I have a 6L Diablo. I find that because of the engine torque for 90% of my driving around town in stop go traffic at lighte etc that I shift from first (to get it rooling), directly to third to get it up to 40MPH and then directly into 5th. ie I skip 2nd and 4th gear unless I am on a hill or really need to accelerate. I find that the revs of the engine nicely splice in with the clutch with this arrangement. Less clutch action fewer hand movements.

My question is, is this OK? Am I damageing the clutch plates. Do people routinely jump gears or do they do a lot of rapid foot work and step through al the gears all the time.

I do it all the time!

I'd think you are fine but here are my comments....

With my roadster I use all the gears normally since they are all pretty long but sometimes skip 4th getting onto the freeway since 3rd gets you to freeway speed easily. I was taught to always be in the 'right' gear (somewhere close to the power band) in case you need to react to something weird and so town driving means that I only use 1st, 2nd and sometimes 3rd. Not saying thats required but its what I do.

Wear / damage to the clutch is typically a question of how much "clutching" the clutch material is doing and by that I mean how well the revs are matched as the clutch is engaging - much more so then how many times its being engaged. Other silly things are resting your foot on the clutch pedal and having the thrust bearing always working.

A test is to notice how much the engine revs change as you engage the clutch. No change is obviously the best and means that the clutch material did little / no work. True for up and especially down shifting. I assume this is what you mean by 'splice nicely'. Its too easy to try and use the clutch to cause the engine to match the transmission revs thus shortening the clutch materials life.

I would be more concerned with how much loading you are doing to the engine by skipping gears ie trying to apply power - even a little - at very low revs. True it has tons of low end torque but that doesn't mean its stress free for the engine. But then again town driving maybe just fine.

-mick

PS Not an expert and would be happy to be corrected on any of this.

Because Diablos have an inherent lurching between gear changing, I sometimes skip 2nd in particular, seems much smoother.

If you are below 2000 rpms after the upshift, I believe you are "lugging" the car, which actually puts more load on the engine.

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Brian Albertson

as long as you have enough rev when you go to the next gear.You can go from 1st gear to 5th if you were revving at 7000RPM when you were in first.

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Sean S.
Hi Tech Exotic Racing
1-888-4656-0437

You are supposed to move to the next gear in the engines "power band", refer to the torque curve charts for PB info, even automatic trannies shift up at whatever engines sweet spot occurs. I use all the gears and rarely shift below 3500..the transition from gear to gear is smooth as glass as it should be. In normal driving (slow)using all gears the changes should be almost seemless, if they are not then something is wrong, either too high or low RPMs or to jerky of a clutch release or combination of errors. Driving a Supercar like glass requires conscious thought and painstaking practice until just the right melding with machine is achieved. It's imperitive that the driver FEEL the Machine and become one with it!!! Once that happens shifts are smooth and sweet up and down.

I am no expert in heel and toe.
But what I try to do is of I am down shifting I blip the throttle before I engage the lower gear (not really heel and toeing here) and if I up shift I do the same.
Does this work?

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Born to speed

Eric,

that is called Double Clutching, it works very well . And sounds Cool too

I would disagree about calling the above double clutching.

Double clutching is primarily a method used on vehicles without synchromesh (like many trucks) and is used to match (internal in the transmission) gear speeds when downshifting.

Example of double clutching during downshifting from 3rd to 2nd: You depress the clutch, shift the transmission into neutral, release the clutch, press the gas to speed up the engine (which now brings up to to speed the 'front' end of the transmission to hopefully match the back end speed), press the clutch again (the 2nd time aka double) and shift into 2nd. Release clutch.

If done properly, this minimizes the speed difference between the transmission gears attached to the engine (via the clutch) and the ones attached to the drive shaft thus no grinding.

The use of double clutching is required more on the downshift due to the fact that this is the time that the front end of the transmissions needs to be 'speed up' for the match. Up shifting is more an issue of timing (waiting for the transmission front-end speed to come down) thus double clutching is not required unless you are in a hurry.

But it would be a catch 22 in our cars. Synchromesh is provided to avoid the need for double clutching. By double clutching on a transmission with syncro you would be 'saving' the syncro rings but at the expense of our precious clutch material (not to mention the extra work etc).

Bliping the throttle before releasing the clutch to engage the lower gear is the correct way to match the engine speed to the transmissions front end speed (after the gear is changed and syncro have done their job). Bliping on the upshift is unneccesary at best and bad if done incorrectly ie if you don't wait for the engine speed to come back down before engaging the clutch.

From my angle the issue about clutch wearing still comes back to a simple test and that is to notice how much the engine revs change as you engage the clutch. If the engine revs change during engaging then you are causing unnecessary wear to the clutch material.


-mick