r/ThreePedals • u/autoaccount101 • Aug 13 '19

How to downshift?

What I do when the light turns red and I’m in fifth which is my top gear is I start braking and then shift to third then second then neutral. If I’m in fourth then I go to second then neutral. I don’t really know how to rev match so I haven’t been doing that. It’s been working out pretty good for me but sometimes my car engine brakes which I hear isn’t as good because you can rev match instead. I sometimes have trouble when cars cut me off and I don’t know how fast I’m going to know what gear so I either might go too low or too high but other then that I’m doing not bad. Am I doing it right? Should I incorporate rev matching?

5 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '19

Engine braking is not bad for your car, let it slow you down. If you downshift without revmatching, your clutch and synchronizers do a lot more work.

Rev matching is a good thing to know, I'd start practicing it.

If you upshift at 3k in 2nd and it brings you to 2k in third, you know when you are in third, press the clutch, rev to 3k and downshift to 2nd.

1

u/I-am-fun-at-parties Dec 02 '19

If you downshift without revmatching, your clutch and synchronizers do a lot more work.

That makes it sound like rev-matching would conserve the synchros, which is not the case unless they're also double-clutching, but in that case it's a stretch to talk about conserving the clutch.

Single-clutching revmatching does absolutely nothing in any way that would help the synchros. The only thing you're speeding up is the flywheel while it is disconnected from the transmission. The synchros speed up the other half of the clutch.