Hi, yall - this is my first automatic, much less manumatic type vehicle. My question is this. Sometimes when I am revving the engine up into the 4-5k range in manumatic mode, the tranny takes almost 2 seconds to change gears after I try to. Is this normal? Is it the engine stuck between the two cams?
Should I be concerned or just deal with the sluggish response. Thanks, otherwise a great car (damn rattle is annoying...).

 

Dude...Ya gotta shift as the revs are climbing, not at a steady rpm. Think of it this way...Target an rpm you'd like to shift at and pull the trigger a split second before as the revs are climbing. I sometimes find myself tach watching a little too much and back off a little or hold the throttle steady, not what you want to do. The car revs so fast it's easy to forget when to shift. It doesn't matter if your shifting at 3G's or 7G's. You must be applying throttle to get the quick shift. Contrary to some opinions, the 5AT shifts incredibly fast if ya know how to do it.

 

The lag can't be as long as 2 full seconds, it only seems that way. I have noticed a longer delay when downshifting than with upshifting, however. If you're on the gas while shifting up, the delay is nearly undetectable. I like the way the sportshift mode works. It's much smoother than a regular manual transmission, because you have no jerking back and forth due to letting off the gas between shifts.

Another thing I've noticed is that if you've got the pedal to the floor and you want to really wind up the RPMs into the VTEC range, you should pull the shifter back (to upshift) a microsecond before redline, because the transmission won't shift until a couple hundred RPM above redline (which again, is just a fraction of a second). If you wait too long, you'll hit the rev limiter before the upshift.

 

This is true. Albeit much more pronounced when shifting from 1st to 2nd. Anyone else notice this ?

 

Just as a response, I am shifting when the revs are climbing - ie I quickly shift lanes and try to haul ass to avoid the 18 wheeler doing 80 in the right lane that is quickly filling up my rear view mirror. I do not red line this car, too much of a chicken. And I clocked it once, took between 1-2 sec to shift (couldn't stop the stop watch quick enough to get totally accurate time). I don't know, maybe I just need to drive it harder or something. Thanks for the input. Brian