tallica62

i was readin some threads and fell upon this. I know some of the explanations have been read, but can anyone help provide an explaination for these?

if you have a manual you should learn to....
double clutch
drive without clutch
heel and toe
engine brake

Bobo

You should add "replace the clutch".

tomservo291

As much as many people around here say those things are great and or very bad, many people will also say that they always go with regular driving, use your f'n brakes because that's what they're for (and they're a fraction of the cost of a new tranny/clutch.)

I always have, and of the three standards I've driven I've never had to have a clutch put on, my previous car I put 80k on and it was at 210k with original clutch before i sold it, still strong.

I'll stick to using the clutch for shifting and brakes for slowing. Works for me.

sryth

My opinion:
Don't bother with double-clutching (almost pointless)
Don't *ever* drive w/o the clutch (pointless)
Heel and toe comes in handy when turning
Engine brake in the gear you're in...don't downshift to do it.

ThurzNite

iTrader: (13)

I don't agree that brakes are a fraction of the cost of clutch. At the rate I'm driving, I'm gonna go through about 1.5 sets of front pads before replacing my clutch... so it's about even.
Jae

dgeesaman

iTrader: (10)

http://www.vidload.de/script/kategor...&sort=filename

tomservo291

Exactly my point. Pads are cheap, clutches aren't. Sure, you won't have to replace your pads 5 times, but I won't have to replace my expensive clutch nearly as soon as you...

Plus, after doing the brakes on my girlfriends BMW last week I think it's a GOOD THING to have to go into the brakes and recondition them as often as the pads wear down ... I'd like them to KEEP FUNCTIONING. Brakes rust fast, they need to be cleaned ... Sure if you take them apart and clean them all that's fine but are you just leaving your brakes to rot for years? Good luck getting your rotors off.

rome06

iTrader: (1)

hahahahahahaha no shyt hahaha good one 2 add

sryth

Uhm...how much are you paying to do your brakes? Most people can do their own brakes, whereas they shy away from replacing a clutch.

Clutch:
$250 - kit
$400 - Labor

Brakes:
$40 - Pads
$0 - Labor

Brakes == much cheaper. Hell, even if you throw in an hours labor, brakes are a *lot* cheaper.

Acerbis

iTrader: (1)

double clutching is stupid. dont do it unless your driving a semi.

southeast_first

iTrader: (3)

double clutch: duh. if you can't read the phrase "double clutch" and pretty much know how to do it, you've got bigger problems than learning to drive stick. this IS occasionally useful, but it's not the technique that's hard, it's knowing when you need it.

drive without clutch: do you have a clutch? is your left foot broken? what's the point?

heel-toe: not really useful in everyday driving. if you're racing and taking corners very quickly and can't afford to lose time on downshifts, then this is needed. i've never used it though, and don't plan to.

engine brake: not as big a deal as people make it out to be. you still use your brakes to stop at stop lights and things like that; engine braking is useful for things like controlling your speed as you descend a steep hill.

what people really need to learn how to do, judging by some of the drivers i see around town, is rev-match and push the clutch ALL THE WAY IN. i was next to a new mazda6 on my way home from school the other day and i swear i heard it grind on almost every shift. ugh.

SW20 MR2

The only thing I do is rev match when I downshift. Other than that, use your brakes as intended.

BigLou93SE

iTrader: (10)

Double clutch downshifting in any car is the best way to downshift, as far as wear and tear on clutch and tranny goes. It allows both the clutch parts, and the tranny shaft (don't know the specific names right now), to be at the same speed as the desired gear, as opposed to single clutching (revmatched) which only matches the clutch parts. Since 4th. gen trannies are weak, I decided to learn a better technique to downshift.
Engine brake in the gear you're in - if you're downshifting the correct way, your car will not slow down dramatically. It is when people slip the clutch to catch a lower gear that slows the car down a lot, which is bad for your clutch.
Double clutching is NOT useless, I used to think that way after mastering single clutch rev matched downshifting - and when I learned how to double clutch, I couldn't imagine doing anything else. It's more fun, and is healthier for your tranny and your clutch.
I learned these maneauvers from those m5 vids - I love those things.

sryth

VinnieMax

good one!

totally true, especially for the "shifting without clutching" clause. My father-in-law is always trying to tell me how great this is. Then he tells me how bad his clutch is...

Seriously, what's the point of double-clutching, and then shifting without clutch, to even things out?

IMO, of those points:
Braking on compression is for emergency breaking (downshifting)
Compression is for descending VERY steep hills

heel and toe is more for race driving than everyday.

But still isn't it fun to drive a standard?

ThurzNite

iTrader: (13)

$83 Hawk HP+ front pads
$105 ACT disc

You also can't put a price on safety of being in the right gear for unexpected emergencies.

Jae

sryth

You have to drop the tranny to change the clutch
You have to take your wheel off to change your pads

Much easier to do the brakes.

thisisausername

double clutch
drive without clutch
heel and toe
engine brake

hahaha...I think it was me that wrote that. You should know how to do this stuff, but chances are you will rarely (if ever) have to use it. If you want to read about something useful just read the part about double clutching, everything else is for physco driving, emergencies, or the track

double clutch: i don't care what you people say, its much better for your transmission to double clutch downshifts, and a good thing to know if you fry a synchroniser or go to the track ;-). Also good to know if you drive a semi . heres what ya do:
clutch in
put car in neutral
clutch out
rev engine to match rpm for lower gear (like a normal downshift)
clutch in
put in gear
clutch out

drive without clutch: good to know in case your clutch pedal goes out for one reason or another. I know a person who did this to get home when their clutch stopped workin. I've also heard that you can save clutch wear by pulling it outta gear without clutch...donno if this is good for it though
to drive without clutch:
taking it outta gear:give it just enough gas to take pressure off the gears, push the stick toward neutral and it should slide out easily
putting it in gear: only do this when you're moving. After pulling it outta gear as described above, you need to rev match almost perfectly for the next gear, otherwise it will grind like you wouldn't believe. If you rev-match well enough(within like 50-150 rpm) you should be able to easily slide the car into the next gear. If you are off by a bit you will get an unpleasant grind l. If you are off by a lot it will grind horribly. This is basically a very mild version of powershifting, its probably not a good idea unless you need to make it home.

heel and toe: useful for downshifting around corners. somewhat fun to do and good to know if you go to the track
rev matching for a downshift while hitting the brakes at the same time. For this you need to use 2 feet for 3 pedals. You put your heel on the brake and your toes on the gas the blip the throttle for a rev-match. This allows you to have full power the instant you leave the turn.

engine brake: useful in the rare situation that your brakes go out, or if you're decellerating fairly quickly from high speeds >80mph. also good for mountainy driving where brakes could overheat
just downshift so the car slows down faster. I've found it useful a couple times when my brakes started to overheat

sryth

I don't think anyone is arguing that it's not good on the transmission. It's argued that it's bad on the clutch.



It will save a tiny bit of clutch wear. You don't disengage/engage the clutch when you do this. It's negligible, though, as normally there is no load when you engage the clutch again (you're in neutral).

It's not that great on the syncros unless you keep the engine turning at approximately the same speed as the input-shaft. If the engine is trying to slow down, the transmission is slowing down at a slower rate; the syncros will bind when this happens.

I've never been able to do this as you describe in any car. I do it with the left edge of my foot on the brake, while the right edge is on the gas.

You should never use clutch-slip as a braking tool, however. I guess in an emergency (read: both segments of the brake systems fail) all bets are off; but this rarely happens.

BigLou93SE

iTrader: (10)

How do you figure? It seems as though you are putting just as much wear on the clutch as a single clutch downshift...?

sryth

Single-clutch: pedal in, shift, pedal out
Double-clutch: pedal in, out of gear, pedal out, rev, pedal in, shift, pedal out

When I say it's bad on the clutch, I don't just mean the disk.

Each time you disengage the clutch, you are causing wear on the TO bearing, the pressure plate, and the master/slave cylinders. Each time you engage the clutch, you are putting wear on the flywheel and disk.

Whether this wear amounts to anything is also arguable.

You could say: "The added wear on the clutch with double-clutching is minimal, so it's worth it to save the syncros."

You could equally say: "The added wear on the syncros with single-clutching is minimal, so it's worth it to save the clutch."

Frank Fontaine

I'm not sure what the reason for double-clutching is, it seems to suit no legitimate purpose. Probably a person who likes to do that would like the BMW SMG tranny. It's been controversial and most "enthusiasts" still don't prefer SMG, although the newest M5 comes with it. There's a reason Nissan put a pedal to the left of the brake pedal, it's best to use it imho. As far as which costs more, the clutch or brakes, I think it's advisable to downshift. If one is that concerned with how much clutch replacement costs, he'd never be able to drive in a metropolitan area where stop-go traffic is an everyday thing.

sryth

thisisausername

this happens a lot more than you think when descending mountainy areas. Both brake systems use the same disks, so if the disks overheat it really doesn't matter that you have 2 sets of hydraulic brakes(front and rear) and one mechanical e-brake, they all overheat at the same time. I don't mean braking by slipping the clutch, i mean braking by leaving the engine in a low gear and using the compression stroke of the engine to slow you down.

southeast_first

iTrader: (3)

double clutching is the only way i can downshift into second anymore. i'm sure other people have the same problem.

BigLou93SE

iTrader: (10)

Ok guys, I just relearned how to single clutch - it's much smoother. I was thinking about it, and although we have weak trannies, which was my reason for double-clutching, it's not the syncros that fail...this is a timeless debate though, and in about 3 months we're going to see another like this one.

Vlasic

iTrader: (13)

i sometimes have to double clutch into first cus i have a bad synchro.

sometimes ill do some power shifts at redline between 1-2, but thats rare.

the way i sit its impossible to do heal-toe shifting. wouldnt you also need different peddles than the ones that are stock?

i always downshift to engine break. ill go down to as low as 2nd, and i will rev match it so that i dont wear out my clutch, and it also saves my brakes.