edit: i.e. If you were cruising in 6th at 70 MPH and downshifted to fourth, you'd get some acceleration, but dropping it to 3rd (without having to pop clutch) is normally the downshift I go with.
Last edited by GearheadZ28; Aug 8, 2005 at 06:23 PM. Reason: Meant to add this:
