Shifting etiquette

["Graydon D. Stuckey" <graydon@apollo.gmi.edu>]

On Wed, 15 Nov 1995 LToy@aol.com wrote:

> >My car's hard to quick shift and even harder to heel-toe because it takes 
> >so long for the revs to fall or jump.  Any other possible solutions?
> 
> [snip]
> 
> many tenths of a second are you really going to save by shifting faster?  i
> could be wrong here, but there's other places to gain time.  some of the hard
> core competitive types (Eric?  Scott? Graydon?) can prob'ly add more here
> 
Linus,

	Should I be flattered or offended?  Actually, I don't think I'm 
as hard core as you think.  I'm just a lowly autocrosser:-)  (right Jeff?:-)

	However, I do shift as quickly as the transmission will allow 
(sometimes faster on a race course), adn I heel & toe on downshifts.  I 
learned a while back when the synchroes went south on my first RX7.  It's 
been habit ever since.  I find that the '86 5KCSTQ responds reasonably 
well to throttle blips, but I do have to blip harder than the RX7.  
(how's that for driver-nerd conversation?  Discussing the severity of 
throttle blips!)  I also have found that the 016 transmission requires a 
very quick clutch disengagement to be really smooth.

Later,								
Graydon D. Stuckey								
graydon@apollo.gmi.edu								
'86 Audi 5000 CS Turbo Quattro, GDS Racing Stage II				
'83 Mazda RX7 w/13B, GDS Racing Stage 58474