How do you drive?

Midnight_Raven said:

I sometimes skip shift from 2nd to 3rd just because the syncros are already messed up between those. If the syncros were good I probably would never skip shift like I normally do.

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You mean 2-4? Second to third is not skip shifting. What your re doing is probably fine, just double clutch. You'll learn to do it really fast.

TURBO2GO said:

So you guys that skip shift, think Acura is being overly sensitive sending out a TSB to dealers telling their customers not to? Whether its a lot or a little, some extra wear is occurring. If you simply double clutch, you save that wear. Why not do it?

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Double clutching was done and used more frequently when tranny's had no synchro's. It was used to match the speeds of the gears that were going to be meshed together. Acura would rather you use the clutch twice instead of once so you replace the clutch and release bearing sooner as this is a wearable item and not likely to be replaced under warranty due to the nature of the part. Now all tranny's that dont have synchro's are shifted without even using the clutch,you leave the clutch alone and the collar will slide over the gears when the gears speeds are matched.This practice can also be done in tranny with synchro's if you learn to get the feel for movement. This has been done by truckers for decades to save the wear and tear on the clutch and release bearing. A lot of experienced truckers use the clutch in first gear only to get the vehicle moving and the clutch is never used again. With this practice you can also skip gears as long as the gear speeds are matched. With that being said it definitely does NOT hurt or do any damage to the tranny if you dont force the shifter into gears and let the synchro's do their job. If you let the gear speed normalize, the synchro does not know which gear the trans is coming out of ,if you give it a second and dont force the shifter. I believe that Honda has released this bulletin ,however, the factories release these bulletins to cover themselves in the case of a warranty claim and they can get out of paying a claim. So yes I hell toe shift, I speed shift( accelerator stays on the floor while you slam the clutch and pull the shifter at the same time),I shift without the clutch(as described above)to save the clutch and release bearing, I skip shift, and yes once in a while I shift normally.

I reg match, no heel toe because I don't know how. My foot can't seem to twist that much.

TURBO2GO said:

You mean 2-4? Second to third is not skip shifting. What your re doing is probably fine, just double clutch. You'll learn to do it really fast.

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Sorry that's what I mean. 2 to 4 not 2 to 3 lol. I used to double clutch for downshifts in my MR2 just to try it out but not very often. I don't think it's necessary for modern cars like ours. I'm assuming that technique was to reduce wear on transmission from the older cars like before the 80s.

Midnight_Raven said:

Sorry that's what I mean. 2 to 4 not 2 to 3 lol. I used to double clutch for downshifts in my MR2 just to try it out but not very often. I don't think it's necessary for modern cars like ours. I'm assuming that technique was to reduce wear on transmission from the older cars like before the 80s.

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I wish I still had a copy of that Acura bulletin. I know some of you guys think it's "unnecessary" but do you really know for sure? Do you guys think Acura would send out a service bulletin to service managers that is complete bogus? It's a little bit bold if you ask me to assume that you know better than Acura especially when they are so adamant against skip shifting. I am sure they understand their synchros and how they work. Calling the practice "brutal on the synchros" isn't exactly mincing words.

Anyway, I won't do it. I guess everyone should do what they are comfortable with but it's a practice that isn't really necessary. So why risk it I say. Even if the effect is minimal.

Dave, I agree with you at the end of the day. I was just curious at to what extent. Yeah, service bulletins arent released just for the heck of it. Some are more meaningful than others, but they all mean something.

Kind of like that uh....er... Snap Ring thingy....

I double-clutch primarily on the down shift; only occasionally on the up shift. Heel-toe only on my daily just for practice, but I can't do it on my NSX because to get my heel in a position to blip the throttle, too much pressure would be exerted on the brake pedal during regular street driving as I have big brakes that require very little pressure to stop.

When I purchased my 6-speed Legend, I asked a friend who rebuilds Honda transmissions for the wholesale market if I should learn to double-clutch. His answer was a definite "yes".

Syncromesh do wear, so double-clutching reduces its use and therefore wear. Not technically necessary to do in modern cars, but a full double-clutch action along with a throttle blip takes maybe a second to execute, so why not save a little syncro?

I'm no expert, but I believe that the effects of skip shifting would be antithetical to that of double-clutching in that where double-clutching reduces the use of the syncromesh, skip shifting increases the gap in RPMs that the syncromesh have to accommodate for and therefore increases wear.

Here is a newb question...is the purpose of rev matching to be easier on the clutch or just to make a smoother transition in speed without chirping the tires?

sippy2 said:

Here is a newb question...is the purpose of rev matching to be easier on the clutch or just to make a smoother transition in speed without chirping the tires?

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Both. At the track if you can't heel and toe the car will be really unsettled...

All F1 transmissions in Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini will blip the throttle for you and execute them perfectly. In the Z, Nissan does it for you even with a manual. Since heel and toe is not the easiest thing to master, it's good to practice on street driving anyway. Good for your clutch too.

I'm looking at the poll, and we either have a lot of good drivers here or some are fibbing it. Personally, I can't heel and toe in the normal sense where you turn your foot counterclockwise to blip with your heel. My foot under normal driving is almost horizontal and not vertical as I can't fit my foot otherwise. So for me to the rotate that much requires I reposition my foot completely. It's just impossible.

I blip with the right side of my foot. I rotate on the vertical axis... In other words I just rotate so the right side of my shoe just catches the throttle for a blip. I've gotten quite good and comfortable at this with lots of practice. But I had to buy autovation pedals with the rubber nubs, and I had to reposition the gas pedal closer to the brakes. I still need them closer. While I'm fine with my everyday shoes, going to my piloti track shoes that are more narrow creates an issue.

I have to place my foot on the far right edge of the brake pedal to be able to blip without my foot catching only "air" between the two pedals. I think it's important for any good nsx driver to practice heel and toe and double clutching. It's also important to get the right pedals (I don't like the super sticky grid kind), and to position them properly.

TURBO2GO said:

I wish I still had a copy of that Acura bulletin. I know some of you guys think it's "unnecessary" but do you really know for sure? Do you guys think Acura would send out a service bulletin to service managers that is complete bogus? It's a little bit bold if you ask me to assume that you know better than Acura especially when they are so adamant against skip shifting. I am sure they understand their synchros and how they work. Calling the practice "brutal on the synchros" isn't exactly mincing words.

Anyway, I won't do it. I guess everyone should do what they are comfortable with but it's a practice that isn't really necessary. So why risk it I say. Even if the effect is minimal.

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Dave I was saying that double clutching is unnecessary, I wasn't talking about skipping gears lol. Either way yeah I agree skipping gears seems like a bad idea for a healthy transmission.

As far as double clutching goes, doesn't it seem slow? You would figure with all the advances in transmission technology, it just seems to be an anachronism. Turbo, as you mentioned, even the Z with synchrorev match tech matches the rpm speed for you in a manual. No need to double clutch. It just seems like a technique used long ago that is no longer needed.

I suppose it may still be useful for early NSXs? I know my 02 tranny felt different from a 91. Not really sure how the NSX trannies over its lifespan stack up against current cars in this regard.

edit: Just a side note on the Z synchrorev match. It is an amazing little piece of technology. Driving a Nismo 370z with it made near perfect shifts while downshifting. Better than I could have ever done heel and toeing. As much as I wish to be A. Senna, I'm not. And the best thing about it is you can turn it off with the touch of a button to do it on your own whenever you want. Slick.

I drive hard, as it's an sports car, and made to be driven properly, sometimes I don't VTEC @ all, have never skip shift, in any cars I've owned, never thought it was even a possibility ... sounds so wrong! lol

Oscar

Midnight_Raven said:

Dave I was saying that double clutching is unnecessary, I wasn't talking about skipping gears lol. Either way yeah I agree skipping gears seems like a bad idea for a healthy transmission.

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Anthony what I'm telling you is that skip shifting is ok as long as you double clutch. Since you are skip shifting, you should double clutch the times that you do. The motion is a really fast IN-OUT-IN-OUT. Of course must be coordinated with your hand motion so it takes practice. Go slow at first then speed it up as you get better.

Lucky for me I was taught how to heel-toe and double clutch since I was 18 when I worked for VW and Audi dealership. Yup, lots of practice driving all those new car around the lot :biggrin: my suggestion is to just do it, eventually it'll be like second nature. Much like how we can drive Manual Transmission to begin with, most people, young or new drivers, have no idea how it even works nowdays but we go at it like its just another day. Also, heel toe makes every downshift sounds soooooo good haha.

Are the relative brake/gas pedal positions the same on all our cars? My brake is about 2" in front of the gas pedal. I'd imagine it'd be heel-toe optimal if they were level with each other. I have no idea how I'd get my heel to hit my gas before smashing the brake. Guess my ankle isn't flexible enough?

unless im exhausted or hung over, the road is my autocross :/

WOW. Totally surprised by the results. Besides that one guy with synchro issues, why on earth would anyone skip shift?? I have always understood this to be bad for the car.

Also, why on earth would you double clutch on an upshift unless you missed the shift and needed to match the revs after the RPM dropped???

I can understand not heel-toeing on every turn.

reading some of the replies here is scary...

what is double clutch on up shift? last time i heard about it was in fast and furious 1. there is absolutely no need to do that.

from my understanding double clutch is important for old cars without syncros. but with most modern trannies with syncros, sure it won't hurt anything but i don't think you are really gaining much. if you get used to the tranny and do a good job on rev matching it will just be fine.

heel toe is good but more of a higher performance driving. for normal stress driving imho it's a bit "excessive". problem why a lot of people can't do it because in order to do it "easier", you should be in high speed braking (brake pedal in quite a bit), allowing you to easily tap on the gas. for most people on stress driving, they aren't really applying much pressure on the brake making it very award position to tap the gas. again, not impossible, but not as natural either.

i don't understand skip shift either. how much more work it is to just shift sequentially?

rev matching is always the biggest key, both in up shift and down shift. do it right and it's going to be smooth and won't really hurt the tranny / syncros

I think heel-toe downshifting is a good skill to practice for street driving, not just high performance driving. I will give you one scenario that I encounter occasionally to demonstrate how heel-toe downshifting can increase your safety while driving in traffic.

Think of times of moderate to heavy traffic on freeways or city streets, in which there are a lot of cars and your speed is varying so that you are doing a lot of 2-3 and 3-2 shifting to keep with the flow of traffic. In a car like the NSX you usually can't see over/through/around the car in front of you so you have to be more alert and react quicker to sudden stops from the car in front. When you are doing a 3-2 downshift as the flow of traffic slows, it is good to heel-toe in this instance so that your foot never leaves the brake pedal, in case the car in front of you suddenly decides to panic brake. This happens to me often enough to have made a mental note of it. Just food for thought.

haveblue said:

Are the relative brake/gas pedal positions the same on all our cars? My brake is about 2" in front of the gas pedal. I'd imagine it'd be heel-toe optimal if they were level with each other. I have no idea how I'd get my heel to hit my gas before smashing the brake. Guess my ankle isn't flexible enough?

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You can get it, it takes practice. Various ways of doing it. Like I said, I use the side of my foot and not my heel. Works fine. I've seen pro guys do the same.

And as noted here, when on the track and hard on the brakes, the pedals are about equal.

Still I don't think the NSX is setup that well from the factory. Drive a miata and you will see how easy it is and just how well it is set up.

Sylvan said:

I think heel-toe downshifting is a good skill to practice for street driving, not just high performance driving. I will give you one scenario that I encounter occasionally to demonstrate how heel-toe downshifting can increase your safety while driving in traffic.

Think of times of moderate to heavy traffic on freeways or city streets, in which there are a lot of cars and your speed is varying so that you are doing a lot of 2-3 and 3-2 shifting to keep with the flow of traffic. In a car like the NSX you usually can't see over/through/around the car in front of you so you have to be more alert and react quicker to sudden stops from the car in front. When you are doing a 3-2 downshift as the flow of traffic slows, it is good to heel-toe in this instance so that your foot never leaves the brake pedal, in case the car in front of you suddenly decides to panic brake. This happens to me often enough to have made a mental note of it. Just food for thought.

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of course, like i said there are situations where heel toe could be useful in street driving.

but just on a funny note, with what you said, doesn't that mean you are a bit too close to the car in front?

I always rev match downshifts and heel toe when braking to go around a tighter corner at speed.

It always kills me to see people soak up 4k rpm's with the clutch.

I never double clutch because while it may cause slightly less synchro wear It is not detrimental to the trans to shift normally.

tbnsxt said:

I always rev match downshifts and heel toe when braking to go around a tighter corner at speed.

It always kills me to see people soak up 4k rpm's with the clutch.

I never double clutch because there is absolutely no need to.

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Rev matching and engine speeds have nothing to do with synchro wear. Only with clutch wear. Double clutching will always save on synchro wear. It stabilizes the input and output shaft speeds. Just because you get a smooth feeling shift when you matched engine revs to the gear, it doesn't mean you saved any wear on your synchros.

Double clutching is a good practice to extend the life of synchros. Whether that is shifting up or shifting down. It is especially of use when you skip a gear, up, or down.

There was a real detailed explanation of this given in a previous post, I will try to find it.

it's like saying running the engine is always going to wear something out

irv_lex said:

it's like saying running the engine is always going to wear something out

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It's not like that at all. You can easily reduce synchro life to 25% of its intended life by fast skip shifting. It's something that's easily preventable if you just know what to do and what not to do. There are plenty of NSX's running around with damaged synchros.

People do a whole lot of less important things to baby their NSX's. Understanding how this works is of a benefit, please don't belittle it by saying "it's like running your engine".

These are good practices to learn and perfect that make you a better driver. Anyone can drive a stick in a normal fashion and slam gears. Its good to learn and perfect your driving technique.