Ease the ride?
 

I'm sure this has been brought up a few times but I cant seem to find the relative threads/posts about it.

I think this car is tougher than other cars in terms of driving smoothly at lower speeds. I'm talking about stop-go traffic, going up to about 30 mph. Then in heavy traffic, crawling up 15 mph, it gets pretty asinine and I feel like the car having a seizure (BTW i don't just carelessly drop the clutch, slam the gears or mash the throttle). I feel like I have to over compensate just to 'smoothen' the ride (especially with a passenger). OR maybe I'm just over reacting? Dunno.

My friends' cars (like miata, rsx, evo, ek9, s2k) don't feel like this and i have driven them. They also drove my car and told me the same thing - something doesn't feel smooth. Some said tranny, some said engine and some said drivetrain - not sure whose right. We all made sure the car was warmed up first. To be more specific, the roughness generally occurs during natural deceleration with no brakes applied - during 1st, 2nd and 3rd gear. Once it hits just below 3k rpm, the car starts to buck with varying/random intensity.

Anyway, What can I do to make the ride more bearable at lower speeds (and for the passenger)?

Just a side note, everything on my car is stock w/ around 7k miles on it now. Thanks in advance. :cheers:

You're talking about the car bucking at low speeds/gears, right? There's not much you can do to fix that AFAIK. Maybe if you get super soft/squishy bushings everywhere you could.

Actually, stiffer bushings help alieviate the bucking but at the cost of increased NVH.

My recommendation is to use the clutch more frequently and coast more often. I find this car to be much smoother in traffic than any of the 5-speed manual Subarus I've driven/owned.

It sounds like you are describing the car bogging down in gear while decelerating. Down shifting to keep the RPMs up or putting the car in neutral as you approach your stopping point will resolve that.

Coast more and use the clutch

Having seen some vids of the differential bouncing around, I'd almost guarantee that changing the diff bushings would help with a lot of the bucking and jerking.

Soft engine and transmission mounts, and soft diff bushings make for a lot of slop, which can cause the bucking and jerking. I think most of it is the soft diff bushings. I can feel it when shifting, and when getting on, or off throttle at low speeds.

I agree, this car is very hard to drive smoothly at low speeds. Shifting at higher rpm's helps a lot. I find it near impossible to be silky smooth when shifting below 4000 rpm.

As already suggested, when slowing, clutching in or popping out of gear and coasting works well.

The stock tune has the engine rpm's hovering above idle, and then finally dropping to idle when you get off the gas. This, coupled with the soft mounts and bushings, has the car "hunting", neither accelerating, or decelerating, and this causes the jerking when slowing.

A good tune I think would help with this a lot. One that has the rpm's dropping quickly to idle without hovering higher for a bit will have the car smoothly decelerating at low speeds.

What you're feeling is the whole drivetrain rotating. Soft engine, tranny and diff mounts allow the whole assembly to rotate slightly before that torque is transferred to the wheels. Put it in gear, stab the throttle quickly and watch your shifter. You will see that the shifter will move toward the passenger seat. At low speeds, typically you do this a lot. Especially when transitioning from no throttle to throttle and back again in a short period of time. It's exaggerated when you try to compensate with the throttle. You end up just rotating the whole assembly instead of putting the power to the wheels. As others have said, stiffer mounts will help, but at the cost of increased noise and vibration. I have a Whiteline trans mount insert, which helped some, but the best way to minimize this is to learn when your car will act like this and adjust your driving style.

I agree completely. These cars are a total pain in in the ass to drive around parking lots or traffic. 15 mph school zones are the worst. 1st and 2nd gears are my least favorite to be in.

Second gear, always try to keep a roll and never stop. I don't have issues in traffic in this car very much. If I'm able to stay in 2nd/3rd the whole time its great. If its stop and go, then yes, it's a pain for everyone. The downfalls of owning a manual definitely do not outweigh the positives.

That's strange because I had a whole slew of upgraded bushings on my 08 STI (basically everything Whiteline and Kartboy made) and it still had the same bucking problems in 1st and 2nd.

In 1st gear, if you try to decelerate below 1500 rpm with the clutch engaged, the engine will buck and shake. When coming to a stop, you have to disengage the clutch before 1500 rpm in 1st.

In 1st and 2nd gears, the engine will buck/shake if you're holding a constant throttle position at low speeds. Not sure why this happens, other than poor throttle mapping.

In 1st and 2nd gears, the engine braking is very noticeable. This is due to the high compression nature of the engine and the torque multiplication in those gears.

Learn how to drive :bellyroll:

No really.

Mine did this too until I started pushing in the clutch more often. I also had trouble shifting smoothly in lower RPMs until I began consciously trying to make every shift smooth. 5-10k miles later every shift is smooth at any rpm and no shuddering ever (unless I'm tired or accidentally cause it).

When you let off the gas to coast, don't get off the gas too fast. Making sure you smoothly transition from part throttle to coasting will keep it from bucking.

i just installed a unichip and actually noticed its much smoother in first gear at low speeds. i can actually roll at around 5mph/~1000rpm without feeling like i'm riding a bull. It used to be REAL bad before the unichip. I'm running it with stock parts fuel standard and timing in