I've learned to drive manual very quickly and its only my 5th month. One quick question is, when i'm on 5th gear and want to pass another car. What gear do I downshift? 3rd or 4th? I have only downshifted to 4th to pass and its been ok.

Any tips or tricks on doing this? Thanks for all advices/tips/comments.

 

depends on the speed your going and how quick you want to get around the person if your only going 45-50 I would say 3rd but if your cruisin at 70 4th would probably be sufficient

 

yeah buddy, id say 4th would be ok...someone once told me 3rd gear was the RA's passing gear...but i dunno...like Sentinal said if you goin slow...3rd is fine...and if faster...well just use fourth..also, with our cars, if you wait to shift until you redline, youll get more power

 

i usually can pass with no problem in 5th doing 70... just because at 70 im doing like 3300 rpms and the engine can pull really fine from there

 

I'm not in my car, so I can't check for you When accelerating, check to see at what speed your car redlines when in third, take a bit of speed off that, and that'll tell you when it's safe to DS to third.

 

my RA redlines in 3rd going about 80-85, so it would be safe to DS when going around 60-70

 

i love downshifting to pass the elderly

 

i never drove stick before, my dad took me out in his car once for about 5 mins...maybe ten
then i bought my raliart and learned on that with 2 stalls in my lifetime and zero stalls
I HAVE BIGGER BAJJS than you!
hehe jk

 

I always go straight to 3rd as long as I'm under 65. Anything over that, and 4th is best because 3rd will redline so fast that you'll lose time & acceleration from the shift. I wish I could still go to 80 in 3rd like in the Evo

 

I agree with Jang- 3rd if your under 65. By the way..Jang i like your webpage...but what is slalom speed in the stats part...ive never heard of that.

 

Actually in 3rd gear you can reach 77mph, how do I know this, look in the manual and it tells you what the top speed of each gear is except 5th gear, it also has the best points to shift to help in getting better gas mileage and when is the best time to downshift, when slowing down.

 

don't just downshift...REV-MATCH IT!! (double clutch)

 

Hmm, 77mph in 3rd eh. That sounds incredibly high, probably quite close to fuel cut territory. If that figure is reasonably correct, though, it supports the notion that something around 65mph is the upper end of the range where shifting to 3rd is going to help. If you're at 70mph, the brief bit of extra oomph isn't going to be worth it unless you can shift as fast as an auto.

evobaby: Thanks. Slalom is when they line up cones in a straight line at equal intervals, and the car weaves through them as fast as possible. Note that our car matches the WRX in this handling benchmark.

 

3rd gear I would think is the 'passing gear'. 4rth is the last while 5th is the overdrive gear.

 

yeah just make sure the gear you downshift to doesn't exceed redline, the lowest gear you can do this in (with out over reving) will give you the most increased acceleration.