At one point I was unconsciously double clutching all my heel and toes and had to force myself to single clutch my heel toes in the quest for faster shifting. I'm also a skip shifter by habit though at one point when I owned my Impreza I was going down gear by gear. It's all a matter of styles and what works best for you.

 

Double-clutching is completely unnecessary in modern transmissions, but I ALWAYS do it on my downshifts. First, the shifter will drop in gear so butter smooth and second, I'm doing the work of the synchros for them (I know this has already been stated).

However, assuming that you're in a street car (not a silly-fast braking formula car), when you are BRAKING, it DOES NOT MATTER how fast you shift. The "engine braking" does absolutely NOTHING compared to what your actual brakes do. So, that extra hundredth of a second that it takes to get into the lower gear is going to make NO difference. There is always a delay before applying throttle, anyway, after getting into that lower gear. Does that make sense? Basically, what's the rush??? Save your gear box and enjoy the satisfaction of that perfectly matched heel-toe double-clutch downshift!


Now, what do you guys think about shifting without the clutch at all? I occasionally do it "just to do it" at low rpms. Basically, if you unload the gears (as you're coming off throttle), you can pull the shifter out of gear. Then, you just need to time the entry to the next gear perfectly (wait for the RPMs to drop to where they'll be in the higher gear) and slip the shifter into gear. If you're downshifting, you need to rev match perfectly (over rev just a hair and slip the shifter in when the revs are dropping back down).

I know I'm not the only one that can do this. If done RIGHT, I see no extra wear on the transmission. Potentially less, actually. Thoughts?

 

^

I'm aware that the whole process has little/nothing to do with engine braking. Also, as mentioned, I am able to double clutch in the brake zones butter smooth, but after having watched much on track vid and after having sat as a passenger with other racers in general on track, I had always noticed from sense of hearing that the single clutch rev match definately sounded differet than the double clutch rev match (which I've been doing all along)- the silly part of all this was that all this time, I was not aware that they were single clutch rev matching!


Haven't attempted no clutch either.

 

So you've never had someone pull out infront of you at the last minute, have to slow enough to downshift into a low gear to have enough power to get around them? Since by this time they noticed that you may hit them and have completely stopped in your path and are staring at you like a deer caught in your headlights.. It mattered how fast I slowed and shifted that day.

 

Of course that has happened to me. I still double-clutched. No problem. It doesn't take any more time for me to do it... I dunno... maybe I've got lightning fast feet!

One situation where I've not done it... BeaveRun has a kink in the back straight that you can't lift through (must wait until you're straight). I'd be doing 125mph coming out of the kink and then braking and downshifting 2 gears (4th to 3rd to 2nd). There were one or two times that I got in too deep and had to abandon the downshifting all together and just concentrate on getting the car slowed before heading off the deep end! I would just get it slowed and then double-clutch it down to 2nd, skipping 3rd, with a big rev match before accelerating out. Obviously, that's slow and I just completely f-ed up that corner

 

I'm gonna agree with the 'waste of time to double clutch' thing. You may be putting some stress on your synchros, but not as bad as you think if you do it right, no? I'm a heel-toe person, and i'm not ignorant about the double clutch-rev method, but aren't you putting stress on the clutch from double clutching?

I may be wrong, just putting my thoughts..

-Cody

 

I have yet to do this in my 8, but i have had many previous vehicles, from hondas to chevy trucks, new and old, that i NEVER used the clutch in except to stop/pullout. when i was in college, i made dozens of trips across tennessee and would only touch the clutch 4 times. 1. leaving 2. stopping for gas 3. leaving gas station 4. arriving on other end of state. about half of this 5-6 hour drive was freeway, the rest regular 2 lane roads, merges speed zones, etc. all 'slipping' from gear to gear

 

I only shift my motorcycle with out clutch.. but only when im drunk and have 3 hookers on the back.

 

I'm with Paul. Although I have yet to try it in an 8. I learned how to shift w/o the clutch and have never done anything but. I have done it daily in a wide range of vehicles and have never had any synchro issues but have had 2 pressure plates give up on me in stop and go traffic. 150k on a factory clutch, the mechanics freaked out when they opened the tranny up and saw a barely worn clutch disk, flywheel that didn't need to be resurfaced, and a pressure plate that was worn. I can even downshift to 1st clutchless. There is really no purpose to do that but I feel like Yo Yo Ma on a Stradivarius when a passenger bugs out when I do it.