heh, i say throttle bias cause.. stalling in rx8 = flood >.<... i think? plus i had to do it once where i was practicing with my dad in cisco parking lot... the security folks came over.. and i just started driving off onto the main road!..

to avoid stalling till i made it to a parking lot to change over to my dad, i gave it a bit of throttle bias so i don't stall in the middle of the road.

 

I know what you mean - I just think it's a bad thing to use while simply learning. Though, it's a great thing to do to keep from holding up traffic when cars start lining up behind you and you barely know how to drive stick. It's how I got through my first few days of driving!

 

told ya... just like getting it on...

 

hahahah amen

 

Good to hear that you are taking the time to learn stick because you want to, don't let the "why" bother you.

A friend or family car behind you is a very good advice, so you will not be too nervous, have someone follow you for the first few time.

If you can't find hill with no traffic to practice on, try truck loading dock at the mall or supermarket, some of them are built with a slope, use that as your hill to practice on after store closed, be sure not to pick the steepest first or get a friend with know how to go with you.

One tip my friend gave me was to go around the neighborhood stop signs when there are fewer traffic such as late at night, keep doing all the stop and go, no rolling stop please, that way you get your practice of stop and go.

Other methods posted here are very good, just keep practicing.

 

^^^I agree. I learned the same way. Find an empty mall parking lot where you'll have a lot of room to maneuver. Make sure you bring along a freind who knows how to drive stick. It takes a while to be smooth on the 8 because of the sensitive throttle and low catch point for the clutch. Even experienced owners still have some trouble at times getting a smooth launch. It just takes time. you'll get the hang of it in no time.

 

and remember that unlike an automatic, when braking just let off the gas and let the car slow down on its own before actually using the brake pedal. It'll save you gas and extend the life of your brake pads.

 

It took me a good 2 weeks to learn to drive stick on the 8. It's got a very narrow bite range. Practice, practice, practice, in parking lots and places with little traffic.

It's all about getting the muscle memory built up in your foot. Find a way thats comfortable for you to engage and disengage the clutch and then do it that way consistently.

It's better to burn up some clutch releasing it too slowly then it is to release it to fast and beat on the transmission.

and dont worry if you stall! just start the car up and try again, ignoring the people behind you. The worst thing you can do is get stressed out because the people behind you are honking, screw them.

 

I was in your boat a little over a week ago! Find a parking lot and then practice stopping and going in the parking lot for about an hour. Rev the gas to about 2K-3K, then slowly let go of the clutch until you feel it catch. Keep doing it, then practice doing it faster. After a couple of hours and a tank of gas you'll be good to go.

To deal with rollback, practice using the handbrake as well. Engage the handbrake, hold on to it, rev the gas, start letting go of the clutch until you feel it catch, then release the handbrake. The handbrake thing you should practice after you have the basics down, but you'll be good to go afterwards. It's really key though. Rollback was stressing the hell out of me for the first couple of days but it's no longer an issue.

If the parking lot is big enough, practice quickly shifting gears from 1st to 2nd to 3rd with the appropriate speeds. Seriously, I've been driving a manual for a little over a week and I'm definitely good to go at this point. I was zooming around the highway at 70mph today, carefully dodging traffic just as well as I've done it in my automatic before.

Also, learn to start coasting up to the stop lights and cool stuff like that. To do that you just release the gas, hold the clutch and coast. You can even throw it out of gear if you want. It's such a light car that you can definitely save some gas and stress by coasting.

Learn the speed ranges for good RPMs too. I try to keep my RPM under 3.5k for gas mileage purposes, so I know all the ranges associated with that RPM in order to quickly shift back into the right gear when coasting and all that stuff.

EDIT: Oh, yeah, and here's my thread from a week ago with more tips that yo might find useful: https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-discussion-3/rx-8-mt-driving-tips-driver-139273/

 

My wife hated riding in my car the first few months I after I bought it . I had driven standard before I bought the 8, but this is the first manual that I've owned. So it took a little while to not make passengers sick, but like everyone says, practice, patience and perseverance are key.

That being said, this whole thread had me re-evaluating my own 'technique.' I do get around smoothly most of the time now (although there are still those odd mornings where I just can't shift worth s*it). However, when I start from a stop I find I always blip up to ~2k before letting off the clutch, letting the rpms drop a touch while the clutch engages before adding more throttle. I go smoothly and quickly without much thought involved this way. Now, some advocate catching the friction point first, -then- add gas afterwards; when I make a deliberate effort to not pre-rev, I can never get going without either a) almost stalling or b) shooting the rpms past what is healthy for the partially engaged clutch. I don't have problems getting the car going throttleless either, and in fact do it quite a bit during heavy stop-and-go traffic. So my question is: have I learned a poor habit over the last two years? Do I need to relearn to go without pre-revving? Does it matter? It's not like I let the clutch out at 3k everytime, but I simply can't go smoothly without blipping the throttle first.

Maybe I'm thinking too much for this time of the day.

 

the car well get to know your habits in time just go out and drive it till you feel good at it.yes it takes time and yes it can be a pain but you learned how to do a lot of things that you were not able to do before and now go out there and drive it. car is waiting!!!!

 

How i first learned was my dad and i drove down to the dealer. My dad test drove it. I bought it, and learned how to drive stick on the 75 minute ride home LOL!