manual driving tips?
 

so this is my first manual transmission car. i undestand how the im supposed to drive it and everything but at 340miles im still not as good as i would like to be. does anyone have any tips or a wedsite or something that might help me out or is this just going to take more time? im always afraid im going to hurt the clutch and need a new one way sooner than i should. thanks
mat

Practice......no website can give you experiance.

Start with www.standardshift.com. The no gas exercise sounds stupid but is very helpful in learning the clutch engagement point.

You didn't pick a very good car to learn on.. Clutches aren't cheap and labor isnt either :(

You might try doing a google search:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...ansmission+car

you know the best thing to do, if this is your first manual car, before even driving, you need to do some muscle memory training.

I used this technique when I first started to drive the manual a long time ago.

What you do is stay in your car, and the car's turned off.

Sit down like how you would sit down normally when you drive, and go through the gears with your foot doing the thing they do.

You would just do the clutch in gears changed, clutch out, throttle in, over and over again.

And try to do it without paying too much attention to it.

Do this over and over and over and over.

Then go out and drive around. You'll see that your body's memorizing the repeated action and it'll be a lot easier, since you wont have to pay attention to it that much or it'll go through the motions that you were repeating.

I hope that helps. :)

for me, learning where the clutch engagement point was the most important as a beginner

practice moving the car and stopping it using only the clutch. then when you're starting out, i think it's easier to get on the gas a little before letting the clutch engage. so clutch in, rev to like 2000, slowly let out the clutch till you start moving, then let it out fully and get on the gas. then after a while, you'll get a better feel for the balance between clutch and throttle.

Clutches can be a bit expensive to change but it is better if you wear that our than the rest of the drivetrain. What I mean is, if you are having trouble just be a little bit harder on the clutch to get you out of trouble and don't worry about it. I think the thing that really kills them is hard launches, especially with lots of clutch slip. Once you get a bit better see if you can start with only a little of bit of throttle (just above idle) and then feed on more as you start to move, instead of a lot right at the start. That is only when you can already start ok though, get the basics first.

I don't think a Lancer Evolution is a bad car to start with. It weighs a bit which can make it harder to get moving, especially on hill starts, and the AWD system doesn't help that either but I really don't think it is any harder than other cars I have driven (this is with an Evolution VI and Galant VR-4, I haven't actually driven an Evolution VIII).

Aston

Don't stall :D If you want to learn just get out there and practice.

learning should only take about 3-4 times in the car. I just learned a couple months ago, i roasted the tires a few times on accident and stalled twice but after like 4 times out in the car i was shifting like great.

Actually I learned to drive on a RSX manual somewhat and when I went to my Evo, it was a lot different. You have to slip the clutch a lot more to get an Evo going. I was probably one of the few people that actually stalled their Evo's driving it off the dealer lot. Lol.

i stalled it out of the lot too. so embarrassing...

thanks for the tips. well luckily i didnt stall leaving the dealership but i have stalled a couple times. i guess slipping the clutch seems to be pretty common. meanwhile the more i drive the better it has gotten so i guess all it takes is practice. thanks again for the tips
mat

Hey don't feel bad.. I almost stalled mine a few times pulling out of the dealer lot.. I think I was more nervous and excited more than anything.

I learned first on my buddy's 97 Civic EX. Did terrible. Peeled out, buckled the car, and killed it, all in a timespan of about 10 seconds. I got a bit better with his car later, but still had engagement issues. Later on, I practiced some more on my buddy's 05 Eclipse 5MT V6. Muuuch better. Still need more practice though. Learning to engage 1st smoothly was definitely the biggest challenge though. Slippity slip slip... at least that's how I did it until I could get a better feel for the engagement.

When you start to practice on hills, you will smell burnt clutch... Don't worry about it, it's not too bad for the car. Better to learn hill starting with nobody behind you than some a$$hole who pulls up behind you 2 inches from your rear bumper. If you do get caught in this situation though, just engage the e-brake so you don't roll. And as soon as it's time to get going, let the e-brake out slowly just after you catch 1st. Just a beginners tip. I had to use it once.

Do you have to use the e brake on a hill or can you practice and get good to a point where you can start going on a hill with just the pedals without moving backwards?

By the way does not using the ebrake on a hill kill the clutch?

Yes it is possible to do, I don't use the handbrake much at all. You have to get the clutch to the point where it is just starting to grab (same as you would do if you were using the handbrake) and then you have to move your foot quickly from the brake pedal to the accelerator pedal and get the right amount of throttle and start to release the clutch pedal. That bit has to be quickly and fairly accurately, so you don't roll back, stall, or use too much throttle, and it takes practice. As soon as you take your foot off the brake you could roll backwards, the more you release the clutch pedal before you get off the brakes the less the car will roll back but it will be harder on the clutch and there is a greater the chance it will stall. On steep hills you might still have to use the handbrake if you don't want to roll backwards a bit. You could also try to have half your foot on the brake pedal and the other half on the accelerator or something if you wanted but that would take more practice and I think the normal way is good enough.

Doing it without the handbrake can be a little bit harder on the clutch but if you do it quickly and smoothly it shouldn't be much worse fo it. As long as you don't have the clutch slipping (holding it at the grab point, especially if you aren't moving forward) for more than a few seconds it should be ok. Around 3 seconds is probably ok, I think I use about 1 or 2 depending on the steepness of the hill. Steep hills will be the worst and for them it is probably best to use the handbrake.

It doesn't really matter which way you do it though, with pedals or handbrake, both achieve the same result. I think I actaully found handbrake hill starts harder when I was learning so I didn't do them and now I have got into the habit of just doing it with the pedals.

Aston

I am a beginner too. I drove my car to a friend's house where it had lots of hills. It was a perfect place for me to learn and master the uphill start challenge. The friend kinda asked if he could test drive the car. I was thinking why not.. i mean he does have like 3 years of stick shift driving experience on his 3000GT. Now i kinda regret that because after he drove it for 2 minutes but i already smelt lots of burning inside the car. :( I didn't know what the smell was from. He told me it was probably from the oil change i had a week ago. I didn't really believe him because when i drive the car, i don't smell any burning at all.

I've had the car for 2 months and still afraid to drive the car to hilly places... :( I tried parking the car on a hill just using the ebrake but the car still rolled back. :-( I asked friends why, they told me that i didn't pull the e-brake fast and hard enough. Is that true?

The only thing to do is jusy practice, practice, practice. The more you drive around the more situations you will encounter and learn from them..

I learned a stick on an 87 VW Scirocco. Awesome car by the way. It was a $450 beater. A mechanic stalled it twice trying to get it into a mechanic bay then called his friend who stalled it once then asked if I could drive it. The car was all messed up, you pretty much had to bring it up to 3000 RPM before you let up on the clutch. The clutch engagement area was about an eigth inch too. haha. Plus I live in an area where some hills are so steep, automatics roll back and trucks gotta lowgear down the road. Practice.

i'm with you on that.I kept practicing where i dont hit the gas at all until i mastered it,which help me a lot on launch.

Are you saying even with the ebrake all the way up the car was still rolling? That sounds like a definite prob with the ebrake...but if it just rolls when you're pulling it up, then I'd say keep your foot on the regular brakes a little longer. Also, I prefer to keep the car in gear while parked. If it's in neutral and something knocks down the ebrake, that car is going to do some rolling with even a slight incline.

As for the original poster, yeah, what they all said--practice. However, doing research ahead of time is always a good thing. One of the most important things I did, before I even had my first stick shift, was to read up on how the transmission actually worked. Once I knew why I needed the clutch, and how the gears worked, it became easier to know when I needed to do what.

Practice practice practice. Be sure to blip the throttle on downshifts to match revs.

I have been driving manual gearboxes for 33 years and I would never own an automatic, tiptronic or even DSG or F1 car. Driving a stick/clutch is a much more rewarding and engaging experience. Especially in an EVO. You are lucky to have an EVO as your first manual car. I had a used 1969 VW Beetle for my first stick and it was a POS.

your friend was pretty messed up for doing that

With a lot of practice... you should be able to be swift enough to catch the car in an immediate forward roll up hill from brake to throttle. It's not easy though so don't get frustrated when it doesn't work right away. Obviously, don't start off your driving experience on upward hills ( sorry San Fran ). As for parking, in case you were wondering. I would NOT use gears... but that's just me. Use your e-brake. If you have to ... do some maintainence to increase it's holding power.. and more importantly, park close to a curb and turn your tires so as to roll into it if it were to release... so if you're parking facing uphill.. direct your tires away from the curb, if you're parked facing down, turn your tires into the curb. That way, even if you do roll a little... the car isn't really going to go anywhere cause the curb will hold it in place (of course along with whatever stopping power you're getting from the e-brake). But that's just my 2 cents... don't use a gear for parking power.

just practice.. best way to learn is practice!

well. i just noticed that this thread was made in 2005... im pretty sure he learned how to drive now.. haha

turn the car off while pushign the brakes.. put it into 1st if facing uphill, reverse if facing downhill then pull up the ebrake and let off the brake... itll split the wieght between the gear and e brake... when you pull it up dont hold the button.. just yank it as hard as you can.

cheers!

hm... nice tips!

Rev matching is a very important technique to learn if you ever want to become a competitive driver.

My advice is to make sure your seat is set up perfectly for you. I know when I first started driving stick, it was really awkward because my seat was too far back and to get my clutch pedal all the way to the floor I needed my leg fully extended AND my foot needed to be stretched completely (think walking on your tip toes). I later moved my seat forward a bit so when my leg is fully extended, my heel has the clutch pedal all the way to the floor. I can still use my toes to be more precise if I want to be, but I don' need to worry about my foot being overly tired.

I like this method a lot because if anyone every messes with my seat when I get an oil change, I just push the seat lever up and fully extend my leg and, voila!, it's back to normal! :)

I dont think is a bad car to learn. My girlfriend is learning to drive stick in my car.

The Evo isn't bad to learn stick... it's not the best, though. On the bright side, once you learn stick on an Evo, you'll probably breeze through driving stick for most any other car you'll ever buy.

How to not nuke your Evo clutch in the first week:
-If you rev past 2,000rpm while the clutch isn't in engaged, DO NOT even think about letting the clutch out unless you like the smell of burning clutch.
-Be SUPER careful changing gears. The last thing you want to do is wreck your syncros or whole transmission because you half-@ssed shifting completely or let out the clutch too early with the gear not fully engaged.
-Be smooth. I recall when learning to drive there was the phrase "turn half as much as you think you should", well, the opposite is true for the clutch pedal -- lots of people let out the clutch waaaaaay too fast or jerky and that shocks the transmission, too. Let the clutch out slowly and smoothly.
-Most of all, have fun with it and don't get discouraged!!! Learning stick in an Evo means you're doing better than like 99.9% of people that learned stick and when you're done, you're driving a cooler car than like 90% of the population!

It's a decent car to drive, as manuals go. As a valet, I've driven pretty much everything, and the Evo is a good setup. Good clutch feel, shifter, etc.

For people learning to drive a stick for the first time on an Evo, don't worry too much about burning out the clutch. Too many members here have burned out their clutches early anyways. A lot of members just take it as part of what's expected with the Evo. I wonder what the average duration of the stock clutch is for EvoM members? (eventhough, I don't believe the stock clutches are as weak an people say!!) I think it's more about how the cars are driven.

I started learning stick on the Evo, and that was a big ****up on my part. Put a great deal of wear on the clutch, and ended up getting it repaired.

I ended up garaging it for about two months, and I borrowed a friend's 240sx. The clutch was much more forgiving, and after learning how to slip, hill starts, etc, coming back to the Evo was cake.

I found this writeup on nissanclub.com and thought it was a really comprehensive explanation. I drove a manual 20 years ago when I first started driving, and then recently came back to a manual Altima SE-R after many long years of automatics. I'll never go back to automatics if I can help it, and I will be buying an Evo soon to park next to my SE-R in the garage. :) Anyway, I hope this writeup helps!

(Sorry for the long post, but thought the info was great - props to Pvick of the Nissanclub forums)
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Here is a composite of some writeups I did on this site last year which you may find informative. Since you are just learning to drive a manual transmission, I STRONGLY advise you to take the time and learn correctly and avoid developing any bad habits. Frankly, most people do not know how to properly operate a manual transmission. Set yourself apart from them and be one who does.

Happy reading.


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PROPER MANUAL TRANSMISSION DRIVING TECHNIQUES

What follows is a collection of writings which I have posted at various times on this website in an effort to help answer some questions regarding the proper manner in which a manual transmission should be operated. While there are certainly many ways to drive a car with a manual transmission, there is really only one correct way. I was most fortunate to have learned these techniques while I was still in my teenage years. In so doing, I was able to avoid developing entrenched habits before they became really bad habits and difficult to correct. It is my hope that this helps you learn what I have learned and perfected over the years. If you do, you will reap the rewards, both financial and in the knowledge that you have mastered a technique that few do in their lifetimes. Have fun!



Under normal driving situations (not racing), when you start out from a standing start, you do so with the lowest possible RPMs, get the clutch out to full engagement as soon as you can while adding throttle. If you do this correctly, the transition will be smooth and seamless, and the wear on your clutch disk, pressure plate, release bearing, and flywheel will be minimized.

If properly designed (sufficient size and clamping pressure, etc.), and properly installed with no defects (correct torque, non-faulty equipment, alignment, etc.), then the next, and most important, factor to the life of the clutch assembly is the operator.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHY A CLUTCH CANNOT LAST THE LIFE OF THE ENGINE UNDER NORMAL DRIVING CONDITIONS.

When I speak of engine life here, I am referring to life before a serious teardown or part replacement such as a timing chain (200,000+ miles) or headwork. If you cannot get at least 100,000 miles out of a clutch, you are doing something terribly wrong. Obviously, racing constitutes a whole different approach and, as such, does not come under this.


Don'ts:

Do not use any more engine speed (RPMs) than absolutely necessary to get the car rolling in first gear.

Do not hold the car on a hill with the clutch.

Do not wait for a traffic light to turn green with the transmission in gear and the clutch depressed.

Do not rest your foot on the clutch while driving.


Do not ride the clutch in any gear (obviously you will to a small degree in first to start off).

Do not down shift by just removing your foot from the gas, moving the shifter into a lower gear, then releasing the clutch slowly.


Do's

Start off smoothly and with low engine speed, and shift in such a manner that if you had a passenger on board, they would not even notice the shifts.

Hold the car on hills with the brakes.. that's what brakes are for. NEVER hold a car on a hill with the clutch. The amount of heat generated by doing this is incredible.

While waiting for a light to change or while sitting in heavy traffic, put the transmission in neutral and get your foot completely off of the clutch petal. Leaving it in gear for extended periods heats up and shortens the life of the release bearing. The normal condition of a clutch is fully engaged so it stands to reason that's where it should be most of the time.

Resting your foot on the clutch petal while driving engages the release bearing.. see above.

Avoid riding the clutch as much as is humanly possible. You will extend its life significantly.

If you do not know how to properly downshift, DON’T. Use the brakes (should do this anyway), and avoid downshifting any more than necessary. Improper downshifting is analogous to riding the clutch because that is what you are actually doing. Learn how to properly downshift first and save yourself the frustration of premature clutch failure.


Clutches are wear items, heavily affected by heat caused by friction. In a front wheel drive car, they are costly to replace, so unless you like shelling out a lot of money periodically for the replacement of these components, learn the correct way. Learn it until it becomes second nature like breathing.

I spent some time teaching a lady with whom I worked 10 years ago these techniques when she purchased a new '92 Honda Accord LX. When I last spoke with her, she had well over 140,000 miles on the original clutch with no signs of slippage. So I'm not jerking anyone's chain here. Learn to operate a manual transmission correctly and you will reap the rewards by saving a lot of money. Plus you will be one of the few who know how to do this right.


I don't mean to set myself up here as some kind of guru because I am not. But I have been driving manual transmissioned cars for over 40 years. I have spent the time to perfect the process into an art form because when done correctly, that’s what it is. When I sold my '88 Mustang LX 302CID, it was 6 years old and had 77,000 miles on it. When the buyer drove it, he asked me when I replaced the clutch because to him, it felt very positive. I told him that I had never replaced it and that it was the original unit. I added that it wouldn't make any sense to replace a clutch after only 77,000 miles since that is not very much wear. He had a little bit of a hard time believing this, but he did buy the car. Three months later, he called me up to let me know how much he liked the car and to tell me had had not wrapped it around a tree. He again asked about the clutch and I again told him that it was the original clutch.

I used to own a 1966 Chevelle SS396/360HP. I was the original owner of the car. For a period of about 2 years, I was street racing the car frequently on the weekends. At 83,000 miles when I sold it, it would still break traction in all four gears and the clutch had no slippage. It was tight and strong. Now granted, American cars have traditionally had stronger clutches than Japanese cars. This is changing because the Japanese are putting larger and stronger (torque) engines in their cars.



Downshifting

Ah yes, downshifting. If I had to name just one facet of manual transmission errors-of-operation, this would probably be it.

To understand how to operate a manual transmission, you have to know how the clutch assembly and transmission work, and I am going to take the assumption that most do on this forum. I will only clarify synchronizers. They serve to match the speed of the gears in the transmission as the shifter is moved to a given gear. Now for downshifting.

Let's say you are in fourth gear and you are approaching a stop sign, so you decide to downshift from fourth gear into third. What most people do is just remove their foot from the throttle, depress the clutch while moving the shifter from fourth to third, then start releasing the clutch slowly until they achieve full engagement. If you do this, what you are actually doing is riding the clutch in third gear. After all, the engine has returned to idle (or close to it), you get into third, then just ease the clutch out which pulls the engine from idle up to the RPM's at which it will operate at whatever speed you are traveling in third gear. Here is the correct way to do this in steps that I will break down in a moment.

Raise your foot off of the throttle.

Depress the clutch.

Start the shifter up into third.

As you pass through the neutral gate, let the clutch out (doesn't have to be all the way) while at the same time blipping the throttle to increase engine speed BEYOND that which it will operate in the chosen lower gear.

Depress the clutch again.

Engage the chosen lower gear.

Let the clutch out while adding throttle.

As the engine RPM's decrease they will be met by the engaging clutch and opening throttle.

This should be a simple, smooth, fluid motion and you will know you've done it right if there is no jerking as the clutch comes out in the last step. Now for some details.

As you move into the neutral gate with your foot off of the throttle, the engine RPM's will be returning to idle. This is the point at which you want to blip the throttle a bit while at the same time engaging the clutch some. You want to get the engine turning faster than it will when you are in the lower gear you have chosen. The reason is that you want to spin the gears up to a speed that equals that at which they will be operating when you finally release the clutch in your downshift. If you do this right, there is no clutch slippage because the engine and the gears in the transmission will be spinning at the same or nearly the same RPM's. No slippage means you will get into gear with full engagement of the clutch sooner and with virtually no wear. To best understand this, you really need to know how a clutch assembly and transmission work together to deliver power from the engine to the drive wheels.

This takes a lot of practice, but if you get it down, you will be heads and shoulders above just about anyone else who drives a car with a manual transmission. You will begin to notice the mistakes other are making when they drive. Learn from their mistakes and it will both save you money and make you a far better driver.

So it's in with the clutch, start the shifter into the chosen lower gear, while passing through the neutral gate, blip the throttle and at the same time engage the clutch a bit to spin up the gears, then back in with the clutch as you get into the chosen gear, then finally release the clutch in one smooth operation.

Here's another little tip. Say you are waiting at a light for the green and your transmission is in neutral like it should be with your foot completely off of the clutch petal. When the light turns green, instead of just depressing the clutch and pushing the shifter up into first, pull the shifter partially into a higher gear first, such as second or third. The gears in those selections are not spinning as fast as the gears in first. By starting the shifter into a higher gear before you go to into first gear, you will cause less wear on the synchronizers and they will last far longer because they do not have to stop gears which are spinning at a higher speed. For cars which do not have synchronized reverse, definitely do this and you will not experience the grinding affect when shifting into reverse.


Say you are driving normally, shifting up through the gears to the one in which you wish to be for cruising. As you disengage the clutch and move the shifter to the next higher gear, you might notice a slight resistance just before you finish the shift. What you feel is the synchronizer for that gear forcing the drive gear(s) from the input shaft and the gears selected to "mesh". That is to say, their speeds are forced to equalize so that as they engage, there is no grinding and no damage to the gear teeth. That said, we can move to double clutching.

Double clutching was a technique that came about when earlier manual transmissions did not have synchronizers. If you did not double clutch, you would experience some serious gear grinding when shifting.

If you did not have synchronizers in you transmission, you would have had two choices when shifting gears: (1) put up with some really serious grinding and damage/breakage to gear teeth, or (2) manually match the speed of the gears in each selected shift so that you would eliminate the problems just mentioned in #1.

Suppose you are traveling in second gear, the engine is turning at 2500 RPM, and you are getting ready to shift to third. At the road speed you are going, let's say that once in third, your engine would be turning at 1800 RPM. When you remove your foot from the gas, the engine is going to loose RPMs quickly and by the time you get into third, the engine might only be turning 1200 RPM. Without synchronizers, you would need to raise the engine back up to 1800 RPM in order for the gears to mesh. By blipping the throttle and at the same time letting the clutch out some when you are passing through the neutral gate, you will both increase engine RPM and increase gear speed. As the engine RPMs fall back off, they will reach a point at which you will be able to complete the shift.

Now downshifting is much like this, only in reverse. In other words, you are going from a higher gear to a lower gear so if your engine was turning at 2500 RPM and you wanted to shift to second, You would want to blip the throttle enough to raise engine speed to perhaps around 3200 - 3500 RPM.


When you are upshifting, the RPMs fall off and most people find it pretty easy to adjust to this and to add throttle at the right time so that when the clutch comes back out, they have the proper RPM's for the gear selection/road speed.

However, most people downshift by (1) removing their foot from the throttle, (2) moving the shifter into the next lower (or chosen) gear, then (3) slowly releasing the clutch while adding little or no throttle. This is NOT the proper manner in which to downshift. What you are doing in effect, is riding the clutch in reverse. In others, you probably wouldn't dare attempt to start your car off in third gear because you would have to add a lot of throttle and really slip the clutch to get the car moving. When you downshift like the example I just gave, you are doing something similar to starting off in a higher gear, though it does take more energy to get a car moving from a dead start. Now if you double clutch during the downshift, you are spinning up the gears and the transition to the next gear will be quite smooth.


Junkyard asked a question about the concept of “passing through the neutral gate”. You don’t stop or stay in neutral. You are just passing through, so to speak. In your second question, you said I had mentioned to put the car in neutral when downshifting. Not exactly. Try this with the engine off.

Put the car in fourth. Depress the clutch and shift to third and let the clutch out. Now do the same thing, only this time as you pass through the neutral gate, let the clutch out some or a good deal and blip the throttle, then clutch back in, get into third, clutch comes out for the final time. That is the movement you want.

Incidentally, blipping the throttle is just a little stab at the petal, enough to raise RPMs to the desired level. You do not want to be on the throttle long because you will be in the process of shifting. Yes, this does take a lot of practice and may not come easily for many, but it is the best way, in fact the only proper way, to downshift because it very significantly reduces clutch and synchronizer wear (especially clutch), and once you get the hang of it, you will be able to do it quite fast.

The bottom line to all of this folks is to match engine speed to wheel speed in a given gear, and to do it in such a manner as to eliminate undue trauma to your drive train. I do this all of the time and have been downshifting like this since my very early 20's. I actually learned it from a magazine article (as I can best recall). If you know how a manual transmission and clutch assembly operate, all of the components and how they perform together, you will understand the beauty of the process.

Oh the grinding noise Junkyard hears when he starts letting up the clutch too quickly is most likely due to not having fully engaged the gear teeth and they separate (pop out of gear). That or he actually begins engaging the gear teeth before the clutch is fully depress so there is still some flywheel/disk/pressure plate contact.

One of the things I noticed right off the bat on my SE was that the clutch began to engage much too close to the floor for me (a contributor to the problem Junkyard has had). It was starting to engage about 1 inch from the floor, so I adjusted it out to 2 inches and it is fine. If you do this, just make sure you have the required toeplay, otherwise you will prematurely wear out your release bearing.


The purpose of letting the clutch out some as you pass through the neutral gate is to spin the gears up in preparation for the speed at which they must be at for the lower gear selection. This will allow you to get into that gear very easily. When you depress the clutch, you disengage the crankshaft from the transmission. The gears in the transmission will begin to slow down. By letting out the clutch some (or completely) in the neutral gate, you once again, MOMENTARILY, engage the full drive train and get the gears spinning. Only this time since you have blipped the throttle, they'll be spinning faster. As they slow down from the higher speed, your clutch will be coming out for the final time with the transmission in gear and the mesh will be smooth.

Try it both ways. Do it first the way you do it and notice that you have to add a little bit of force to get the shifter into gear. That's because the synchronizers are doing their job of gear speed meshing. Now try it the way I outlined and if you do it right, you will have virtually no resistance as you slip the shifter into your chosen gear.


Instead of going right into first as the light starts to go green, try starting the shifter into second gear.. don't have to go all the way into gear, though it won't hurt. This slows the gears down just as though you had gone on into first, but it's much easier on the synchronizers. And you won't get the "crunch" you mentioned when you have to move quickly.



To prevent rollback; practice, practice, practice, practice.

One way to do this is to find a nice little hill someplace where you won't be a bother to anyone. Take along some masking tape and mark off two sections with the tape a foot apart. Your goal is to keep the car from coasting back more than 1 foot.. of course you do not use the clutch to hold the car.. use the brakes. As you learn to do this, find another hill a little steeper. And so on, and so on.
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PVick
2004 Acura TL
Anthracite/Ebony
6sp Manual trans
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Drop dead Gorgeous

^^awesome writte up man :headbang:

One thing to keep in mind is that a gear change should not look like one single motion. In other words, you don't just grab the lever and slam it into the next gear. Each gear change should basically be two motions: pull the lever out of one gear, pause for a split second in the neutral part of the gate, then push the lever into the next gear. It should feel like "click-click" not "wham."

This is something I always have to work on with my students on the track. Everyone seems to think you need to wail on the brakes, throttle, and shifter. Unless you're dragracing and 1/1000th of a second counts, there's no reason to beat up your gearbox (not to mention risk toasting your valvetrain with a mis-shift) by slamming the lever from gear to gear. You have to be smooth with your inputs.

Also, you should learn the proper way to move your hand on the lever. Go to the UUC Motorwerks website, click on the "Tech Tips" button on the bottom of the page, then click the "Shifting Techniques" link on the left. Learning how to manipulate the lever properly can save you an engine.

Emre

yup just practice... it takes time
and dont but in a rush to shift...

I was going through this and I was just wondering if anyone who has driven a manual car before the Evo notice that the RPM's drop a lot slower with the Evo after depressing the clutch? I used to have an impreza before my evo and then RPM's would drop like a rock and I was able to shift relatively quickly. But when I switched to the Evo everything got a lot slower.. I had to wait a little for the RPMs to drop and then let out the clutch much much slower than I have in my impreza. Am I doing something wrong with the Evo here?

anyone?

wow i started this thread two years ago. funny to think how my driving has improved. im sure you guys are like me, nothing puts a smile on your face like a perfectly executed downshift. i forgot all about ths thread. hope its helped some new manual drivers in the past two years

The tips on this thread are amazing! Thank you guys for all your wisdom. I just bought my Evo on Saturday...having never driven a stick. It is a bit frusterating,, but now I cant wait to try some of the tips you all have mentioned. I am trying to learn from my fiance, but that is just a huge headache. So thanks again guys!!!

The no gas technique I think is the best way to know when the clutch begins to engage. Thats how I learned.

I learned on an 88' Honda Civic which I bought for 375 bucks and after stalling out a number of times on a 4 lane express way at 2pm in heavy traffic......yeah I learned rather quick, especially when the car behind you is up your a$$ blaring their horn :-x

I learned with a 93 honda civic with a act unprung 4 puck. Not the best clutch to learn with. lol

sorry to hear that u are learnin on an evo im sure u r gonna go through a clutch from ridin it so much but just remember to relax and enjoy the ride let the car do the work and just remember u r along for the ride until u get it figured out its sort of like breakin a wild stallion in u will know when the right moment is for u to turn her loose good luck and hope this helps a lil bit

Drive like you don't own it, and you will drive better ET's and MPH's :)

Best advice out there.

so true man.

This is one of the more helpful threads out there, so it's now stickied at the top of the forum.

I used to have the same problem too, I was afraid of the clutch. The fear came mainly with the fact that I lived in the mountains. Every morning when I go out to work I think "OMG, I might fall to the cliff, I might forget to change gears and fall."

I got this fixed with practice. Don't panic so you can think clearly while driving. Focus on your driving,

I learned to drive stick in a type R honda civic and honestly the only way you'll get better is with time. Keep on driving and you'll get better eventually

you can get good enough to not even use the brake on hills. It's supposedly stressful on the clutch to allow any pre-load, but its used in launching to ease the pain so i dont see the harm in holding the sweet spot on a hill. Whenever i see another enthusiast on the road ill always try to come to a stop with minimal braking and never hold the brake on a hill just to make my obsessions apparent. Shifting skill comes with experience, just get the motions down, and LISTEN to your car. She'll tell you everything you need to know.

EDIT: I live in florida so the hills i encounter arent seriously extreme. Holding your car on a STEEP hill with the clutch is a bad idea, and will most likely make you stall unless you have really good pedal feel. Heel toeing between the brake and accelerator is one of the single greatest driving techniques to learn, so get on it, and you shouldnt have a problem with hills, and youll get better a shifting as a result.

Hey man I know how you feel, i just bought my frist manual car just two months ago. And i stalled only once when i first took her off the lot. Ohh man the frist 2 weeks was hell, i stalled so many times, and im sure i bunrned my clutch a couple of times too. All the countless time of when i stressed out when i thought i was ruining my brand new lancer, but non the less fun times.

Hah, I'm going to be buying an Evo IX in a couple months, and I have never owned a stick, I've driving a couple times but that's it. I'm fully expecting to stall at the dealer.

As far as damage to the clutch is concerned, the only way your going to damage the clutch is heat. When you get it too hot the flywheel and/or pressure plate can warp and/or crack as well as tear the friction material off the clutch.

Now, what creates heat? Partial engagement under power, aka, slipping. But certain kinds of slipping are worse than others. Slipping a low rpm/low throttle will not create very much heat. Slipping at 5000rpm under high throttle will generate heat extremely fast and burn up the clutch if you dont stop it from slipping in a matter of seconds.

Also the time in which is slips (ie. slipping for 400ms vs. slipping for 5 seconds) hugely affects how much heat builds up. Try to keep the time spent slipping to a minimum in all cases for best clutch life and performance.

Just keep this in mind and dont be afraid to play with it a little. As long as your not getting it too hot it'll be fine.

LOL After buying it, I took one of the sales managers over to the gas station to let them fill up the car. Stalled it on the first clutch release. The bastard comments, "Have you ever driven a stick before?" I just looked at him and said, "I've never driven an automatic actually." Farkin AWD in a brand new car, of course I don't know where the slip point of the clutch is yet.... Grrr

Im going to be purchasing an evo very soon and it will be my first stick car. I've practiced a few tiumes on my friends dads VW Beetle (Yes I know, GAY, but he owns a dealership and it was the only stick car). I did really well, the only part I had trouble with is downshifting because I was scared to lol.

First of all, congratulations on your upcoming purchase. The Evo is a very solid car, and a TON of fun to drive. You're going to love it. As for the driving, here's what I recommend.

Find a friend who has a Dodge SRT-4...
And learn how to drive a stick on HIS car first!

LOL

Good luck man!

Rev it until it stops and let go of the clutch.... Oh wait that's what you do in honduhs... I have taught 3 girls to drive stick with my car and a stiffer clutch than normal so you should do fine. Find the friction point and give enough gas where it doesn't stall and slowly let go.

Don't be afraid of downshifting, just don't try to downshift into first at 50mph, your newly purchased Evo might not like that very much.

You are going to love this car....maybe not the ride quality or interior but the fun factor is there and there are a lot of smart people and knowledgeable people on this forum and in FL to help you with your car. AWD is just a jump away from you.

my x was my first car didnt stall it leaving the dealer,or while driving in the streets,but as i pulled up to my drive way hahah pretty embarrassing when most of your neighbors are outside hahaha lol

haha when I picked up my x, I stalled it right at the dealership..they told me to get out :(

hey guys, does anyone else's rpm slightly rise maybe 1 or2 hundred rpms after completely letting off the gas and clutching in?

I've only been driving a manual for about a month and i find that from a stop I start quiet slow. Always starting in first from a complete stand still I hit the gas and let the clutch out a bit but before it's fully out, I press it again and switch to second with more gas. so there's a few seconds that are really slow in first then in second while it starts to climb before i hit 3rd. I find if i hit the gas any harder in 1st though, the car will lurch and rock hard. Any suggestion to pull away from red lights and stuff just a little faster?

The good 'ol X was my first stick car, and I pull some reeally slow starts around the myriad stop signs by my house. Never mind other drivers getting upset with you, it's the fact that you just took 10 seconds to hit 20 mph.

My change of habit was to just become more familiar with the clutch's engagement point on the X. This allowed me to hit the gas at the right time and get moving sooner, whereas before that I would give it gas to ~2000 RPM, then slowly let out the clutch.

Maybe try practicing the "no gas start" approach by just engaging the clutch on a flat road getting used to what will *almost* stall your car, and what's a safe clutch letout. For me the final step was just engaging and giving gas almost instantaneously, which reduced my 0MPH - 20MPH time down by about a 1/2.

Best of Luck :thumbup:

Just find an empty parking lot and practice until you are comfortable. You will likely stall at first, don't be discouraged, I think most of us have stalled.

thanks guys....i posted this is the ralliart section since it didn't seem like many people read this. Since i've actually been paying attention more to the clutch in 1st the past week, it's been coming along smoothly :)

I've been driving stick for awhile now, but I have an interesting question. My friend told me the other day that it can be "bad" to leave the clutch pedal down while at stop lights, etc. He recommended shifting into neutral and taking foot off the clutch. Supposedly theres some bearing that spins and is under load while the clutch is not engaged.... Does anyone know if this is true?

I never found to have any issues while leaving car in 1st and keeping clutch in, during stops...

if you keep your foot on the clutch while at stop lights, your throw out bearing will be under constant load and it will heat up. this will reduce its life if you keep it under that constant stress

accelerate the revs up to 3k RPM, hold the clutch in in first gear, then slowly let the clutch out 'til the revs start to drop, and match slowly by accelerating more.

2 years ago when I first got to Japan, I didnt know how to drive a manual. When I told people that, they looked at me like I had 3 eyes. Everywhere you go, you always saw the sexy japanese girls driving these expensive super fast rare japanese cars and I felt like I had was living under a rock. So I went and bought myself a 1999 Nissan Silvia S15 Spec-R. They worst part abt it was not even that I had no idea how to drive a stick...IT WAS PARKED ON A HILL IN FRONT OF A WALL lol. I made up in my mind that there was NOOOO way I was going to hit this wall, but at the same time I had no idea what to do. So i turned the car on, pushed in the clutch, put it in reverse, released the clutch while stomping the gas pedal (all of this while the E-brake was still engaged.) Lets just say I learned how to change a clutch within the next month, but hey at least I didnt hit the wall lol.

i didn't read the other posts so i apologize if someone already shared this insight. When giving advice to novice/beginner manual drivers, a few things occur to me. I feel it is very important for the driver to become intimate with the clutch. the point in which a clutch engages is different for every car on the planet. there are so many variables to mention, so i will skip to what is important. At some point when letting out the clutch, the clutch disc begins to engage the flywheel. Obviously, engaged too quickly, the car will lurch and stall. Get comfortable with the way your clutch engages.

so, when letting out the clutch, take time to feel the engagement in your foot. the pedal will start to feel firmer as it engages. once you understand the mechanics of how to properly engage the clutch by feel, you will find it easy to advance in shifting technique.

Bottom line, feel is everything.

Honestly I don't like the whole take clutch out and give it gas method. If the clutch allows slippage, I always have the driver get a feel for the engagement point. I then tell them to hold the engagement point until they notice the car moving forward on it's own even without gas. Then once they understand they can pursue to use the gas pedal and clutch in synch.

learned on a hill with traffic behind me in my bros 08 scion back in 07, thank god he was in iraq or sheeeeeet, but yea after i got the evo it was sooper hard because of the turbo lag and not to mention the former owner had slapped in a stage 3 racing clutch on a nyc street? yea no fun there but like everyone says, practice makes perfect, feel where the clutch disengages and the car almost turns off, learn that point because it is crucial. happy clutching!

3000rpm is kinda high, on an Evo 2000rpm or lower will work fine. I was testing an old WORKS 3-plate carbon-on-carbon racing clutch and could roll it out at like 1500rpm. The older Evos will also help you out with the IACV when it sees it dragging below idle which should be around 800rpm. Easy car to learn on.

^is that matt bell, who used to drive for Turner Motorsports? (formerly Matt@Works on here)?

sorry for off topic. just curious........

T'is I!

+1 {thumbup}

Practice, practice, practice. Too bad you went for an expensive car to learn from. :)

Simple rules to live by. The clutch is either all the way in or all the way out. Don;t drive around with it anywhere in between. And don't launch it too often unless you want to get real good at replacing clutches!

Yeah, practice is literally the best thing, even though no one wants to hear that since they're looking for a black and white answer here lol.
I stalled the evo a total of 3 times with 1k miles on it. It's a just a matter of getting used to this clutch, which is a little trickier than most clutches.
But the good thing is that if you master driving the Evo, then you can drive any other car without an issue whatsoever lol.

blip the gas pedal while you slowly let the clutch out. This way you can feel where the clutch grabs and the positioning of your foot when u let off the clutch. This will help the stalling issue you'll prob be experiencing.

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Practice, training, time and experience will make you a better stick driver. Same for all of us.