Would you put in 5th, 4th, or 3rd crusing at 70 in 6th gear? I perfer 4th as it seems to work best, i did try 3rd once and i dont think ill be doing that again.

 

eh third goes up to 90+

 

If you wanna do third you can, but you must absolutely rev match or else get your head brace on and prepare for whip lash not to mention hurting the transmission.

 

Haha head brace!

 

hmmmm haven't don't that yet...downshifted from 4th to 2nd once...whooops...but 6th to 4th gear..."maybe"...the tech guy said that would be ok for either "acceleration" or to "downshift"...

 

Would the transmission be okay when you downshift without rev matching once in awhile if you need to react real quickly? I typically rev match and all is good from 70 mph shifting from 6th to 3rd gear...sometimes when I'm in a tight situation and I really need the car moving I don't even bother...I can tell it's a rough switch when the transmission immediately matches the revs on its own...but not doing this often will I be expecting any long term effects? It should be okay right?

Sorry...I'm new and stupid when it comes to understanding this.

 

in my old 00 gts celica i went from going about 85mph in 3rd (8200rpms) and dropped it to 2nd on accident and floored it!!! Well the rpms shot up to well over 10k rpms and got a new engine

 

When you have a substantial difference in rev speeds you are putting a lot of strain on your synchro. It will shorten the life of your transmission if you do it frequently.

If you are talking about having to react real quickly, and downshifting, then you are talking about slowing down. So first step is to use the BRAKE. The engine is not an effective or fast mechanism for slowing the car compared to the brake. Downshifting is to position the engine output into the proper gear for maximum responsiveness when you do come back on the throttle. Normally that is associated with a turn, where you slow significantly, change gears, turn in, then maintenance throttle to keep the rear planted down as you go around the curve, and smoothly bring it back up as you track out of the turn and then upshift again. In daily driving on city streets, this just does not usually happen.

You can do both braking and shifting simultaneously, with the "heel-toe" technique. You use the ball of your foot from midpoint of the foot on the brake pedal's upper right edge. If you need or want to downshift, you then depress the clutch, move the shifter to neutral, roll the right edge of the foot over and "blip" the throttle to rev match, and shift into gear. It is smooth and prompt, and all the while you are on the brake slowing. It takes some practice, but it is not that difficult to learn. The car will not jerk or jolt, and this is important not only for saving stress to the transmission, but it preserves the balance of the car and thus control for the driver. Over time you will be able to match the revs and speeds such that you will not even feel the transition, only hear the engine speed change.

Typically one will downshift one gear at a time. Sometimes it makes sense to downshift two gears, skipping the one in the middle. In the example given, you are at very low rpms in 6th gear if you are going 70mph (80mph is barely 3,000rpm in 6th gear in the 6mt. Your peak power is going to be in the 5500-6300 rpm range, maybe even a tickle higher.). So in your example you are way below the power band and probably just cruising down the highway for best mileage. A leisurely shift to fourth would most often be the choice, unless you are choosing to quickly drop 20+mph and then immediately want to get back on it hard for a burst of aggressive acceleration, in which case third would be your choice. This is indeed a significant change in the way you were driving the car just seconds earlier. But if you are just waddling along, and do not intend to whomp it back to higher speed, fourth is going to be just fine for you. The double jump downshift (skipping two gears) is one that I have used, but only on the racetrack. It is just too extreme for the street. For example coming out of the Roval turn 2 at Cal Speedway you would typically be going around 140+mph as you head down the back straight, flat out in 6th gear. You then approach (rapidly!) the ninety degree left turn 3. You threshhold brake hard, stay on it, heel-toe downshift to 3rd as you drop to around 75-80 and then trail brake slightly into the turn after you complete the downshift, by now you are doing something just under 70mph. You carry that in third through turn 3 and the immediate ninety degree right of turn 9, now probably around 65mph, and then head down the short straight to the double apex hairpin, with your foot on the floor in third gear.

The key point is...the brake is stopping you, not the engine. Much cheaper to replace brakes than trannys and head gaskets. So treat your baby nicely, rev match always, and she will be good to you.

 

they just gave you a new engine even though it was your fault?

crazy

 

you can just about do that w/ an auto. Someone said you couldn't get to 60 in 2nd w/ an AT!

 

When i went to the dealership the service manager pointed to the service bay and showed me 3 other celica's having the same work done. They acknowledged that there was a problem and the gates in the shifter were too close together, thus causing misshifts. They said they would replace my valves and pistons, etc. once and they gave me a book on how to shift (the gist of it was to put my palm on the left side of the shifter and go towards sixth instead of trying to go to 4th) and told me that if it happened again they would not cover it.

Well about a year later I had never misshifted once and then one day I noticed my engine was knocking loudly so i took it to the dealer and they told me that I had misshifted again (though I know i didn't) and they would cover it again. 2 days later they found that i had tampered with the ECU and voided my warranty so I traded the car in to Acura and never mentioned the bent valves

1 year later I found out that my old roomate took my car one night and went street racing and misshifted, causing my bent valves

 

Been there, done that... Not a problem.

 

MY usual rule to spirited driving + downshifting is 2nd gear for around 40mph, 3rd gear for around 60, and 4th for around 80(time to downshift to third and then shift again to 4th takes longer than it takes the car to accelerate those couple hundred more rpms imo). However, if I was seriously trying to haul some ****, then I would have gone into third going 70 because by the time you actually shift into third, you'll be going somewhere around the upper 60's so it's not too bad. I do also ALWAYS rev-match when downshifting. My neck doesn't need anymore workout and also very embarassing to do with friends/girls in your car. =)

 

here's max gear speeds.. straight from the '05 infiniti manual:

Gear MPH (km/h)
1st 35 (56)
2nd 60 (96)
3rd 85 (136)
4th --
5th --
6th --

edit: and for a laugh... here's their recommended shift points for normal acceleration driving. i baby my car right now and still don't shift that low.

Gear change MPH (km/h)
1st to 2nd 8 (13)
2nd to 3rd 16 (26)
3rd to 4th 25 (40)
4th to 5th 28 (45)
5th to 6th 33 (53)