it sure will, your cutting up your syncros everytime you do it.
i'd love to see the tranny fluid in your fathers' cars, probably all metallic colored
how did this thread go from neutral - clutch talk to all double clutch talk?

 

Regarding Shifting to Neutral No-Clutch:
I do this all the time when I get off interstate. I usually have the cruise set. So when I pull on to the offramp, I push the cruise control button off and immediately pull it into neutral. When I do it this way, I can move the gear selector with very little force. The way the rpm's are dropping, it feels like I am shifting it to neutral with the clutch depressed.

Regarding Double Clutching:
I don't see how you guys can say double clutching in a synchro'ed car is useless. I do it all the time when I am taking corners at speed (which is the reason to double clutch in the first place...they use it in the wrong context in F&F). When I am driving down the road at 55-60 and am going to make a turn onto an interstate onramp, I depress the clutch with my left foot and press down on the brake with the very left edge of my right foot while shifting into neutral. Then, I let off the clutch quickly and roll my right foot to depress the gas while still maintaining braking pressure, revving the car a bit. Then, I quickly push down the clutch again and shift into third. By this time I am usually either at or just before the apex of the turn. I let off the clutch as I gradually roll my right foot removing braking pressure while giving the car gas. All of this is done in about one second (takes lots of practice). Doing this, I can be going fairly fast, take the corner, and maintain my speed without the jerkiness of the engine and transmission having to "catch up" to the speed of the wheels. Doing this actually saves on transmission and engine wear.

Sidenote: No, I am not trying to be Dom or Brian Spilner here...I drive like this because I am planning on autocrossing and possibly doing some track racing this summer so driving this way will make it second nature once I get to the track.

 

^^ That is pointless. You dont have to double clutch to rev match. If you are downshifting while braking hard, use one side of your foot on the brake, push in the clutch and downshift. Blip the throttle with the other side of your foot and then release the clutch pedal. No jerkyness at all.


And you should never be shifting in a turn. If you are you really messed up the turn to start with. You always want smooth and consistant power throughout a turn. All of your braking and shifting should be complete before you enter the turn.

 

What you are referring to is heel and toe, combined with double clutching. Some people call that blipping the throttle. Like Engifineer said, the double clutching, no matter how fast you think you are with it, is *still* slowing you down because it's less efficient.

If you think otherwise, think about it in terms of hitting a baseball. The pitcher throws the ball at you, and instead of waiting for the proper timing to swing and smack the crap out of the ball, you swing a half swing, then pull back, and do a full swing. Which is faster/more efficient?

Or look at it from a bench press: do you take the bar/weight off the rests and do your negative, then you do a a half rep up and down before a full rep up, or do you do a straight negative, and then a full up? Which one uses less energy, which one takes less time?

Now, I know those analogies don't fully equate, because you also have to take into account engine speed etc, but the fact is that if you heel and toe, without double clutching, your shift times will be faster. You can beleive otherwise if you want, I'm not going to argue with you about it. I can tell you that every driver I've talked to out at Pikes Peak (one of the bigger rally races in the US), not one of them argued for double clutching.

 

^^ Yeah, I just feel funny calling it Heel Toe, since you dont really use your heel and toe

 

in the old days, when pedals were spaced furtrher apart, people used to. you'd have the heel planted halfway in between, and you'd pivot on the heel to use your toes on either gas or brake.

At least that's what I was told by a guy that used to race in the 60's, he could have just been bs'ing me I suppose

definitely now though, with pedals spaced closer together, its definitely more appropriate to call it "rolling"

 

Haha, I agree. I don't call it heel-toe in my car because I don't use either. I just say I am rolling my foot.

Engifineer, so you are saying that with the modern synchros, I can pull it out of gear and while I am shifting, blip the throttle and the synchros will have everything up to speed by the time I put it back in gear and let out the clutch?

That would save a lot of time and make it easier on my clutching leg haha. Thanks for the info.

 

As long as you are shfiting at the correct point. Which you really should be to make sure you are always in the correct gear.

 

Squall, yeah I probably shouldn't have wasted my time with it. I was actually sitting here searching through some threads about the slight grind I have going into second, which seems to be more common than I imagined. Then I just happened across this thread with a couple of kids spreading false information, and I couldn't resist letting them know about it. I didn't realize the thread was so old at the time, but I'll be more careful in the future.

(thanks for the props though )



THansenite, your syncros aren't really doing anything until you're shifting into the next gear. In fact, every gear in your tranny is spinning as long as your wheels are turning, because your gears themselves are always meshed. It's complicated, but what your syncronizers are doing is syncing up the input shaft on your tranny to the speed of the gears. The reason you need a clutch is to separate your engine from the input shaft so that it is allowed to change speeds (or else it's your dog teeth that will grind on your gears, not your gears themselves). But that's also the reason why you can pull your tranny out of gear, allow the engine rpms to drop off for a second, and then slide into the next gear without a clutch... because then your input shaft is turning at the right speed (and this is what is referred to as rev matching). As you can imagine, the worse you time it, the harder it is on your syncros.

I remember howstuffworks.com having an excellent write up on how it all works. Just go there and search for manual transmissions.