[stellablade]

Not so much for slowing the car down, but for acceleration. I find that the clutch tends to grab when I bring it back up and the car surges slighly, sending me forward in my seat. Typically when changing down from 4th to 3rd and 3rd to 2nd. It's probably poor technique on my part but I found change downs much smoother in my old car. Do I have to blip the throttle, bring the clutch up quickly or slowly, watch the revs?

I've mastered smooth change ups, just the change downs I'd like to perfect!

[Dom]

eventually you'll learn what revs the engine is doing in what gear at what speed... you could just mix and match then before taking the clutch back up...

[HarryHBMCC]

You definitely need to blip the throttle for a downshift, otherwise your wheels will be too fast for your engine in the lower gear. Experiment with how much to blip and after a while you'll learn where the engine should be in the lower gear from the higher gear.

Just takes experience and is one of the problems moving from one car to another, you lose all those things you new by heart about the old car. No worries, in time you'll be as familiar with your MINI.

Harry

[stellablade]

Cheers Harry and Dom. I was kind of hoping you would reply Harry

I could go out and practice now, but the weather is gorgeous. Beer garden or MINI? Tough call!

Quote:

Originally posted by HarryIndiBlue
You definitely need to blip the throttle for a downshift, otherwise your wheels will be too fast for your engine in the lower gear. Experiment with how much to blip and after a while you'll learn where the engine should be in the lower gear from the higher gear.

Just takes experience and is one of the problems moving from one car to another, you lose all those things you new by heart about the old car. No worries, in time you'll be as familiar with your MINI.

Harry

[HarryHBMCC]

Practice first, then beer garden. Or scotch garden in my case Never the other way round.

Harry

[anthonyyule]

Man, with a thread title like this:

......try using the gearstick,........sorry,

had to say it, but after reading your thread, your not that thick , so ill excuse you from the silliness that ive just caused..

[sjbartnik]

Definitely you have to blip the throttle on downshift to match revs.

If you don't, when you downshift, the transmission's input shaft will be turning at whatever speed is appropriate for the gear you selected while the engine crankshaft will be turning at a different speed. Then when you engage the clutch, the clutch must take up the difference in speeds, which it does of course by bringing the crankshaft speed up to input shaft speed, slowing the car down and wearing out the clutch faster.

What you want to do is pre-emptively rev the engine up right before you release the clutch so that the clutch doesn't have to do all the work. In this way you can get a smooth & quick downshift. Practice makes perfect in this case.

[mad brummie]

I find using a 'sustained revs' change down works better than a 'blip'

Level the revs off during acceleration, keep your right foot still on the accelerator, do not accelerate or decelerate. Depress the cluch, change gear and take your foot off the cluch smoothly in one motion.

Takes some practice but works a treat when you get it right.

[GTmini]

Quote:

Originally posted by BRG MC
I find using a 'sustained revs' change down works better than a 'blip'

Level the revs off during acceleration, keep your right foot still on the accelerator, do not accelerate or decelerate. Depress the cluch, change gear and take your foot off the cluch smoothly in one motion.

Takes some practice but works a treat when you get it right.

I started to do this shortly after I got my MCS, but then after awhile, I started to wonder if that could in any way be adding additional wear to the clutch b/c of not letting the engine revs slow down at all with the input shaft (albeit only extremely briefly) while disengaing. I'd never seen anyone I know do this (although very few of my friends are manual drivers). Since I "discovered" that method on my own without actually reading about it or being taught it, I stopped doing it after a few weeks as a precaution and returned to gas off-clutch-blip-engage again, but if people concur that it's fine doing it that way, that's great.

[very mini]

am I the only one having problems downshifting with rev matching??? I've been doing it for 4 years now (2 different cars), and this is my 3rd car where I'd like to continue rev-matching. However, I find that blipping the throttle NEVER gives the same input twice. It's almost as if my ECU adapts to my driving instantaneously...

it's driving me MAD! I blip the throttle once, it goes up barely. I blip it a second time (same depth and speed), and it goes WAY more up than the first time. I always end up in the wrong rmp, because the blipping is never predictable!! If no one else is having this problem, I'll test drive another mini to see if mine is "normal"...

[EBMCS03]

very mini: No its not you... I have the same problem... I thought it was just me and I must just suck but hummm this is interesting... I think its better to just anticipate to blip more on the first try and practice that.

[very mini]

Hey UCSDxB0i, let me start off by saying that it's hard to rewrite your nickname

Second: I don't suck at rev-matching, that's the thing! I used to be amazing with my Civic and my integra. It's only Now with the MINI that I suck. And it gets me angry! But I'm happy to hear you've experienced the same thing. I've had the car for two months, and I STILL can't get it. I use to get it after about a week...It's just too (#&%$#(&$% unpredictable.

[GTmini]

It also usually takes me two throttle blips to get it to send the revs high enough. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to get it with one, but usually I have to do it twice (either that or I just became so used to doing it that I do it twice out of habit ). Glad to know I'm not the only one with a lot of these issues...I've also been getting frustrated wondering what I could possibly be doing wrong with this car when it seems like things should be really smooth (2 months of ownership as of next week)...it's still tough to be consistent.

With all of the drivetrain quirkiness, I constantly wonder if I'm damaging things...fingers crossed. I even had a nightmare about my clutch last night. Once MINI/BMW/Chrysler gets all of the engine programming gremlins exorcised, I'll feel a LOT better.

[Lorri]

Quote:

Originally posted by sjbartnik

What you want to do is pre-emptively rev the engine up right before you release the clutch so that the clutch doesn't have to do all the work. In this way you can get a smooth & quick downshift. Practice makes perfect in this case.

Is this also known as double de-clutching?

[ipartridge]

no. double declutching is where you push the clutch in and out twice before changing gear, not necessary in a modern car with synchromesh gearboxes. I also have the same niggle with blipping the throttle at downchanges and blame the ecu. it wont 'blip' (try blipping at a standstill, its on time delay and then the revs stay high with a mind of thier own!) and it hangs onto the higher revs for far too long to get a smooth upshift as well. I find i am taking my foot off the pedal perhaps a second before i wish to change up to let the engine catch up with my intentions

[plaztik]

Hi all,

Engine braking wears the clutch out faster?

I was always told to engine brake (downshift to slow the car down with the gearing instead of the brakes) along with the normal brakes. You stop much faster and it doesn't wear out your brakes as bad.

Can we get confirmation about this?

- plaztik

[miniyup]

Quote:

Originally posted by plaztik
Hi all,

Engine braking wears the clutch out faster?

- plaztik

Engine braking wears the ENGINE out faster (more revs = more wear) too. Unless you NEED the engine braking (e.g. downhill in the mountains or some sort of racing situation), better to use the normal brakes for routine stopping/slowing of the car in traffic. Brake components (discs/pads and even rotors) are relatively cheap and easy to replace compared to either clutch or engine internals.

I have read articles with the above line of reasoning and it certainly makes sense to me (I used to downshift and use the engine to brake -- not any more).

[HarryHBMCC]

Engine braking doesn't wear the engine out faster unless you are really slamming it. The clutch and tranny will take the brunt of it -- an engine spinning at high speed with little or no throttle is not bad if you are below redline.

Engine braking is bad for the clutch for sure and if you do it hard (say, drop it into 1st from 150 km/h) then bad for the tranny too.

The best way to do it is to blip the throttle to match the engine speed of the lower gear. Without a double clutch you'll still have some stress on the tranny as the input shaft has to come up to the new speed but it is less than if you just let the clutch and synchros do all the work. Double clutching is the only way for a very low wear downshift but it is slow unless you are very good at it, which most of us (me!) are not.

Letting the engine help by matching revs is a good way of reducing braking force required and is fully recommended by the owners manual. In fact, it fully warns about the loss of braking when coasting in neutral or with the clutch in. Burning up the clutch on downshifts is bad though, as brakes are much easier than taking half the car apart to get at the clutch (in the MINI, the battery has to come out, coolant has to be drained, etc. to change the clutch, 10-15 hours labour).

Harry

[sjbartnik]

Quote:

Originally posted by plaztik
Hi all,

Engine braking wears the clutch out faster?

I was always told to engine brake (downshift to slow the car down with the gearing instead of the brakes) along with the normal brakes. You stop much faster and it doesn't wear out your brakes as bad.
- plaztik

I never understood this logic. If you have the choice to wear out the brakes stopping the car, or to put extra wear and tear on the engine, clutch, and transmission stopping the car, why would you want to save the brakes? Brakes are cheap. Pads and rotors are cheap and easy to replace.

Engines, clutches, and transmissions are not.
Really you're not going to do anything significant to the engine and transmission when downshifting for engine braking, but you do put more wear and tear on the clutch (each time you press that clutch pedal you are flexing the pressure plate and wearing the master and slave cylinders) and if you downshift without rev matching you also put a lot of wear on the clutch disc friction surface. All these things are a lot harder to get to than brake pads.

I use the normal engine braking in whatever gear I'm in when slowing down (meaning I don't depress the clutch pedal until I'm nearing a stop) but I don't go out of my way to downshift for engine braking effect. There's no real point unless you are descending a mountain and need to use engine braking to help control your speed.

[Dark Silver S]

Quote:

Originally posted by ipartridge
no. double declutching is where you push the clutch in and out twice before changing gear, not necessary in a modern car with synchromesh gearboxes.

Not exactly true. Double-clutching is shifting into neutral, and then into the lower gear (hence two pumps of the clutch). After great amounts of practice, you should only be in neutral for the length of time between clutch pumps. It's not an easy technique, and, as you said, not really necessary with modern synchros.

Blipping the accelerator when downshifting is not really all that difficult. You just need to practice. Then, after you master that, try blipping, downshifting, braking, and turning all at the same time.