http://www.nerocam.com/ManTrans.asp

http://cssdrivertraining.com/manualprimer.htm

Anyone has others that would make a good add to this list? I just purchased my first stick shift car and it's my 2nd day driving so I'm a noob when it comes to driving stick

 

most of that stuff seems pretty obvious now, but i gotta admit, when i was first learning stick, i definetely made some of those mistakes..

heres another thing for you to try. Park your car on a level surface, with the engine on, put it in first gear, and try to get it moving WITHOUT touching the gas. its definetely possible, and you'll be a much better stick driver after you've done it.

 

Why you tryign to make 'em stall? tha's messed up man

 

I do it all the time and especially on hills I don't want to peel out on. Its quite simple, just let the clutch up really slow

 

Yeah.. hills suck... however, i've noticed it to be quite easy to find a catch point and just hang there....

btw dwyer don't do it it's bad for ur clutch.

Just have fun with it. Manual's great isn't it? Once you go you'll never go back... unles you live in SF where there's too many freaking hills.

 

That's not a bad idea, because it gets the coordination goin on in the left leg. Then once a driver masters the feel of the clutch, they add the coordination with the right foot which is the gas. Kinda like when you were a kid on skis and the instructor kept hammering the idea of independant leg motion into your head. I'll always remember the drill where you say take a right turn and make a hockey stop--try it with your inside/uphill ski off the snow and stop on your downhill/left ski. Most people will simply fall over because through the turn they are on the uphill ski, applying the downhill at the last momoent. If a person falls, that indicates lack of independent leg motion. But I digress.....

Anyway, a big big mistake I notice from time to time is pushing in the clutch and leaving it in 1st at a stoplight. NO-NO!!!! Put it in N and leave your foot off the clutch.

 

cool articles

the basics described in the 2nd one, i already knew.. but making them work correctly is the tricky part sometimes. The 1st article is intersting..

What is with this guy talking about how you will never have to replace your clutch for the life of the car if you drive it correctly?

I know of some cases where people have gone hundreds of thousands of miles on their original clutches but for the most part, a lot of the time it is kind of a wear and tear item..
Can you really baby your clutch to a point it will not even wear down?



My biggest problem is taking off from a stop smoothly. I find this harder to master than on other manual transmission cars.. i can let the clutch out super slow but that takes a lot of time, I can't do this in every day NYC traffic that slow.. a lot of the time i need to take off at a normal speed but i don't like the buckling or slight studdering i get... I can either give too much gas or not enough.. only time i get really smooth acceleration from a stop is if i give it a lot of gas, but then i am taking off a lot faster.. or if i let the clutch out VERY slow, which is too damn slow and takes a few seconds..

 

thats the first thing i have someone do if im teaching them... it gives them the feel of the clutch and when it engages and all

 

The best way to drive stick is to master 1st gear. Put your car on a hill, one where once you let go of the brakes, the car will roll backwards. Without using the parking brake, engage 1st and drive off. There will be alot of clutch rubbing and engine revving, but once you've mastered that, everything else is cake.

DW

 

how about that thing the 2nd article talks about...

rev matching prior to shifting? He talks about giving it a bit of gas to get the revs up, then shift, as the RPMs are falling slowly, it will catch right on..

I did this numerous times on my way home today, I must say, it can work pretty well at times..

 

thats a good idea, but that wouldnt be the first thing i would have someone do who is learning stick. that would result in either a severe peelout, a shuddering or painful sounding stall, or something else really bad like rolling backwards down the hill completely

 

When I 1st learned to drive, I actually learned auto 1st, saw a cousin of mine rowing thru the gears like a ballet. That did it, I forced my self to master stick. I had my crx on a hill like a thousand times before I got very comfortable with the clutch. Yeah, it was noisy, and yeah, I wore that clutch down something cronic but in the end, I could engage 1st, on that hill, with minimal rollback, and the engine wouldn't even have to rev much past 1100 rpms

DW