Torque Dip: Why all the fuss?

[Churnobyl]

Haven't driven the AT but in the MT here is what it feels like:

YES! YES YES!...hold on....the condom broke......nevermind...YES! YES! YES! YES! (7000rpms YESSSSSSSSSSS!

[Tromatic]

Sport mode is not some sort of magic.
From the BRZ owners manual:
■Sport mode
●In sport mode, lower gears are used and gears change at a higher
engine speed.

The "dip" is about 1k wide. It would be better if it wasn't there, but learning to drive around it when you want/need to really is not that hard. If I can do it with a lowly AT, wtf is wrong with all you manly MT operators?

[Bristecom]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

Out of curiosity how much seat time have you had?

Three 15 minute test drives. But each time I noticed it. Once in the cold, once in the hot, and once in moderate temperatures. Two of the three test drives was in a manual transmission. The torque dip in the automatic (manual mode) didn't seem quite as noticeable to me though. But regardless, I would be getting a manual. Now to be fair, there was a passenger with me each time and I won't often be carrying someone around. But still, my stock 99 Eclipse has no problem at all accelerating hard with passengers and a loaded car.

My impression each time was, "Oh, this has pretty good low-end torque." Then, suddenly.. "Is something wrong? I'm losing power?" Then I look down at the tachometer and realize I'm in the torque dip. Now a lot of people say they don't often floor it on the roads but with this type of car and in my driving environment, I very often floor it.

I was planning to soon take a final test drive and determine if I can learn to drive around it or learn to live with it without a passenger. But after running into the local Toyota/Scion dealer manager at my work, he said they don't let anyone go out in that car without a sales person. So I guess I'll have to try another dealer.

[Demandred7]

Originally Posted by Churnobyl

Haven't driven the AT but in the MT here is what it feels like:

YES! YES YES!...hold on....the condom broke......nevermind...YES! YES! YES! YES! (7000rpms YESSSSSSSSSSS!

OMG!Great analogy (even if I don't completely agree). Almost blew my drink out my nose.

[Fortis]

Originally Posted by ProjectGT86

that "always keeping you in the power band" is the ECU downshifting for you, if you notice the .5 second delay when hitting the pedal through the turns that the ECU saying oh okay you want more power let me see which gear will land you at 4500 rpms, as an ECU and power train tuner I can tell you that the sport mode is nothing but a setting that keeps you in a lower gear

I am fully aware of what the ECU is doing and how the the AT transmission in the twins works. I was speaking in layman's terms when I said "always keeping you in the power band". Like you said, when more power is needed the transmission will do its best to find the gear that'll land you in the ~4500 rpm range. This as we know is above the torque dip and essentially keeps the car out of the dip while in sport mode. That is all I was stating. I owned a DSG equipped GTI for several years that had sport mode. I am quite familiar with how it works.

[Quentin]

Originally Posted by tahdizzle

From my experience, downshifting into 1st at 20 mph in the BRZ makes baby jeebus cry.

Care to elaborate? Based on my chart, that puts you at 4000RPM. If you rev match, there should be no reason you can't downshift to first and be ready to pull hard from 4k to 7k.



(x axis is vehicle speed, y axis is engine speed) Ignore the Mustang V6 gearing I have shown.

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by Bristecom

Three 15 minute test drives. But each time I noticed it.

I was planning to soon take a final test drive and determine if I can learn to drive around it or learn to live with it without a passenger. But after running into the local Toyota/Scion dealer manager at my work, he said they don't let anyone go out in that car without a sales person. So I guess I'll have to try another dealer.

Hi ya Bristecom .....

Ya know, I got this "gut feeling", that, if having an additional 180 lbs in you car is going to make a difference between you enjoying the car or not ..... you may consider looking into a more powerful car .....


humfrz

[Weasel Soup]

I like how there are two gears in our box (2 & 3) between gears (1 & 2) on the Mustang. Shows a lot about a lot.

[dem00n]

It's a bitch if you downshift wrong, that's the main problem i see.

Torque dip can be fun, but more so with more torque...

It's an easy fix to get rid of it...also when you get rid of the dip, you're most likely going to get more HP/TQ anyways.

[jflogerzi]

Originally Posted by tahdizzle

From my experience, downshifting into 1st at 20 mph in the BRZ makes baby jeebus cry.

If you can even get it to go into 1st @ 20MPH

[Quentin]

Originally Posted by Weasel Soup

I like how there are two gears in our box (2 & 3) between gears (1 & 2) on the Mustang. Shows a lot about a lot.

Yeah, you are a crazy person if you buy a V6 Mustang without the Performance Package. That sort of heft and crazy long gears will make that 300hp not very much fun to drive. Says to me that marketing told engineering/product development that they needed a cheap version that broke 30mpg (i.e. looked great on paper). Of course, that version was never the one trotted out to Motor Trend and the like.

[wutsaiu]

I don't like the rpm drop between 1st and 2nd.
Even daily driving I notice the huge drop when shifting from 1st to 2nd.
I was curious and compared it to the ratios of my other car.
If the picture below shows up, you can see quite a difference.



I think I'd prefer to have different gear ratios but I should probably just rev higher in 1st before shifting.

[tahdizzle]

Originally Posted by Quentin

Care to elaborate? Based on my chart, that puts you at 4000RPM. If you rev match, there should be no reason you can't downshift to first and be ready to pull hard from 4k to 7k.



(x axis is vehicle speed, y axis is engine speed) Ignore the Mustang V6 gearing I have shown.

that's a nice graph. But just because you CAN doesn't mean the transmission likes it.


Its all moot, because you're still in the torque dip.

[wutsaiu]

Originally Posted by wutsaiu

I don't like the rpm drop between 1st and 2nd.
Even daily driving I notice the huge drop when shifting from 1st to 2nd.
I was curious and compared it to the ratios of my other car.
If the picture below shows up, you can see quite a difference.



I think I'd prefer to have different gear ratios but I should probably just rev higher in 1st before shifting.

Just found out Cusco makes close ratio 1st and 2nd gears to fix this very thing. Guess it's not just me who thinks that.