Quote:
Originally Posted by Buggy51
I was trying to find more information about how some of the transmissions work, and afterreading a bit on the IS-F Sport Direct Shift I have a few questions. Have the "manual modes" that they use in the Lexus lines ever appear on their other cars? I noticed on wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimo...l_transmission that Toyota has employed that fancy named transmission with paddle-shifters onto European cars but not in North America.
Referring to the Truthaboutcars interview, we assume that there might be less computing power (or I suppose a more efficient use?) on the FR-S. There is "No DSG or anything of that kind" is what was said. But, I was reading this article from autotech and I noticed this little bit of info: "The transmission uses planetary gearsets and clutches like most common automatic transmissions, but the Lexus IS F has large, high flow control solenoids to shift each gear. The rapid response of the solenoids and application of the clutches enables the transmission to upshift gears in only one-tenth of a second."
So... what in the world are planetary gearsets and high control solenoids? And I'm still wallowing through some information (Also... my career path isn't in physics/mech engineering... its in uh... biology lol so spare me) but do manual cars and automatics use a clutch? I thought automatics typically had a torque converter or I'm misreading everything. Thanks! |
start here:
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/automa...ansmission.htm
what you basically need to know about the IS-F is that they took the 8 speed from the LS460 and beefed it up. They could have went the dual clutch or automated single clutch route, but it would probably have been too expensive. instead they decided to stick with the torque converter auto and re-engineered it for sportiness. at the time, it was one of, if not THE best automatic with the fastest shifts ever seen on an auto.
how that relates to the FT is of course the question of whether or not they will spend the resources to make the FT's auto even half as sporty. according to the interview, it sounds as though the auto is an afterthought. just tacked on for sales purposes. hopefully this is not the case. fwiw, the 2012 camry has paddle shifters that blips the throttle on downshifts. so how can they give the camry this feature and leave it out of a sports coupe? me thinks the auto WILL be sporty. not IS-F sporty, but sporty enough...