Hi guys, I’ve been observing the behavior of the car and the way I drive more intently lately, as I got the car recently and now I’m just starting to feel comfortable in it. I was wondering if any of you can comment on if these behaviors are normal?

1) I’ve noticed (and read on this board a lot) that the 1-2 shift is not the easiest thing to get right. Today I looked at my tach while making my shifts, and noticed that if I really rushed the shift, say shifting at 4.5k, by the time I made the shift to second and let out the clutch, the disconnected engine would have only dropped to 3.5k or so, while once the clutch was engaged, the engine would be pulled down to maybe 3k, meaning the car had slowed down more, or there is a big jump in the ratios from 1 to 2. This would cause the car to momentarily buck before catching up. I guess the different solutions to minimize this would be to slow down the shift, shift at lower rpms in 1st, or feather the clutch, though my guess is these things will slow you down even more if you’re trying to hustle the car. Theoretically, would reducing the weight of the reciprocating and rotating components of the tranny and engine (like the flywheel) also help, since less rotational inertia will drop the rpms of the engine faster? Also I may be shifting this car wrong, so please let me know you have a style that works well for you….

2) Also, when coasting and putting in the clutch, I felt that the engine speed is pretty slow to drop, compared to past manuals I”ve driven. Is this because a 6 cylinder has more rotational weight than a 4 cylinder (which describes all the manual cars/bikes I’ve driven before)? I also noticed that if I was coasting and pushed the clutch in, the engine speed would drop, but would not go down all the way to idle speed. However, putting the shifter into neutral would immediately drop the speed to idle. I’m figuring this is normal behavior, since there may still be some forces acting on the clutch plates (from rotating fluid perhaps?) but I just wanted to make sure. I also swore I could see a difference between the rate of decrease of engine RPMs from just pushing in the clutch to also putting in neutral, but I didn’t have enough time to make sure today. I felt that putting it in neutral would make the rpm’s drop faster. Anyone else notice this in their car as well?