I haven't driven manual car long enough to diagnosis these problems myself but I want to know what are the effects you get or how you know if your syncros are going out? 5000 miles on my Evo X and I still notice a loud clunk gear noise whenever i shift from 2nd to 3rd gear. Like when you move the gear lever from 2nd to 3rd you can feel the gear teeth trying to connect with another gear teeth and it makes that clunk noise. What can cause this problem? Been like this since summer till winter now.

 

seems to a problem most evo x's have. i have that happen on mine all the time, but once my car is warmed up it stops

 

Even after 30mins of driving it still clunks. If i remember when I initially got the car the first 1000 miles I never noticed it.

 

It depends on how you shift though...are you shifting lightly or are you just jamming it into gear like you're drag racing? I've driven an Evo X and the feel on the 5-speed is pretty atrocious, I think I know what you mean. Nonetheless, you should be pretty gentle with the shifter so that you put as little stress on the synchros. On my IX MR, you can feel how the synchros are working very easily...if you put too much force on or shift too quickly, you'll feel the synchros working. But if you're gentle and you time it correctly the gears just fall in and there's no sounds.

 

I think I got an idea of what your talking about because there are some times where if I where to half slow it in I can make it not crunch, but when I do my average shifts between gears I get that crunch from 2-3. I never drag raced with the Evo ever. I use it as a DD to work and back.

 

I learned a lot about shifting techniques on this site...it also taught me a little bit about how a manual tranny works. It's a really long article so you might get bored. At first it was a little overwhelming but there's a lot of helpful information. In regards to the clunking feel that you might be getting from shifting, look into the sections "Getting into gear at a stop" and "Shifting up while accelerating."

Seeing as you only DD it to work and back, there's no reason that your synchros are out. Although the 5-speed in the GSR is pretty robust, the shifter feel isn't all that great. You might get some better results by switching fluids.

 

It seems like almost every X GSR does this, most notably on the 2-3 shift like you said.

I've noticed that if you shift at normal speed, not overly slow or banging hard into gear, just normal shifting, it'll be notchy/clunky almost every 2-3 shift you make. If you make it a point to shift it overly slow or to shift it faster than normal, there's no notchiness and it goes into gear smooth.

 

^+1, that's exactly what I said a long while back when I first started driving the X. It seems strange to me that the car likes to be shifted firmly and quickly, because if anything, this usually causes a problematic synchro to bark even more. When I had my old STi, I switched the factory fluid and had all kinds of problems with this. The faster I tried to shift, the worse it was. On the X, it's the opposite. So does that mean that it's not a fluid issue, and it's something mechanical? Who knows, but mitsu has been "aware and looking for a solution" to this issue for a year, and what have they come up with? Nothing. So, either they are retarded and can't figure it out after a year of diagnosis, or the more likely explanation... they aren't really looking into it because they don't care. Oh, I love auto manufacturers...

 

They probably don't care. I think they should have put the 6-speed manual as an option...

As for the shifting faster thing, my dad has a Lotus Elise and it shifts a little like that too, although it's not notchy or anything. When you shift in that car you need to shift fast cause the flywheel is so light. I actually learned stick in my dad's car

 

Well, there are actually a couple of options for shifitng in a car that has a light flywheel. Either shift fast like you mentioned, or you can shift slow and just give a throttle blip to bring the rpms back up before you let the clutch out. Anyway, back on topic.

 

1st signs are grinding when downshifting....