Question about missed shift.

[Testa_Rossa_]

Hey all, I got my type R last Saturday and have been learning how to drive stick on it. I've taken to it pretty quickly and can reliably get to work and back without much fuss. My question is I've accidentally shifted from 5th to 2nd about three times now, I was not exceeding 45-50mph in any of these events and immediately pushed the clutch in after hearing the engine spur up, in addition the revs kicked to about 5k. I DO NOT want to fuck up this car, I and very lucky to have one, all day today I've been researching how to downshift safely by simply gently pulling down and letting the stick center itself before gently pulling down again.

Am I seriously hurting the engine/transmission even though redline is 7k? Obviously this is something I need to avoid at all costs no matter the occasion but my anxiety is bugging me and I feel I am fucking up a brand new vehicle.

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[TchnoZ33]

It’s broken, I’ll buy it off of you for 40k. You can thank me later

 

[TchnoZ33]

Outside of me just messing with you, it’ll be fine lol. Just stop that shit lol. Ideally you wanna be gentle during the break in period but don’t over think it. I let my wife and brother learn to drive stick on my FL5. It’ll be fine.

 

[Testa_Rossa_]

Outside of me just messing with you, it’ll be fine lol. Just stop that shit lol. Ideally you wanna be gentle during the break in period but don’t over think it. I let my wife and brother learn to drive stick on my FL5. It’ll be fine.

Lol, thanks for this. After the third time I just sat in park and practiced downshifting the stick gently and am pretty sure I've got it down so it doesn't happen again. I'm incredibly anxious about messing it up due to inexperience but have also heard its a great car to learn stick on, I just wanna take care of it.

 

[CTR]

Lol, thanks for this. After the third time I just sat in park and practiced downshifting the stick gently and am pretty sure I've got it down so it doesn't happen again. I'm incredibly anxious about messing it up due to inexperience but have also heard its a great car to learn stick on, I just wanna take care of it.

First lesson - it's called Neutral in a manual transmission car.

We would need to know what speed you are shifting from 5th to 2nd. It's totally acceptable as long as the revs don't exceed the redline in 2nd gear. I'm positive that I've downshifted from 5th to 2nd going 40mph to pass someone going far too slow. The car will rev-match to about 5K and then you have until 7K to shift again to 3rd gear.

The problem is when you're redlining one gear and "money shift" into the completely wrong gear. This would be redlining 3rd gear and downshifting to 2nd instead of 4th.

I recommend watching a bunch of videos online about proper shifting technique. You need to train your hand to do something different in every gear to prevent a mis-shift. A lot of it relies on using only your palm or fingers to gently push into the proper gate. I have yet to crunch a gear in my FL5 but I did learn to shift properly on an S2000 which probably helped develop the correct technique.

If you follow what people teach online it's nearly impossible to money-shift. This is a legitimate concern and one of the few ways to destroy your engine/clutch/transmission.

 

[Testa_Rossa_]

First lesson - it's called Neutral in a manual transmission car.

We would need to know what speed you are shifting from 5th to 2nd. It's totally acceptable as long as the revs don't exceed the redline in 2nd gear. I'm positive that I've downshifted from 5th to 2nd going 40mph to pass someone going far too slow. The car will rev-match to about 5K and then you have until 7K to shift again to 3rd gear.

The problem is when you're redlining one gear and "money shift" into the completely wrong gear. This would be redlining 3rd gear and downshifting to 2nd instead of 4th.

I recommend watching a bunch of videos online about proper shifting technique. You need to train your hand to do something different in every gear to prevent a mis-shift. A lot of it relies on using only your palm or fingers to gently push into the proper gate. I have yet to crunch a gear in my FL5 but I did learn to shift properly on an S2000 which probably helped develop the correct technique.

If you follow what people teach online it's nearly impossible to money-shift. This is a legitimate concern and one of the few ways to destroy your engine/clutch/transmission.

Thanks for you reply I have not, any any point so far, exceeded 55-60mph in this car. I was probably going 40-45 if I had to guess, maybe less. Either way, Later on in the day I was downshifting from 2nd to 1st going less than 10mph approaching a stop and decelerating and heard a metallic clanging sound for a second, which scared the living shit outta me because I could not decern if I had fucked something up or it was a odd break-in sound.

Doing some research on that sound I found an older post about it perhaps being a break-in sound that eventually spots and never happens again but as I stated in my original post I do not want to do anything that screws up this car out of my own pure ignorance. I would like to be educated and have to the knowledge to properly take car of this car.

 

[CTR]

I recommend while you are learning to NOT shift into first gear unless you are stopped. It's one of the hardest gears to shift into while moving.

It's great that the FL5 will rev match 1st gear compared to the FK8 but I'm usually going less than 5 mph when doing it. 10 mph is a stretch and might require more force than necessary. I believe 1st and reverse physically lock out above a certain speed which is maybe what you experienced.

 

[Testa_Rossa_]

I recommend while you are learning to NOT shift into first gear unless you are stopped. It's one of the hardest gears to shift into while moving.

It's great that the FL5 will rev match 1st gear compared to the FK8 but I'm usually going less than 5 mph when doing it. 10 mph is a stretch and might require more force than necessary. I believe 1st and reverse physically lock out above a certain speed which is maybe what you experienced.

Thanks again for the info, I'll avoid shifting to 1st for the foreseeable future untilI become more accustom to the car and driving stick in general. Any other tips I should know during this crucial period?

 

[CTR]

I would watch a bunch of videos and try to practice that behavior when upshifting normally. You'll quickly get the muscle memory and with how good the transmission is in this car it will literally fall into each gear. Be glad you aren't learning on a T56!

When coming to a stop just throw it into Neutral until you are comfortable with where the RPM will be in each gear. Once you get used to the car more you can start to downshift and release the clutch to use the engine to slow the car instead of using the brakes.

This car is very easy to learn on because of the rev matching on downshifts and upshifts. Try not to stress too much and enjoy yourself. It's really only 3-4 or 4-5 shifts that you need to worry about blowing things up.

 

[TchnoZ33]

Once you get the car moving from 1st gear to 2nd gear, NEVER go back to 1st. First is only to get the car moving from a stop. Even when you are proficient with shifting I don’t recommend ever shifting to first gear while the car is moving.

 

[TchnoZ33]

When I first started to learn how to drive stick, I literally would sit in my car with the clutch pressed in and just go through the gears sequentially from 1 to 6 and then 6 to 1 until I had the muscle memory. Didn’t watch any videos or anything just an easy way to get your brain to remember how each gear shift feels.

 

[RUNN1N]

Engineering Explained has a great (super detailed, rather nerdy) breakdown of the money shift that's worth checking out:

Muscle memory is key here, and it won't take long for you to be able to tell what gear you're in based strictly off the angle of the shift knob in your hand. In the meantime, try to train yourself that 3rd and 4th gear are the default straight forward/back gears, no pressure to the left/right.

 

[Testa_Rossa_]

Thank you all for your responses, I've been reading them periodically while at work. I am happy to report I did really well today. I rarely toot my own horn but I missed no shifts, didn't stall once, gave nearly the perfect amount of gas to get going/reverse and felt really good about my progessing learning a new way of driving.

I do have one question though, If I should not really shift into first except to get the car moving from a dead stop how would I handle slowing down and entering a parking lot? For example the last 100ft of my drive to work requires me to make a left from a stop light and by the time I get into 2nd. I have to brake to make a right into the parking lot. Instead of down shifting to 1st I kept it in 2nd and gave it gas and it seemed to take it well, not get bogged down or shutter that I could tell. Is this the correct way of handling this?

Thanks again for all the responses, Im happy to be part of this community and amongst such helpful individuals for such an incredible car.

 

[Lancenfstr]

Fairly new stick shift driver here too so take it with a grain of salt.
I got on a flat surface and just tested the minimum revs and speed at each gear normally. Anything below that I shift into a lower gear to prevent stalling. For 2nd it's around 8mph, which is still below 2k rpm in 1st. If traffic is slowing down, especially when it's going up hill, I downshift from 2 to 1 when I reach around 10mph. If it's just coming to a stop I'll just coast near the end.
It's not uncommon to see people downshifting back to 1st if things go slow (check out ), but my guess is that you'd wear out the synchros if you downshift to 1st when going too fast.

 

[TchnoZ33]

I’ve been driving stick for also 20 years. I can confidently say there has never been a situation where I have needed to downshift to first once I have gotten the car moving and into 2nd gear or higher. Personally, I ONLY go to first after I have come to a complete stop.

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