New Manual FRS owner
 

Hello everyone,

I'm new to the board and I must say, this is a great board with a tremendous amount of information. I always find myself back here when I have a question.

I just picked up my raven FR-S last Friday and I'm still trying to get acclimated to driving a manual. I've driven many manuals before (albeit 15-20 years ago) and most recently my girlfriend's GTI. I had very little issues with shifting in that car.

So my issues are as follows. First gear seems to be very notchy even at a dead stop. I don't shift into first except in that scenario. Also, I am obviously doing something wrong as I cannot for the life of me shift smoothly in the lower gears. I've tried letting the clutch all the way out (quickly and slowly) without gas, rolling on the gas as I clutch out and actually giving it a little gas as I clutch out. It always gives me a nice jolt. Nothing seems to work. I have gotten it smooth a few times but there isn't any consistency. Does anyone have any ideas of what could be going on? Thanks!

Most people on the forum will agree that the gear box is definitely notchy and clunky. Usually when my downshifts aren't smooth, it's because I didn't rev match and the lower is will require the synchros to really up the RPM. If you try to always be downshifting when the rpm is around 1000 I've found I can down shift smooth consistently. However, if I try to downshift when RPM is over 1500(without rev matching) it'll feel very clunky and like everything is working harder than it should have to.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I'm still working on the downshifting as well but I have never had as many issues upshifting smoothly in any manual I've driven. I'm sure it will get better with time but as you know it can get quite frustrating. Especially in a new car.

Speaking of downshifting, I'm working on that as well. My current technique when approaching a turn is to brake and ride the gear I'm in, usually sixth, until around idle and then quickly get off the break downshift into the appropriate gear and then accelerate through the corner. This can be tough depending on my speed. I know that heel-toeing and shifting into a lower gear earlier would be best but I'm not there yet.

Most? There was a poll that suggests otherwise.

1 and 2 take a little loving until warmed up, to be sure. What finally worked for me going into second was holding speed in first for a couple seconds (painful!) before shifting. Given my neighborhood, no issues with that, but sometimes it can be annoying to the impatient behind...

I've not had issues shifting into first after coming to a complete stop and letting it rest a second or two.

It's nothing like the previous cars I've had (though the first one I'm pretty sure I had a bent shifter fork after a plumbing van decided I was his brakes... I was stopped and resting my hand on the shifter...)

Once warmed up, it's really smooth shifting for me.

Learning what engine speed is needed in any given gear for road speed is half the battle and that takes time, whether you watch the tach or try by ear (what I do) - I'm hoping it'll be easier for me once I finish installing my header + header-back, since it WILL be louder.

TBH I never stopped shifting whenever it needed it, usually during any speed scrub so everything is ready to go on exit. Definitely tuned by AutoX years ago, and it's all coming together again already in this car.

I think the whole system is less sloppy than many I've driven (or less forgiving?) which can make it tough if you're not used to that. Some of the manuals I've driven were amazingly vague, but always felt smooth. This one is not remotely vague, but...

C

I chalk up the notchy gearbox to Subaru; Toyota's in my experience are smooth. Like mentioned, it's better when it's warmed up and will get easier with more miles on the car. I think the stock clutch is grabby, but may provide headroom for more power.

There's good info already offered above in this thread.

Since you live in VA where winter temps can get low, the following thread is required reading to head-off your post that you are bound to make about November 15th of this year entitled "What's wrong with 2nd Gear?".

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31929

Check my post #117 on the last page here:
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showt...t=31929&page=6

It might save you a lot of grief.

My FRS is now 7 months old with about 6k miles on it. The tranny just keeps getting smoother.
Good luck!

OctaneFRS
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I don't understand :iono:

Damn it I am slipping!
Change in plans?

'sup?

haha clearly you are not as bored at work as I am

Most people who buy this car don't realize that ultimately, we have a Toyota Tacoma transmission. Whether we want to call it a TL70 or an RA62, it's still the same crappy manual RA60 transmission box found in the Toyota Tacoma.



Yes, We have a truck transmissions in our cars. As does the manual Lexus IS250 with a few "tweaks".


They "started" with a J160 which would of been great, it is a far more logical basis for the so-called Toyobaru coupe’s manual, having graced not only Toyota Altezza and 1st-generation Lexus IS 200 manual models, but such legendary sports cars as the Honda S2000, Mazda RX-8, 2nd-gen (NB) Mazda MX-5 Miata and the final S15 Nissan Silvia Spec-R.,


Instead they took a ra60, they replaced about 80% of the internals and ended up with what we call the "TL70".. shitty "modified" truck transmission..

I find this transmission to be very smooth and in no way clunky.
Driving technique goes a long way.

I agree, and even more so with MTEC springs and Gear 300. The springs are really nice in making shifts intuitive.

These transmissions are quite good from toyota, not crappy at all IMHO.