say you're cruising down a long hill at 60mph. you put the car into neutral bc there are no other cars around, motor idling nicely (1200 or 900rpm) and you see that this descent is about to level off and want to put your car in 5th gear..... what do you do (Keeanu Reeve)?

1. no gas, stomp on clutch, throw into 5th and gas/de-clutch as normal

2. quick blip gas to 2k (let go), quick stomp on clutch, quick throw into 5th then gas/de-clutch

3. stomp on clutch, shift into 5th, blip to 2k (let go) then gas/de-clutch

4. others (please describe)

c'mon.. help out an asian driver here <-- as close to beedy eye as the smilies can get (its ok, im chinese)

first, NEVER let the car roll down a hill in neutral!

second, if you really have to, shift in 5th, blip throttle and let the clutch out smoothly *at the same time*.

third, practice 2) until you can't feel the transition. SMOOTH is faster ...

Andy

oh, and once you mastered the above, start doing THE OPPOSITE in tight corners where you have understeer.
if you come up a tight corner at fairly high speed and you can't get your frontend to turn in nicely, downshift right when you get into the corner without ANY gas and pop the clutch.
that will swing your ass around, then apply *plenty* of gas to get the car out of the corner straight.

NOTE: this only works in very slow corners, at higher speed, you'll upset your car and spin.

oh, the joy of driving! Andy

Your scaring the kids Andy...


B

Don't do that or my Mickey's Big Mouth will short out my keyboard!



KT

I was working a corner at a PCA AutoX back when I lived in Texas and noticed this black 914 (Cockroach as they call it) come flying up to this cone that it had to pivot around. Jan Mayo was driving (Ed/Jan Mayo own the car) and I heard the car go dead for a split second and then I heard a slight amount of wheelspin from the inside tire as the LSD locked up.. I went to Jan later on and asked her if she had pushed in the clutch and mashed the gas ..then popped the clutch... YES. She took TTD OVERALL in a 4cyl 914 prepared very similar to what SteveN runs up here. It rotated the car around that cone faster than anyone else had done while I worked that corner.. she asked me how I knew what she had done...


B

yes, i've been doing that.. just wondering if its good for the car, or if its "acceptable"

It burns gas. But practice..practice..practice.



B

I heel-toe every car I get into. So once I actually get out on an autocross course I should be one step ahead.

Same here that's all I do is heel 'n' toe. Although I love the way a mid engine handles it.