[jd's1990coupe]

After talking with various people over the past 3 months im finding a disturbing occurence with driving methods: People are downshifting to slow down the car. Ive been in friends cars of which they do this all the time.

Save your transmission guys! Use your brakes to slow the car down, not your tranny. Replacing pads and rotors is a helluva lot cheaper than ruining that tranny. Especially with these legends as manuals are not easy to find nor cheap to replace.

**they like that 'rev' sound thats made when driving fast and downshifting the car quickly

 

[mad_bishop]

it's perfectly exceptable to downshift to aid braking. This does not do damage to your transmission. Not bleeding hyrolic clutches and not changing the transmission oil are the problems I see people with standards have.

 

[paulo57509]

Abuse is one thing.

Using the engine as a brake under normal driving conditions will do no harm.

 

[jd's1990coupe]

let me check my notes then.... but i thought downshifting to slow a vehicle is a bad habit.
Realistically you should be using your brakes to slow the car. Downshifting is appropriate when selecting the proper gear to exit a curve or turn, or when attacking a steep grade.
However I thought downshifting to slow a car results in additional wear on the clutch, transmission synchronizer rings and crankshaft...is this not true?

 

[Eric F]

let me check my notes then.... but i thought downshifting to slow a vehicle is a bad habit.
Realistically you should be using your brakes to slow the car. Downshifting is appropriate when selecting the proper gear to exit a curve or turn, or when attacking a steep grade.
However I thought downshifting to slow a car results in additional wear on the clutch, transmission synchronizer rings and crankshaft...is this not true?

Everything you do in a car will cause wear to it. The trick is to not do the things that cause considerably more wear than normal everyday driving. As long as you don't get in the habit of downshifting to 2nd while going 60, the wear won't be enough to cause a trany to fail before the life of the car. Downshifting does put stress on the shafts, but it's not enough to make them go out any sooner. If you want to reduce wear on the cluth, you can double clutch when you downshift (rev the engine to match the transmission speed before you put it in gear.)

 

[paulo57509]

>snip<

If you want to reduce wear on the cluth, you can double clutch when you downshift (rev the engine to match the transmission speed before you put it in gear.)

This is more beneficial to the sychros inside the transmission than the clutch.

 

[jd's1990coupe]

that makes sense bro'.

i suppose my warnings would be most helpfuly to people who downshift from extreme speeds to slow down the car drastically or those that downshift to slow down all the time. a lot of peeps like that 'rev' sound thats made and of course there is more 'rev' when the speed change is greater...

"Everything you do in a car will cause wear to it. The trick is to not do the things that cause considerably more wear than normal everyday driving"


if you use your drivetrain to slow down your car all the time, then i guarantee you are wearing out your parts faster than me because im using my brakes only

 

[Eric F]

if you use your drivetrain to slow down your car all the time, then i guarantee you are wearing out your parts faster than me because im using my brakes only

I use my drive train to help slow down my car but when I do, I usually don't let the engine rev higher than 4000-4500 rpm's. If I did this on a regular basis and the transmission never had any other abuse, it would still last over 300 k miles.
I would call letting the engine go through the whole rpm range on a downshift abusing the tranny. e.g. shifting into 2nd while going 60 mph.

 

[Talrude]

I do it all the time

I been doing this for years.

I rev the hell out of my mother's car back in the days.
Its now 290,000 miles on that 1988 Honda Accourd LX.
When I downshif I love the sound but I build up Compression to slow the car down while using the brakes to regulate the tranny and brakes system to slow me down.
Do I rev to 5000 rpm? NO Have I done that be fore YES be mistake or A Swift turn is coming up.

SO I feel Use it when you need it but do not abuse it!
And.... .Like someone said. Slush your systems out too!
I feel An Automatic should never Down****( Thats you moving from D4 to D3 to 2 and then L (1st gear)
I hve seen it done before but it was not designed for all that so I would NOT do in.

That's why Manual is the best!
In My opinon.

 

[jd's1990coupe]

interesting.

btw, hook me up with a tranny that lasts over 300k, where can i get one!

 

[Eric F]

Any manual tranny that's properly maintained throughout it's entire life should last over 300k miles.

 

[patrick]

tranny downsifts on it's own

 

[jd's1990coupe]

wow,

I suppose that 98% of people dont take care of the tranny properly because ive heard of few cars that reach 175-200k.

 

[Steveman09]

ok first of all.



Manual transmissions were DESIGNED to be able to downshift, this is part of the whole concept of a Manual Tranny.


Engine braking is perfectly fine when done properly.


You have to know your Speed to RPM ratios when downshifting.


Lets say your going 60 and traffic ahead stops and your in 5th gear.


Here is what most people would do.


5th push in clutch and goto 3rd while braking.

Is this ok? Not really.

Problem is skipping gears is a bad thing since Manual tranny's have Syncro's that match the engine flywheel speed to the transmission.

The right thing to do is.

go from 5th to 4th then down to 3rd. while braking or not braking doesnt matter.

This is the RIGHT way to downshift.

This also goes for upshifting as well.

You can try this somtime if you dont beleave me.

Take off and Redline 1st gear then try to skip 2nd and goto 3rd.

You will notice the tranny wont wanna let you shift it into that gear and might GRIND.

This is because the Syncro's are off and are not designed for skipping gears.

If you want to skip gears the only RIGHT way to do it is this :

Lets say your going 40 in 4th and you want 2nd gear to slow down.

Simply Push in the Clutch take it out of 4th and leave it in the N position, let the clutch out, push it back in then select 2nd gear and let the clutch out slowly until the rpm's go up.

What this does is allow the Tranny to match the Engine speed, this is called Double Clutching. This is how older Manual's HAD to be driven before Syncro's.

If you want to know if downshifting will kill a manual, well no it WILL NOT.

What will kill a Manual tranny the quickest is (improper fluid maintance) Power Shifting and Burnouts.


For the record, I race my legend all the time, powershift, burnouts, the whole 9 yards. My tranny is fine

 

[vince]

Downshifting to slow a car may wear the clutch out faster, but no more than a regular shift. It will not damage the transmission. Skipping gears will also have no ill effects, I do this all the time without any problems. Just don't mis-shift. Also, http://www.shortshifter.com/techniques2.htm

 

[Talrude]

Steveman09

Hope yo have backup clutches and motor mounts!

BTW how much iis a set of motor mounts?

 

[LegendPride]

uhhh ohhhh, I've been doin this in my auto for months, ever since I had to drive my brakes to the end while waiting for my next paycheck, I Looove that sound, makes the exaust go vroooom, hahaha, I swear I'll never do it again K

 

[C25A1guy]

Ok, I'm gonna lay the facts out straight here.

1. Downshifting is acceptable in aid of braking, but not neccary (you don't drive a god damn semi)

2. Repleacing brakes is a hell of a lot cheaper then doing a clutch job

3. Rev matching (not double clutching) will help minimize the amount of wear the clutch will take

4. Those of you with autos, don't slam it into D3/S3 to help you brake unless you got a backup Level Ten trans like me

5. Downshifting does not hurt the trans nor engines. Not replacing the MTF over a period of time will hurt the trans.

6. God damn, I never realize how many newbes came on the board after I got my DC5.:eek2:

 

[Steveman09]

muuwhahha :werd:

 

[C25A1guy]

Damn, seems like just cuz I'm master AEM cert, everbody looks for my posts. LOL.:werd: