2nd gear syncro
 

Every once in a while, I get kinda lazy with my shifting and don't exert enough force to get all the way into second gear.

Sometimes, when this happens I get a nasty grinding noise as if I was shifting without the clutch. (clutch is all the way to the floor when this happens)

This is not normal, right? I am thinking there is something wrong with the 2nd gear syncro since it is sometimes hard to drop into second as well.

The issue isn't very repeatable, and only seems to happen at high rpms sometimes, so I am not confident that I can recreate the issue at a dealership.

Any advice? Am I worrying about nothing, or should I try to further diagnose this?

Sounds normal to me. If you don't fully engage the gear when shift, its going to grind!

Right. It is not normal to get lazy with your shifting and fail to exert enough force to get all the way into second gear. Fix the failing part behind the wheel, and this problem should go away.

Fair enough, thanks!

This happened to me 3-4 times since I bought the car about 5 months ago. Last time was yesterday. Each time, I was shifting at a high rpm, the second gear did not engage well and got the grinding noise. I owned 2 other manual cars before and drove many more, and never had such an issue. Idk if this is an issue with the syncro or not but I try to exert more force especially while shifting into second, to avoid this issue.

I'm going to plug your post with the video. This <ahem> tutorial <ahem> is <ahem> excellent.

<ahem>

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showt...37#post2017737

OP, you're shifting through the syncro but not into gear. This video will make it all clear.