Driving stick shift (twins vs any other sticks)
 

I've been driving manual for almost a year now. I started with an really old VW Santana (Most popular car in China but I don't think it was ever sold here in the US) back in Chinese driving school, and now I've been getting pretty good with the BRZ too. At least I feel like I can ask the car to behave the way I want it to with the clutch, rev matching and all that. But today I drove my buddy's Golf GTI with stick shift and it almost blew my mind. I mean, the difference was so big it's SCARY.

For me the way the clutch feels like is always a free range at first until the biting point, once it hits that point there is another range with a mechanic feel, depends on how much you release it you know how the RPM behaves. As for the gears, it's always a clear H. But when I drove the GTI, the clutch almost feels like the braking pedal in an auto, it's so low that you release it a bit and the car goes. Also the gears are so vague you get rooms to play in every single gear unlike in my car I can almost feel the gears grinding against each other and how it disengages.

Anyway, my question is, does anybody have any idea what am I talk about with the gears? Which one is the norm among typical cars with stick shift? To me the GTI is almost like an electric switch with the tranny, clutch: on/ off, gears: 1 2 3 4 5 6 instead of the direct mechanic feel.

You aren't imagining it, The clutch is extremely vague. The friction point is hard to feel so it's hard to putt putt around without slipping it too much or being a little jerky.

Even my little Sambar van with the 3 banger and rubber band clutch is easier to drive slow and smooth. My RX7s super single was infinitely more drivable as well. My old Silvia's twin plate was a hair more difficult to drive smooth, but even with the tighter engagement range at least I could feel the plates starting to drag and I, thus, liked it better. Only the triple in the Skyline is worse than the twin's clutch because it's an on/off switch.

Under a decent amount of thrust the clutch is less of a PITA, but I don't rip it along much so it's irritating. There are ways to change the feel, though. Check the drivetrain forums and you will see some tricks. One is removing a spring on the clutch pedal and the other is switching the slave cylinder on the transmission to a smaller bore size.

How many miles on the car?

imo it's practice practice practice. When cars are different it makes things interesting, if you had the same clutch in a minivan as you did in a 911 GT3 I think it'd be kind of lame.

As said above, there are ways to change it but I wouldn't rush it, the helper spring is easy and many people swear by moving the pedal closer to the floor (which I could write a fair amount about disagreeing with that but I'll save it for when I'm asked). Those are the two free mods.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84622
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8040
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77390

every car is different man. it takes a few days to really adjust your mind to the timing of the clutch and where it catches. some can be heavy/light, catch high/low, have 12 inches of travel or 4 inches.

I'll ask :D

1. I had a clutch fail on me (on my old pickup), not sure if I lost hydraulic pressure, the pressure plate collapsed or what, point is the clutch went to the floor and at the very end of the travel it seemed to engage enough for me to get it in and out of gear and limp it home without grinding to high heaven.

If I had adjusted the pedal to be closer to the floor I think I would have been stranded and not known to move the pedal back even if I had the tools.

2. You do not need to go all the way to the floor to shift smoothly and safely with the oem setup, in doing so I find that I can operate the clutch more quickly because I only need to go a few inches, just barely hitting the halfway point of the stroke, foot strike fast like cobra. If I had the engagement point down low I would be operating it like a cave man, foot down, foot hit floor, move gear lever, lift foot off floor, a gross exaggeration but all of this stuff is subjective anyway, there's that delay as you waste time and energy putting force into the pedal stop (which will likely break eventually like it did on my pickup a few weeks ago) and waiting for that feedback to know you can do your shift and lift off again.

3. New discovery that is hardly relevant, I broke my foot and with the cast there exists the possibility that if I'm not positioned correctly my foot catches on the dead pedal, the pedal box, or the brake. Given that my clutch catches 'high' up on the stroke I am still able to shift without fumbling if my left foot doesn't land on the pedal quite right. Would not have been the end of the world with a lower clutch pedal, just would have taken a second or two longer to reposition and try again and maybe a bit of grinding in the process.

All just ridiculous speculation based on the cars that I've driven. If I were to operate a 5-ton clutch that's an inch off the floor I would figure it out and work with it before giving up or tearing it apart, I'm not saying this way is the only way. There's enough advantages in the factory setup that I'm not itching to change it.

I might try removing the helper spring at some point but other than that I'm pretty happy with it. The car is by no means an easy one to drive when it comes to the MT part, it takes practice.

I think most of you guys misunderstood. I meant I drove the GTI and the clutch was REALLY easy but feels not as precise and mechanical as the twins. I drive my BRZ just fine but when I drove the GTI the friction point is all the way to the floor and from the point to all the way released it's very vague.

Bottom line, I feel like the twins' clutch is much harder but much more engaging with the driver and mechanical.

I personally think the clutch in the twins is just about perfect. It's certainly no worse than my previous manual cars. The bite point is just about right. Full engagement comes quickly, but it's still smooth and progressive, and I can engage it just fine without giving it any extra revs.

The manual gearbox, despite its quirks (e.g., difficulty shifting into 2nd when cold, grinding, etc.), is still the best manual gearbox I've come across in a street car. I love the positive, mechanical feel as well as the short throws and the close shift gates.

maybe I'm crazy but I feel like the idle is to low in this car or I suck with this clutch. I've been rowing gears for 25 years now so it's not new to me but the low torque is

for me, it's all about the guessing game. I still am not completely satisfied with the clutch after 2k+ miles. I adjusted my pedal so it grabs about 1 inch off the floor since that's what I'm used to. so besides the lack of feedback, I just estimate how much off the floor my foot is. I have no feeling in the clutch at all so I just guess the distance it travels. I rely on muscle memory to get it right, and it's not bad. what gets me though, is the gas pedal. there's a deadzone of about 1-2cm before anything happens. I came from an 86 MR2 where throttle response was instant because it used cables instead of this DBW crap. I hate DBW. hopefully I can remove that deadzone with a tune later on down the road.

I'm leaving mine alone. I don't like it, but the point of this car was it was very close to perfect and I am not going to screw with it. After the waranty is up, ok, but for now it stays stock.

Yup, just gotta use more gas, the low idle is a consequence of maximizing fuel economy.

A lot of trusted guys swear by this but I haven't tried it myself just yet:


http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77390

I put in my Perrin Filter early on, but I want to say that it seemed like it raised the idle by about 1 to 200 rpm. Can't recall, but I do "feel" like it was a bit easier to get going post drop in. Maybe placebo.