Quote:
Originally Posted by jmaryt
to me "heel and toe" competence is not a crucial factor i can understand the benefit of it,however you can still enjoy the car without knowing how to do that! take "rev matching" this "was" a procedure that was necessary "years ago" when trucks were equipped with "conical" manual gear boxes.you needed to "match" revs of the engine to the approximate revs"of the gear box in order to shift 'without crashing the gear box. "fuller road ranger" transmissions come to mind as the type of tranny this procedure was applicable to.with modern "helical" gear boxes,"rev matching " was no longer needed as the gears were 'cut" differently and "meshed" without rev matching either engine or transmission.also with the introduction of synchronizers rev matching has been relegated to oblivion. my "alleged" problem after driving manual for over 45 years is that i always 'double clutch" which is a driving tecnique i learned many years ago using 'conical" gear boxes in older tractors.can't seem to eliminate it,however,i still have faith that the build quality of the clutch will withstand my double clutching,and last for a very long time! the japanese have proven once again in the design ,and development of THIS car,that they are indeed master car builders.
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I disagree on a few points. Rev matching is still necessary today, unless you have a fancy auto throttle blip feature like on the 370Z. If you do not rev match on a downshift you prematurely wear the clutch and will upset the car's balance. The only way around this would be to use a combination of downshifting and letting the clutch out slowly to bring the revs up and generally just avoiding downshifting and waiting until the car is stopped and going all the way back to 1st gear. As laughable as that seems, I've seen plenty of people, even folks that think their MT is more manly, doing this not realizing they are using improper technique and would actually be better off with an auto.
Double clutching isn't necessary on modern cars, though admittedly I still do it regularly on downshifts as there were rumors going around that the Si's synchros were crap (really it was the CMC in my case) so I did it as a way of taking some load off the synchros, now it is habit. If you are rev matching as part of your double clutching you are actually doing your clutch a favor, not increasing wear.
Heel toe I think is still a critical part of properly utilizing a manual transmission, which is humorous because so few people do it. While casually driving around heel to is not necessary. You can just use standard rev matching.
However in a performance driving situation being in a gear that makes power at all times is important. And heel toe is useful in all situations even street driving and can even contribute to safety. whateatsrabbits asserts that (undoubtably via lots of practice and muscle memory) he utilizes heel toe in a panic stop. Now that's pretty handy. If I was in a panic stop I would have to forgo downshifting in an MT because I cannot reliably heel toe, especially under pressure when there is no time to think about it. If all you have to do is stop then that's fine, but if you have to suddenly accelerate again, I'd be at a serious disadvantage because at some point I'd have to either stop braking to downshift (increased braking distance), wait until stopped to shift into first and accelerate (time spent stationary which in a dynamic road situation might be dangerous)or just slam it into a lower gear and let the clutch out (risk upsetting the car's balance). If you can heel toe, or have an auto like this one, you avoid all these predicaments.