I see over that two year period you also mastered teh art of the one handed driving. I thought I was watching a Bunta Fujiwara (?) tribute video with the whole one handed cigarette anime music combination.... weird..! Nice car choice though.. I had a `99 sport.
Depends on the car, with the Ginetta the rear wheels would lock every time if you didnt heel and toe when braking. But then that was a bog standard 5 speed Sierra box, obviously with a Hewland box built for racing, things are different.
What I really hate is watching track day videos and when people downshift without heeling and toeing in expensive Porsches, you can hear the revs jolt upwards as they let out the clutch, makes you feel sorry for the poor car. I think if you're going to do track days fairly often you should learn to heel and toe, it makes things much smoother. Obviously the pedals in some cars make it difficult.
A lot of road cars have the pedals too far apart though, and also the way they want us kids to learn to drive is to come to a stop and then change down rather than go down through the gears.
Nah, most cars allow heel and toe, you just need man-sized feet
I don't like the method either. It just means that you spend longer out of the correct gear, and therefore longer 'out of control'. All to make a gearbox last 176,000 miles rather than 175,000, but make your brake pad costs jump from £30 per year to £100 per year.
It's true lol, I tried it a few times in my mazda 3 but the medals are to far apart, it felt weird, twisting the ankle to much.. it was almost worth the pain haha
My problem is I can't get my foot to stay at the same level so when I do blip if thrust the brake down more than I want to and .. well then I just feel like an idiot and continue on not trying any more lol
@tristan, okay just double checking lol, just about all my dad's cars he raced had hewland boxes, just curious if they've changed much in the last.. oh say 40 years
@ 5haz, yea because it's easier on the car; why shift down when you don't need to really lol? Save the car 100,000 shifts in its lifetime by not shifting until you're at a stop. I have given up and shift when I'm clear of a turn.. mainly so that I have control of the steering wheel which is probably a bit more safer than trying to put the hammer down in the middle of a turn on the streets cause I got nawz yo! (not really, and incase you're wondering only one person on the mazda 3 forum has put nitrous on his car and then he ruined it.. all aboard the failboat)
Sister said it was the dumbest thing for me to do is get a manual car.. besides only driving a few others that were manual and having this one for a month and a day as of today.. I have yet to be phased by having a manual car, honestly.. I enjoy it.
One thing I will never do in my lifetime however is get a manual truck... honestly.. what is the purpose of that? Sure great, having a manual truck makes it easier to get out of potholes... does it? You sure? I don't know anyone that is as amazing at pulling out of a hole like an automatic can hahaha
It might do. It might not. Depends on driver ability, the car, the corner, the brakes, traffic, available grip, drivetrain layout, weight distribution.
Well, it usually takes several minutes to get used to that technique if you're a racing beginner, and you'll "master" it before long using your own car, which you're really familiar with.
However, think about driving for your mom (or your boss) though the traffic. You're applying 10% of braking and you initiate a down shift. During the shift, you must increase the braking force to 15% as engine braking torque is lost. This should be done SMOOTHLY with your right foot controling 2 pedals at the same time. If the deceleration changes 0.05g in a shift, your driving will be considered bad and you'll get a ban from your mom who never shift in the braking area. In this case, H&T takes many years to master.
I think it's harder to be smooth on H&T if you don't brake hard. If you brake softly, just a tiny bit of an increase in pressure to the brake-pedal gives you a lot more braking power instantly. It isn't this way if you already brake quite hard... at least I experienced it this way.
It's simply about being smooth - passengers don't notice high g-force levels as much as high changes in g-forces (jerks is the technical term). As long as you keep those jerks small then you will feel smooth.
On the road this is best accomplished by being gentle and slow(ish) with all your controls. Never letting yourself mash a control without care. That way you can heel and toe all the way down the gearbox from 100km/h over 40 seconds (or over 5 seconds, but passengers generally don't like that!) without them noticing you're slowing down, let alone changine gear and rev matching...
The really hard part to be smooth on is when you're nearly at a stop, in first gear, and the lights change. It's really hard to get back on the throttle without the car jerking and making the passengers frown!
lol thanks bro! I actually been yelled @ by my instructors many times for that too. I always drive one handed, even barefoot if it's a long drive. lol One of them, Dan Garza (the one I'm giving bunny ears xD) always yelled @ me for driving one handed, I told him I don't see the point of using both hands when 1 is for steering, the other for shifting.
lol He then said it was the sign of a everyday driver that had a manual trans. car, but that he had to say it only as a formality. lol
Since that video, Ive added a few new goodies like the nos gauge on the left side air vent, and push-start ignition button where the cigarette lighter used to be. Here's a better look
Wiring up a miata has been a nightmare for me, everything has to be done by using a multimeter, and testing each circuit. Anyone that has a miata probably also knows this, there's no chilton's manual for it, and very hard to find wiring diagrahms that are accurate, it changed drastically from model to model as far as electronics goes so mazda never realesed a manual for it, or not one that I'm aware of
.
Also, Mazda Miata owners with airbags, there was a voluntary recall on your miata airbag they never said to the public for 91-94 miatas. Take it in and Mazda supposed to fix it, but check and make sure it's still offered.
Apparently someone was decapitated while trying to do minor electrical work, he tripped the sensor with a hot wire that completed the circuit and was killed by it. That's what I was told but I dont know if it's true or not, just another reason why they never released the wiring diagrahms if it was true. This was from a Mazda technician that was doing one of those free car care inspections.
I have the same problem, it feels like I'm learning to drive all over again. The best way to correct it is by practice bro. Don't worry, you shouldn't feel that way, anyone that can do it also felt like idiots the first time we did it too. lol
Don't get discouraged though, how I learned to fix that issue when I used to do it, was to park on a hill, put the car in neutral, let it slowly roll forward, and brake only using the tips of my toes with my foot sideways hovering over
the gas pedal.
I didn't blip the gas, just practiced braking just hard enough to keep an even speed rolling down the hill. It took less then 10 times rolling down that hill to know how hard the brakes needed to be pressed.
Once you're comfortable with that step, now try doing it, car still in neutral, and start blipping the gas randomly till you find a position comfortable for you to do.
Once you find a comfortable position, now try hitting certain RPM's, like say brake and blip it to 4,000 rpm. Do that a few times also till you get comfortable.
The final step is to know what rpm the engine is @ in 2nd or 3rd gear for example, say 2nd @ 35mph is 4,000rpm's. Let the car roll to 35 and put the car into gear doing all those steps. If done all correctly, to where you were comfortable with each step, you will learn much faster then I did, because nobody explained to me how I could practice it, I just came up with my own way. It definitely helped.
lawlyz, at that age, start saving as much as you can, cars and gas is expensive these days lol. or play LFS! They didn't even have the old playstation when I was that age, only the super nintendo and mario kart. I played more street fighter 2 though. lol
my dad who is a mechanic, says when you are doing stuff with airbags, your neck just happens to be in a very vulnerable place, and if you do something wrong, yu could trigger it and get REALLY hurt
Racing transmissions like the Hewland use dog ring type setups, which don't need synchros. During a shift on a racing transmission, there's a period in time where both gears are engaged at the same time, but it's not an issue, since thost transmissions aren't meant to last as long or be as smooth as a passenger car transmission:
Just because you can shift a racing transmission without using the clutch, that doesn't mean you have to. "Some people shift with the clutch, some people shift without," Hemmingson explains. "There is no best way; they just do whatever works best for them. People that drive right foot gas, left foot brake usually find that it works better for them not to use the clutch. Then there are other people that drive heel/toe and use the clutch, but there is no set rule because people are better at different things. :
Depending on the rear end differential, engine braking can be setup to modulate the locking factor between the rear tires, controlling the oversteer response to engine braking while slowing down for a turn. Using engine braking to induce oversteer will slow a car as well as keep it turning inwards, a method that works very well in games like Grand Prix Legends, allowing corner entry to be a bit faster, and used as an alternative to trail braking. The sensation is that you "drift" your way towards the apex, but the tires aren't completely sliding in the process.
I thought I was watching a Bunta Fujiwara (?) tribute video with the whole one handed cigarette anime music combination.... weird..! Nice car choice though.. I had a `99 sport.
oh so sry for the reply :P
They didn't even have the old playstation when I was that age, only the super nintendo and mario kart. I played more street fighter 2 though.