Well the e46 m3 is the first MT car that i have owned and I find myself getting into this bad habit of up shifting from 3rd to 6th gear. Is this safe? the car dosent bog down when i do this and it feels ok.

What are the basic rules for shifting habits and skipping gears???

sidemarker

 

Are you just letting it rev up int third? Thats the only way it wouldn't totally bog down, even though it should a little from the drastic change of geaing. I always go through all the gears going up, but skip sometimes going down, like when engine braking or exiting the highway.

 

I've gone from 4th to 6th when getting onto a highway, but 3rd to 6 seems real drastic unless your hitting 6800-7200 RPMs. I don't see much use for 6th gear unless i'm going at least 65mph and above, its great as an overdrive.

 

well ive never driven a cl-s MT but after driving my dads 350z MT 6th gear was pretty weak but on the m3 6th gear is surprisingly strong and out of a bad habit ive been shifting 1-2-3-6 and im in 6th @ 45 mph but the car does not feel sluggish at all.

just want to know if skipping 2 gears is fine when upshifting?

sidemarker

 

Your straining the car if you continue to accelerate in that gear. Even though it may feel powerful, its till a big jump.You should row through the gears. The car will feel more
powerful while accelerating past 45.

What RPM are you shifting at? If your in 3rd, just putting around and shift into 6th, I'm amazed the car doesn't bog down. Most BMWs shift at under 3k RPM. After 3K they start to open up.

 

Skipping gears is OK and you won't hurt anything by doing it. As long as you don't lug the engine going up or buzz it going down.

I'd do (and do so often) a 4th to 6th. 3rd is a little too much. Also 45 in 6th is a little too slow, try at least 50.

The car has plenty of torque, which is why you can drive in a higher gear than you can in some other makes.

 

It depends on the transmission, but I know in some transmissions you can really screw up your syncros by skipping gears going upwards.

The syncros are usually engineered to slow down the engine enough for a 1 gear upshift. They're not always designed to do large changes in rpms. I know in the S2000, some people have rounded off their syncros for 5/6 and locked themselves out of 6th gear all together because the syncros got so messed up.

Again, it depends on how the tranny was designed ... if it was over-engineered so the syncros can handle it, then you shouldn't have any problems. The 'norm' should be to row through all the gears, or at least clutch in and let the engine slow down before upshifting into 6th so the syncros don't have to do so much work.

BTW- Its also true if you upshift from 3rd to 6th and are WOT at a low RPM that you're putting a lot of undue stress on the engine, and you could potentially cause damage to the heads. If you're accelerating, you're better off going to the next gear anyways.

 

Almost all of this is not true. Skipping gears will have NO effect on the syncros. The syncros have nothing to do with the engine. They have one purpose only and that is to allow you to shift gears without double clutching every shift. The last paragraph has some good info except for the part about damaging the heads????

 

the only reason I can think of for skipping gears is some ol' fashioned laziness.

have I done it before? sure. never gone 3rd to 6th (that's a bit much, imo), but 3rd to 5th, sure.

just try to match the rev's as best as you can, so you can limit unecessary wear on the clutch...

 

I go from 4th to 6th all the time. It’s so easy to do with the CL-S. Never had a problem.
3rd to 6th sounds like a bit of a stretch though, although I’m not familiar with the gearing on the M3.

Shawn S

 

I didn't make this stuff up ... Read it over on s2ki.com from some guys who seem to know wtf they're doing ... there's even pics of the syncros being "rounded out". Like I said, it depends on the transmission design. The S2000 syncros were apparently not "over engineered" to be able to deal with slowing down the engine enough when upshifting more than one gear.

I may have mixed up some of the terminology because I'm certainly not an expert on transmissions or engine design, but here is what the S2KI guys had to say about skipping gears on upshifting:

http://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php...pic=237209&hl=

 

Sorry I realized I messed up ... from what the thread I linked in the post above said, lugging the engine could damage engine bearings not the heads. Been reading so much different stuff that it sometimes gets all mixed up inside

 

I didn't bother to look at your source. And if you're getting the info from there then they are making it up - or just don't know what they are talking about.

1) Originally the gears in a transmission were straight cut (crash box), pure racing trannys still are. You just jam it in and go. But this type of gear makes a lot of noise, so car makers began making them beveled. This created the problem of them not going in easily without damaging the teeth. Hence the need to double clutch to "syncronize" the gears. Syncronizers were made to do exactly that - syncronize a gear with the one it's about to be meshed with without having to double clutch.

2) Can you damage a syncro? You bet! By not using the clutch (or not engaging it fully). Skipping a gear has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with damaging syncronizers.

3) The syncronizers in a manual tranny do NOT IN ANY WAY have any effect on engine speed. When the clutch is engaged, that part of the tranny is no longer connected to the engine. The only thing they do is to allow the teeth of one gear to mesh with another without chipping the teeth of one of them. The chipping occurs because one gear is moving "out-of-sync" with the other.

 

Starter,

Maybe I'm explaning things wrong ... but since you didn't bother to read the thread or even look at the pictures, let me quote it here so your lazy ass can read it ... I can't link the pictures in, so you might actually have to click the link for those.

Does that make any sense to you?

I wouldn't ever think that I knew everything in the entire world about every single car. Is it possible that there are cars out there that are designed differently than the standard MT? Like I said, it depends on the way your transmission was designed, but it seems as though the tranny that went into the S2000 is made differently than others. This may or may not be applicable to others cars, I don't know.

 

I go from 4th-6th all the time. I figure why shift into 5th if I'm gonna go into 6th a half secnd later. I only do it when going more than 50mph though.

You can probably do it, but unless you let the revs down it will cause more jerkiness than just shifting into 4th, then into 6th.

 

Damn, you're making my lazy ass work with all these replys. Yes, it makes some sense -- about a very large RPM difference between 3rd & 6th. But this is more about folks who are semi abusing their cars. Running it out to redline in 1-2-3 then dropping into 6th. The 2000 is relined at, what, 9K? Ours at 7.

There is no chance of damaging your syncronizers in daily driving with a 4 - 6 upshift. Or a 6 - 4 or 5 - 3 downshift.

Your post mentioned "slowing the engine down" as in the syncros doing this. They don't. Two things slow the engine down - the throttle and a load on the engine. Disengage the clutch to shift and there is no load on the engine.

There is some, small, danger of engine damage if you lug it too much (bearings is correct). The much bigger danger is skipping too many gears going down, on purpose or otherwise, and buzzing the motor (exceeding the redline).

OK?

 

Sorry didn't mean to be an ass, I just remembered reading that on another forum so I shared the info about a potential danger when skipping gears. I realize that the S2000 is different than a lot of cars, and definitely a lot different in terms of engineering than the M3 ... thats why I said it depends on the way things were designed.

At least we're pretty much in agreement then. And yeah misshifting or down shifting early is definitely bad. A lot of people seem to think that the rev limiter that protects them in this case but it doesn't (rev limiter only protects you when you're accelerating and go up to redline, won't save you on a downshift).

sidemarker - Just as some advice, when I was learning to drive stick, I made the mistake of trying to shift as quickly as possible. Ended up misshifting once or twice but luckily caught it every time before I did any damage. If I were you, I'd try to shift nice and slow until you get used to it. That way you can ensure you've got the right gear. Also as you let out the clutch, watch what the engine does. If you're upshifting and all of a sudden the RPMs start to rise quickly as you let out the clutch (w/o pressing the throttle), get on the clutch again quick ... could be the difference between a close call and a blown engine.

 

I skip shit almost all the time in my RSX, and it never has felt like it was bogging or having trouble.

when did you get an M3? pics?

 

I dont have a sixth gear

 

Don't worry bro... neither do most of us... sadly.