Shift from 3 to 2 on accident, RPM's went to 8,000
 

Last night I was testing out my shifting and I was going about 100MPH and I was trying to shift into 4th from 3rd but I accidentally went into second and my RPM's shot up to 8,000. I know we have a rev limiter so I would think this would hurt the engine. I'm real mad at myself, but the it runs fine. Any input is appretiated. Thanks.

Mooney

The rev limiter wont help in a mis shift, because the rev limiter is electronic. I doubt you messed something up. But pay close attention to the engine, and see if it acts strange.

well the rev limiter only works while urin gear not while u shift from one gear to another... or better yet it may work even then but the ecu cant overcome pure momentum. ur car maybe ok or u may have damaged it, i dont really kno
will

yeah, the limiter will cut the gas to the engine but it's still forced to go at those high rpms, I think you were pretty close to blowing it. The second you downshifted to 2 the car should have seemed to SLAM on the breaks, cause thats a HUGE decceleration. you're lucky

It could have flattened some bearings or scuffed a journal or two. Maybe some damaged valvetrain or something. Your lucky the engine didn't grenade! Keep your good eye on that engine for a while and hope it's fine.

I was trying to go into shift into 4th from 3rd and ended up going into 2nd. Sh!it i hope I didn't damage anything I dont have the money to pay for anything and my dad woud be ****ed off if he knew I was doing that. I gotta pay more attention when shifting. Thanks for the input.

Make sure you spend some quality time with the engine and spoon it all night...

and it might forgive you. ;-)

Seriously, I have a friend whom downshifted my previous 87 Max into reverse! At ~50mph, on a steep grade driving out of the 9500ft Yosemite pass. The car didn't like it. But it got over it. I had no issues - besides thoughts of wondering how my friend got his class A licence and drove 18 wheelers.... that was at ~110,000 miles and the engine was still strong years later.

I hope you have the same luck.

Mr.P

:banghead:

I did the exact same thing on Sunday, except my RPM's only got to 7,500! :rolleyes: I have never been so worried about my max, it scared the sh!t out of me!! You should have seen the look on my buddy's face that was riding with me though. That was priceless! Anyway, I hope your max is alright, mine still seems to be running fine. Dont worry man, you're not the only one that doesn't know how to shift. :bonk:

SHIFT_practice

Man, that sucks. You really don't need to be doing that....he he.
It is not hard for 4th....you don't move the shifter side to side at all....just straight down.

It is hard to tell if you fried anything. I am sure some damage was done, it is just a matter of what. I think the spooning idea was a good one. Maybe your max will get over it and not have to pout with a problem.

Good luck.

To reduce further misshifts, learn to shift correctly:

1-2 shift: hold the shiftknob "piston grip" style and pull back

2-3 shift: with your palm, place your hand on the back side of the shiftknob and push up.

3-4 shift: with your hand inverted and thumb pointing down, wrap your hand around the FRONT of the shift knob and pull directly back.


These shift techniques will allow the shifter to slide easily into the correct gear and you'll never miss a shift assuming you're good with the clutch.


Dave

1. 100 MPH in 2nd gear = 9450 RPM. I assume you realized your misshift before you let the clutch fully out so the engine didn't actually get that high. If not, the RPMs did indeed get up to 9450 but the tach may not have had time to display that before you put the clutch back in.

2. How in the world did you misshift to 2nd instead of 3rd? They're in opposite directions. It's obviously your brain and not your hand that messed up, and your brain should not be on autopilot when you're at 100 MPH, attempting to downshift.

3. 100 MPH in 3rd gear = 6500 RPM, which is redline anyway. Why would you be downshifting at all from 4th?

:tardsmash :tardsmash :tardsmash

The 3-2 accidential misshift is very common among all makes and drivers. Think about for a second, both 2nd and 4th gear are down in the shift pattern. If you're holding the shifter incorrectly and pull back, you're body's natural motion is to pull it back and to the left. This can cause the driver to get hung up on the gate between 2nd and 4th or may cause an inadvertent shift into 2nd. The shift method I described above completely elliminates the possibility of pulling the shifter to the left and causing a misshift.


Dave

I have never missed a shift trying to go from 3rd to 4th. Now I have missed going from 2nd to 3rd a few times. My car isn't a stick this all took place in my dad's Civic Si. But man I think I would have passed out if I shifted from 3rd to 2nd by accident. Would have cried on the side of the road like a baby.

Just keep a close eye on the VQ, just baby it for a little bit now, practice the shifting at slower speeds ;), then work your way up.

I did this 2 or 3 times when I first got my car, I've never done it in another car but the max shifter is funky compared to the shifters in my previous cars so I had to start being more careful. It's not very hard to do if you are not paying attention to your shifts or aren't used to this car yet.

He was not downshifting from 4th, but trying to upshift to 4th from 3rd, and instead downshifted from 3rd to 2nd.

lol :rofl: the org is now drivers ed :reading:

he he he he he

Well considering there is an orger with an 8,000 rpm redline I say youre good. But kids dont try this at home.

That explains it...thanks. I saw "4th...3rd" and read it as him wanting to upshift. Never mind my post then.

On the proper subject, then, I'll add that I've never had a problem upshifting in my Maxima. (I accidentally did a 5-2 downshift instead of a 5-4 downshift early on, because I was nervous about going 5-R instead of 5-4 and pushed the shifter way too far left. Oops.) As far as upshifting goes, it's very easy to to 1-2-1 instead of 1-2-3 in my gf's little Civic, but the Max really protests. So on my particular car at least, it's not easy to make that mistake upshifting.

:sprint:

I had some pics of this that I was going to turn into animated gifs and post. The Accord 6spd guys keep blowing engines due to mis-shifts like this so it was mainly for them, but I was going to post it here too. Their SOHC VTEC heads aren't nearly as tolerant of over-spin with the extra valvetrain mass from the SOHC setup and all of those rockers. But my new laptop "threw a rod" and it looks like I lost that stuff :mad: so I'll have to do it again unless somebody beats me to it.

Basically, if you hold the shifter in a "Coke can" style grip in the 3-4, the position of your arm can actually end up biasing the shifter back over towards the 2nd gear gate instead of 4th. So it's VERY important to do the 3-4 shift in the manner Dave described. That keeps the thrust bias of your arm pulling the shifter straight back and that way there's no danger of accidentally going over to the 2nd gear gate.