Teach me how to drive!

[dreroc-z]

If you're having trouble shifting try a pair of shoes that gives you more "pedal feel". I keep a pair of shoes in my car that give me more feel for the pedal vs. the dress shoes I have to wear to work every day. You wont get better gas mileage by wearing different shoes but for atleast...it makes a bit a difference.

[stonenewt]

Originally Posted by dreroc-z

If you're having trouble shifting try a pair of shoes that gives you more "pedal feel". I keep a pair of shoes in my car that give me more feel for the pedal vs. the dress shoes I have to wear to work every day. You wont get better gas mileage by wearing different shoes but for atleast...it makes a bit a difference.

No one noticed that I often wore Sparco Vintage racing boots in my previous job. They were brown, polished & leather . Another advantage was that they're antistatic, which in my line of work is a good thing.

[dalli]

Originally Posted by Ubersuber

Do NOT downshift at too high a speed for the gear selected. If you do so you may wreck your engine. There is no protection built in to the car to prevent you from making this mistake (unlike an automatic which usually just beeps at you if you paddle shift down to too low a gear).

lol I was surprised many times when auto allowed me to downshift to redline and above, it scared the hell out of me.

[RojerLockless]

I face palmed so hard reading you wanna get more acceleration yet better MPG. lol.

I average 30.5 per tank.

[stonenewt]

Actually, as long as periods of hard acceleration are relatively short then flat out acceleration has very little impact on fuel economy. In my lotus if I drove like a saint all the time for my daily commute I'd get about 32mpg from a tank. If I did the same route but with WOT acceleration down slip roads & up to the speed limit it'd drop about 0.25-0.5mph or a up to 1.5% increase in fuel usage.

[nzer]

The FR-S/BRZ/86 has a gear indicator and tells you with an arrow when to shift for best fuel economy.

It also has a shift light that you can set for say 7,300rpm so it flashes to tell you to shift when trying for maximum acceleration without hitting the limiter.

This post has a vid showing how to set both or you can find both in the manual.
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...15&postcount=9

I have the gear indicator on all the time as sometimes I forget which gear I'm in!

[Turkish]

Unless you are driving feloniously, the only gear you have to really be careful downshifting to is 2nd gear. 2nd gear tops out ~61. I downshift around 58 and you have to be ready for the jolt of torque and you will likely chirp the tires too. My $0.02.

[atledreier]

Regarding fuel economy. I also have a Prius, and the manual and experience dictate that you should actually accelerate reasonably hard up to your target speed to minimize the time spent accelerating. I drove my Prius like a saint the first few weeks, until one day I drove it angry, and noticed significantly lower fuel consumption! After that I don't baby the throttle, but accelerate firmly to get to a coasting state in less time.

Haven't tried the same with my GT86, it's just too much fun to worry about fuel use, but I suspect the same is true for any car.

[MrAnthonyC]

Originally Posted by RojerLockless

I face palmed so hard reading you wanna get more acceleration yet better MPG. lol.

I average 30.5 per tank.

I tried to clarify but I guess it wasn't clear enough; I was not referring to combining the two questions of max accel. and max fuel economy. I was asking for advice on two separate situations. I understand the two are basically contradictory.

Originally Posted by atledreier

Regarding fuel economy. I also have a Prius, and the manual and experience dictate that you should actually accelerate reasonably hard up to your target speed to minimize the time spent accelerating. I drove my Prius like a saint the first few weeks, until one day I drove it angry, and noticed significantly lower fuel consumption! After that I don't baby the throttle, but accelerate firmly to get to a coasting state in less time.

Haven't tried the same with my GT86, it's just too much fun to worry about fuel use, but I suspect the same is true for any car.

Toooo much fun! I was hoping someone would say something like this. Can anyone concur? I enjoy accelerating hard to reach my target speed then letting off or popping cruise.

[MrAnthonyC]

Originally Posted by Ubersuber

You need not worry about overrevving this engine while accelerating up through the gears as the engine is electronically rev limited to 7,400 rpm, and as a bonus it seems the rev limiter is a soft limiter: the engine doesn't so much cut out as refuse to rev any higher. This is a bonus if you unintentionally hit the limiter before you actually shift. The trick is to shift just before the limiter cuts in as hitting the limiter will slow your acceleration runs. Generally I reach for the shifter as the tach passes through 7,000 rpm or so and then by the time the red light begins to flash indicating the rev limiter is about to cut in I can complete my shift.

Do NOT downshift at too high a speed for the gear selected. If you do so you may wreck your engine. There is no protection built in to the car to prevent you from making this mistake (unlike an automatic which usually just beeps at you if you paddle shift down to too low a gear). I'm pretty sure this engine will hold together at 8,000 rpm, maybe only once and I'm only pretty sure. Engines blow up when they are overrevved with the intake valve open on a cylinder. It's the inertia of the piston and connecting rod that breaks the rod or sometimes it's the inertia of the valve and spring that crashes the valve heads into the rising piston, referred to as valve float.

Should you ever sense that you've just selected too low a gear as you let in the clutch pedal shove that left foot to the floor immediately and hope you didn't reach the full rpm for that road speed in that gear. You do get some warning even from an engine that likes to rev this much but it is only a split second before the engine is actually driven to excess rpm by the wheels travelling too fast for the gear you thought you wanted. This is a very rev happy engine whatever the press may say about the noise and torque dips etc. It loves to rev and sounds great while doing it. It isn't a lot noisier at 7,000 rpm than it is at 5,000 rpm.

Learn to shift up aggressively before you learn to downshift aggressively.

Here's the calculated speeds in each gear:

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6325

The spread is a little unusual in that you normally expect a mathematical progression. Why Subaru chose to make fourth closer to fifth and fifth closer to sixth than is ideal is puzzling which then makes the spread from 2 nd to 3rd look odd. This may account for the impression that second gear isn't quite tall enough, or first gear isn't short enough depending on whether 0-60 means anything to you or not. Normally you expect the speed differences as you shift up the box to become wider in nominal numbers: 22/24/26/28/30 would be within the expected range and a progression would be even more logical.

Also, the steps are 22 mph/26 mph/22 mph /22 mph/ and fifth to sixth is not relevant to the discussion because it will be an "overdrive" deliberately selected for fuel economy, this engine won't pull redline in sixth and that is now very usual.

Thank you very much for taking the time to write this. Very informative and I love the details. Although i'm no pro driver, these limits and details are still interesting to me and I will put it to use.

[stugray]

I pretty much always accelerate hard and corner fast.

I average 29.5 MPG at high altitude on 91 gas.
However I rarley rev above 6k and shift early when negotiating with other cars on te road.
With ANY other traffic, there is very little reason to be revving the crap out of it.

[MrAnthonyC]

Originally Posted by noodlebaka

Learn to drive better? Whatever you do, do it smoothly. Your passengers will thank you.

Originally Posted by MrAnthonyC

Hello guys.. so after getting this car, I have really been interested in improving my driving. etc etc etc...

Yes I am learning to "drive better"..

[Ubersuber]

Originally Posted by dalli

lol I was surprised many times when auto allowed me to downshift to redline and above, it scared the hell out of me.

How far above redline did the tach reach?

[Ubersuber]

Originally Posted by atledreier

Regarding fuel economy. I also have a Prius, and the manual and experience dictate that you should actually accelerate reasonably hard up to your target speed to minimize the time spent accelerating. I drove my Prius like a saint the first few weeks, until one day I drove it angry, and noticed significantly lower fuel consumption! After that I don't baby the throttle, but accelerate firmly to get to a coasting state in less time.

Haven't tried the same with my GT86, it's just too much fun to worry about fuel use, but I suspect the same is true for any car.

BMW actually tested this during development of their unpopular but efficient eta engines. They discovered (and measured) the benefits of using wide open throttle to reduce pumping losses and accelerating rapidly uses very little extra fuel over accelerating slowly, contrary to intuition and a lot of bogus "economy driving" advice. The extra time you spend at very little throttle opening compensates for the extra fuel used when putting the hammer down. I always accelerate briskly if there's nobody in front of me and then settle at my cruise speed and light throttle asap. Supercharged engines really benefit from this technique.