Rev Matching?

Question

Is rev matching in a manual transmission car important in everyday driving? I have been driving a manual transmission car for about a month now but I never rev match when downshifting... I usually just wait till my rpms are low while braking and then shift into the next lowest gear. If I'm coming to a stop at a red light I usually shift into neutral (yea, I know it isnt very safe) and coast until I stop. Are these techniques okay? Also, should heel-toe downshifting be used in everday driving? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

In a passenger car you don't need to match the RPM's because the tranny has synchro's in it to take care of the sort of thing. Now if you are operating a big truck with the non-syncro tranny you are in a different game. The engine/tranny combo has an operating range usually about 500-600 RPM. You shift up at the top of the range and down at the bottom. For example if you engine has a power band between 900 and 1500 RPM that is where you work. When you reach the top of the band you would depress the cluth and shift to neutral and release the clutch. When the RPM falls to the bottom of the range you then depress the clutch again and sahift into the next higher gear. To down shift you would slow to the botom of the range depress the clutch shift to neutral release the clutch, rev the RPM to the top of range and then depress the clutch and shift to next lower gear. You can skip gears as well but that gets harder. All of this can be done without the clutch, this is called floating gears or speed shifting. With a passenger car just press the clutch in and shift either up or down. Don't complicate it.

Answer 2

Ideally, toe-and-heel shifting should always be used - it reduces wear on the clutch and synchro rings, and keeps you in the correct gear for the speed you are currently doing. This allows for additional braking, and for optimal acceleration, if needed. If you wait for your revs to become low enough that you can downshift smoothly without rev-matching, then you are at much lower revs than the engine's power band, and cannot accelerate quickly and smoothly if you need to. In a 4 cylinder car, the optimum acceleration usually starts somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 rpm. And sometimes, hitting the gas can get you out of a bad situation better than braking. It all depends on the situation. Toe-and-heel shifting also lets you shift down very quickly - much faster than you can upshift. This lets you keep the car in gear and ready for any and all eventualities.

Example: about 5 years ago, I was stopping at a light behind a line of cars. I heard a screech, looked in my mirror, and saw a car sliding towards me. I just hit the gas and swerved into the next lane before stopping. The skidding car actually hit the car that had been in front of me fairly hard. My car would have been a mess, but this way I managed to avoid all damage to my vehicle - and my person. And damage to the other vehicles was lessened by giving him a little more distance to slow his car before impact. Remember, no matter how good a driver you are, you just never know what some other idiot on the road is going to do.

Answer 3

Down shift as you're braking and downshift as you loose velocity, that way you're utilising the engine as yet another brake and rev matching will make the completed activity comfortable. you are able to guard some braking as you lean it and simplicity the brakes off, it does take somewhat prepare to heal right into a nook trailing the brake even though it is going to artwork and artwork nicely as quickly as you get used to it. I do it from my street racing experience....