Yea the EVO will not rev up much during a neutral rev. I notice it too. Give it the right tap with your foot and its all good though.

As far as downshifting breaking your engine to pieces. I downshift into at least third, and sometimes second when coming to a stop. I can do it so smoothly, i make my passengers say wow. If you can keep the revs ~200 rpms higher than they need to be for a perfect rev-matched downshift, your clutch disc will last forever

 

I am a bit wary of getting the Evo as my first full-time manual car since the clutch is definitely not tolerant of stick newbies such as myself. I certainly don't want to burn it up within 10k miles. =\

 

I was taught

clutch in and shift to neutral
clutch out and rev up to where you need to be for the lower gear
clutch in and into the lower gear

I was told that if you don't let the clutch back out when you blip the throttle it doesn't allow everything to come to the same rotational speed for the new gear. If you keep the clutch depressed the syncros are doing the work anyway and blipping the throttle isn't doing anything other than having the engine revs more ready for the lower gear. It's not helping the transmission out unless you do the interim step where you release the clutch then blip then clutch and shift. YMMV

 

LDB has it exactly right, that is the way to rev match if you don't have syncros or want to be particularly gentle with the ones you have. Letting the clutch back out before reving gets the transmission to the proper speed (if you rev to the speed you will be at when you are in the next gear). This technique is called double clutching.

Now what the original poster did was rev matching, this is like double clutching but without letting the clutch out between gears. This is useful for lessening the shock you get when you fall to lower rpm between gears on a downshift. By rev matching you simply put the ENGINE (but not the transmission) at the proper speed, so less shock and you don't have to slip the clutch like crazy. In a car with syncros (like the evo and almost any modern passenger car) this is all that is necessary.

Some people are talking about heel-and-toe and that is really a performance driving technique that racers use for rev-matching. Basicly its a rev match with just the right foot on the brake and gas at the same time that way your left is free to use the clutch and you can shift faster. The main reason racers use it is because a downshift while braking can cause a lockup.

uh, maybe TMI but just incase anyone was curious.


but the thread is about why the engine doesn't want to rev with the clutch down. Clutch pedal down is less load than clutch up in neutral cause you don't have to spin the trans (yeah its a very light load but hey its a load right...) so maybe the clutch isn't disengaging fully

 

Wow damn. Guess I need to spend more time driving stick and practicing that before I get a car. I don't want to practice on a good new car!

maybe I should buy a beater first that's a manual.