I looked around couldn't really find the answer I was looking for. the easiest way to explain what I'm looking for is.

Say im going down the rd in what ever gear and I want to drop down a gear or two so that mr.ridemyass is no longer. what is the maximum speed i could drop down from 6th to? from 5th to? ect
On a side note i drive pretty conservatively I don't run the sheet out of my ride but on the occasion I like to drop it down and open it up.
thanks

 

now I'm not the greatest when it comes to standard transmissions, but doesn't it have more to do with the RPM's than the speed? most likely wrong, so dont mind me. just what I thought

 

it's more about RPMs, and whether or not you'd over-rev it dropping down a gear. If you're going to money $hift, then yes, you'd be downshifting at an engine speed higher than what's safe.

 

Oh i understand its all about the rpm but if im running 70mph and drop down to 2nd its going break lol if i drop it down to 4th i have no idea where rpm would be. I guess i could just wind out through the gears and get a good idea what the rpm's would be at that prospective speed for that gear.
I am sure its posted here some where. and I have not wound out tached up or hammered down since I got the car.

 

It's all math.. you don't need to redline your car in each gear to figure out what the top speed is for each gear. A simple way to figure this out would be to get the rpm to half or 1/3 of redline then multiply your current speed by 2 or 3.

Each gear will effectively have a modifier on it.. rpm * gear modifier = speed. Figure this out and you'll know where to pre-rev your engine to when downshifting no matter what your speed is, or if you shouldn't downshift to that gear at all.

If I drove a 6MT I could give you all these numbers, but I don't . Numbers for my past manual transmission cars won't help you either.. but fortunately this isn't hard to figure out.

 

Just drive more and you'll learn. I too wondered this when I had my rsx and I quickly learned which gears I could drop to and I too measured it by MPH. Like said above, run through your gears and you'll catch on quick.

 

With driving experience one will, or should be able to tell when to downshift and into what gear at a given speed, but I guess you could stick the following to the dash.
Other factors come into play at the higher MPH, but at 6500 redline, stock diameter tires, theoretical max MPH:

1st 38
2nd 61
3rd 89
4th 121
5th 155

Just be certain to rev match when downshifting, or you may have the tailgater in your trunk.

 

have been driving manual transmission for many years-It comes natural overtime when it is time to shift. I learned on a older VW Super Beetle with no Tach so I never learned rev-matching.

 

I have driven manual for many years just not this manual. I will definitely figure out this ones preferred shift points. sadly to say it stays parked more than the rest. mostly due to wash drive wash lol gotta love the black.

 

5th to 3rd gear is very popular.
I wanna say in 5th at about 50-60 mph and drop it to 3rd, you'l soon have to switch gears before it redlines, but gawd! its an amazing feeling.

 

Rev MATCH is very IMPORTANT or u gonna feel that feeling when u brake while ur rolling.
I also drive a 6MT

 

Each gear should go up by 5 mph per 1000 Rpms. 1st is 5 mph per 1k, so 20 mph would be 4k rpm and 5k Rpms would be about 25 mph. 2nd is about 10 mph per 1k Rpms or 4k at 40 mph. They keep going like that all the way to 6th gear which is about 30 mph per 1k Rpms. I never go below 4th at freeway speeds, 4th gears is good for 135-140 mph as fast as you need to ever go.

 

lol, I had a 67 and a 72 beetle to learn on as well. They were pretty forgiving when one made a mistake and had stout 4 speed trannys that were almost bullet proof. A great platform to fine tune the hand/foot/ear coordination needed to properly shift.

 

nice, would like to see your car soon, at a Houston meet!

 

for 5AT,
1: 35mph
2: 65mph
3: 100mph
4: 132mph
5: 132mph

reason that 4th and 5th top out at 132 is that type s auto has a speed governor that wont let u exceed 132

 

you should already know if your driving the car, just dont drop it hard or downshift into vtec, and you shouldnt skip gears downshifting or upshifting.

 

LOL i hate when people skip gears

 

i meant to say dont downshift into redline**

and yeah, they can mess up their synchros

 

that's where the double clutch comes in. That pause in neutral is the equalizer.

I personally dont downshift very much however when cruising the freeway.

 

why cant u skip gears? dont ppl do it all the time? even in automatics, when u floor it, it will downshift 2 gears if the speed allows for it. heck it can even downshift 3 gears. cruising at 50mph in 5th gear when u floor it, it will downshift to 2nd.

 

Everybody skips gears, or should when downshifting depending on the circumstances. Not the TL, but 3rd is good to about 95 so when I'm on the highway in 5th and need some quick acceleration I'll put it in 3rd, I don't go to 4th then 3rd. Also when coming to a slow corner after on the highway, I don't go 5-4-3-2, that's ridiculous.

As far as up shifting, even the Vette has a shift block at low RPM that makes one go 1-4, so it's not going to damage the transmission, it just depends on the circumstances. There's been many times I've had the car up to 65-70 in 3rd after a quick takeoff and just want to stay at that speed, so 3-5, no problem.

 

^normal commute driving, i skip from 2nd to 4th.
puts me right at 40mph.
thats one less headbob for my passengers

 

I skip gears with no problem-Never had to replace a clutch-transmission was replaced on the maxima under warranty. The motor was too powerful for the transmission and the bearings could not hold up. It was a 5MT. Otherwise, no other MT had to be changed.

 

Turbonut,
That shift block on the vette is for idiots who can't drive..IMO.. If you have one, you probably know that easy driving (when you want 2nd) will deny that gear and put you in 4th. It's rather annoying and inconsistent. I tuned that bs out the first chance I had.

You're in NJ, so you're probably familiar with ECS (East Coast Supercharging) in Cream Ridge. I had my motor built over there, among other things.. really bad ass crew and cars that come out of there. My c5z is a 700+rwhp car that gets 29mpg on the highway and is as reliable as any other car out there... can't really ask for much more.

 

the '10 srt8 chally I had for a month, had this shift block feature as well.

I hated it.

 

I've been wanting to drive one of those. I'll make sure to redline first gear every chance I get to avoid the shift block lol

how did it drive?

 

My dad went out of the country as soon as he bought it. He gave me the keys to it at 500 miles.

up until that point, the TL was the fastest car I've ever driven.Let me tell you, I am now a believer in torque.
screw this high revving bs
I drove it every day for a month. best believe, I had fun in that car!
raced my friends C6. got it on video, He won, of course.
also raced some evo's, also on vid. floating around on this site.


Here she is!

 

Beautiful car! Love the color, too! I agree, mod for mod, displacement wins every time. Being RWD doesn't hurt either. I'm gonna have to get motivated enough to go up to the dealership on my day off to see if they have one.. The Challenger (imo) is the only 'back to life' retro car that was done right.

 

Because of the CAFE mandates, GM invented CAGS to increase fuel mileage, but for as little as $7 an over-ride can be made.

Yup, got to like the work and results on the ZR1 after some ECS tuning.
Pass ECS everytime we go to New Egypt and John Romano worked there and also raced at NES before his early departure.
Got to love forced induction.

 

I don't think anyone is saying you absolutely cant skip gears on a manual transmission, but it should be recognized that skipping wears the syncro's faster because they have to work harder. As for an AT, internally they are nothing like a manual & don't have synchronizers so the computer can do whatever it wants to do on a downshift.

 

^ double clutch. just make sure you rev match extra for that extra low gear.

 

MT Drivers: You can skip gears (6th to 3rd) as long as you double clutch and rev-match. If you don't, you will be putting extreme amounts of wear on the sychro for the gear your shifting into. The synchro acts as a brake for the main-shaft and clutch disc. These parts have considerable mass combined. Forcing the synchro to match extra rpm of skipping gears, is asking our 3rd gear synchro to take on the work that would have been done by the 5th and 4th gear synchros as well.

AT Drivers: You can drive however you want. The AT will break anyways.

BTW: There has been lots of problems with S2000s where drivers were skip shifting from the top of 3rd into 6th. This quickly destroys the 6th gear single-syncro cause it has to drop the main-shaft/disc by so very much rpm.

 

hell yeah!

 

I've got down shifting down. Clutch in, shift neutral, clutch out, rev to ~+600 rpm, clutch in, shift to next lower gear.

Hardest part is doing all that and doing a sharp turn at the same time! I usually go from 5th to 3rd when doing those sharp unless I need to speed up in between when I'm slowing down and its too low for 5th then I shift to 4th (rev matched).

At first I found it a pain but now it's become natural (well I do have to think a bit to figure out which RPM I need to be in at the specific speed : gear ratio)

 

^played with heel/toe shifting? makes things a little easier..I think lol

it's more complicated but at least you're braking for a turn rather than quickly trying to downshift before doing so. Also with the car slowing down you wont need to blip as hard as the req. rpm for the gear is decreasing a well.

what's even MORE complciated is heel-toe AND double clutching. At least you'll learn how to shuffle, amirite

 

I've got size 13 feet....heel toe would be such a pain in the a$$ but I may give it a try soon.

 

^ i feel you man. I wear size 14 and it's tough with big feet.

 

I'm a 12/13 and it isn't so bad. It does make driving fun though.

Cool thing about the 3G TL is that the ECU will actually hold the rpm for the next lower gear whenever you try rev-matching with double-clutching over 3000rpm. I didn't believe it at first until I tried it, but it really does. Makes it very simply when you get used to it.

 

Why let the clutch out??? seems like an un-needed step?

 

^it saves your snychros