Gear change technique

willd58

willd58

willd58

Permabanned
Joined
25 May 2004
Posts
5,797
Location
Bristol England
Right, excuse me for being dumb here, but its not often i come into contact with other people who know about cars in person, let alone get to go in there cars or have them in mine. (the RR events being the only time IIRC)

So when my only mate who knows about cars came back from uni i took him to my private race track which consists of an industrial estate like place with a couple of roundabouts and some small straights) small enough to get to 90 and slow it slowly to go round the roundabout perfectly normally, go round it, back the way you came, etc etc

Now, i let him have a go in the MX5 and he showed me somthing that made the ride infanatly smoother and made it feel a fair bit faster tbh, i was amazed, had i been driving stupidly my whole life or was what he was doing a big NO NO.

Obviously i trust this guy and even if he has worn the clutch a bit im not botherd, heres the thing.

When changing up, instead of lifting the accelerator pedal all the way off, with the clutch in, keep the accelerator pedal pressed a tiny bit. This results in the gear chance being coupled with a revving noise, and the change being a lot smoother and seems a lot quicker, as the revs are kept up.

Is this rubbish? Does it wear out the clutch? Is it dangerous? Cheers guys.
 
If you're good enough, you can blip the throttle (and then come off the pedal as normal) as you dip the clutch. If you can get it into gear quickly and lift the clutch up, the revs are falling just at the right pace to give a perfectly smooth gearchange.

What you're doing is essentially the same thing, but you'll be slipping the clutch a bit causing clutch wear.
 
You will wear your clutch out. If you rev it before changing up, the revs are going to go back down to the normal point of change anyway. Sounds like a waste of time to me. Never seen it done. A well timed, fast gearshift is all you need.
 
Why would you want to be changing up if you still hav revs left?

Blipping the throttle isn't going to be particularly effective if you're bouncing off the limiter :p

In all seriousness, I've never heard of this and I can't see how it would make an up-change smoother.

Blipping on down changes is a different matter, of course.
 
Well, if you want to go faster, then just leave your foot fully down when you change gear so its bounching off the rev limiter, then drop the clutch in. Gives you a nice lurch of acceleration.

This is the only way I found to make tiny engined hire cars actually move! Doesn't work the same in a bigger engined car. The power comes from the engine, not the clutch. And you wouldn't find me doing it to my own car either. Not unless I owned a clutch repair garage. :p
 
Lowe said:
I thought everyone knew this? 5-10% throttle on upshifts to smoothen it out?
Click to expand...

That's only going to help if
1) You have a feather weight flywheel
2) You change gear at grandad speeds.

When changing UP, you need to lose RPM, keeping the throttle pressed is not going to help this.
 
I think a lot of people are missing the point here. When changing up a gear adding a tiny, tiny bit of throttle makes the change smoother, and was something I was taught very early on when learning to drive.

You don't blip the throttle, just lightly squeeze the throttle lightly, say enough to move the RPM from idle to 1500rpm if you were in neutral.

Oh, and yes, this is more applied to general pootling around not when you're gunning it 110%
 
Bug One said:
Well, if you want to go faster, then just leave your foot fully down when you change gear so its bounching off the rev limiter, then drop the clutch in. Gives you a nice lurch of acceleration.

This is the only way I found to make tiny engined hire cars actually move! Doesn't work the same in a bigger engined car. The power comes from the engine, not the clutch. And you wouldn't find me doing it to my own car either. Not unless I owned a clutch repair garage. :p
Click to expand...

Doing that from changing from 1st to second then 2nd to 3rd in my car makes the car jolt so much i swear it will brake in half when it takes off like that :p
 
panthro said:
If you want a smoother gearchange, buy an automatic.
Click to expand...

Enjoy buying new engine and gearbox mounts for you Clio mate. ;)


Oh and Dogbreath - I do have a feather light flywheel ;)
 
Lowe said:
Enjoy buying new engine and gearbox mounts for you Clio mate. ;)
Click to expand...

eh :confused:

They are fine according to the service about 800 miles ago. If thats the cost I have to pay to enjoy driving fast then so be it. Dont drive the clio anyway. The 330Ci Sport gets more use.
 
Only time I 'blip the throttle' when changing gear is when I double de clutch down through the gears:
clutch in - shift stick to neutral - clutch out - rev engine (to match engine and gear box/road wheel speed- how it was explained to me)- clutch in - change to lower gear - clutch out and more revs.
All in about 1-2 seconds.
Can't think of why reving when changing up would make any difference, other than surging the car... maybe things are tought different now?
Asside from saving a bit of wear on the clutch and engine (apparently?) and making smoother down changes I had to learn to DDC when the syncromesh on 2nd gear went on my first car - you couldn't get it to go into gear otherwise. :rolleyes: but that's old bangers for you.

Obviously it helps to match the engine to the road wheel speed when you're changing gear - I think this is what the OP is on about? Otherwise you can get a tiny bit of decelaration when changing up through the gears (depending on what speed and gear you're in at the time)- my GF did this for ages which made for a very jerky ride all round hehe. I suppose it's all about engaging the next higher gear smoothly whilst applying the accelerator so you don't get a 'break' in acceleration. :confused:
 
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