Neutral or downshifting. Save clutch or brakes?

Both will wear, the brakes are probably more expensive. Depending on speed and when you downshift will predicate how much wear. Same for brakes, depends on how hard you get on them. Just drive it and enjoy.

 

Brake pads are consumables, engine and transmission are not and should last the life of your car. If you need to brake, then brake.

Shifting gears is to get the engine in the correct engine speed and sometimes also to set up the suspension and tires for your next maneuver. Engine braking is mainly a pleasant byproduct of of the gear you select (properly) and generally a low gear phenomenon. Very little engine braking occurs when shifting between high gears.

IMO, shifting to neutral before braking hard (in a STRAIGHT LINE) is much better because tire adhesion is not messed up by the drivetrain being still connected to the tires. The tires are thus only manipulated by the brakes. Ultimately you essentially need to make your tires do what is necessary and you set up the rest of the car to make that happen. It's what the tires do that's the most important.

"In the old days", cars with manual stick-shift trannies were always preferred by serious drivers, partly because you can easily go in and out of neutral at any time. Doing so affects the efficiency of the tires and the suspension, amongst other things.

The F430 is really designed for track use so you need to avoid treating it too gently as it goes against its nature. You cannot win an argument with your car. The best you can do is understand how it works best and try to accommodate that with your driving needs and style.

 

Brakes are way cheaper than clutch and transaxle parts. If you have owned a car with three pedals, drive your F1 car exactly the same way and you will be very happy. Different drivers have different techniques for three pedal cars, but personally, I use neutral when coming to a full stop. If traffic starts moving and you are in neutral, hit the downshift paddle and you will get a useful gear for moving with traffic. You can use the upshift paddle, but that will get you a gear usually too high to be comfortable.

 

Typically brakes are much cheaper but with CCBs I would think the opposite. Clutch is what $3 to $4k vs CCBs.

 

Your not going to wear out the CCB rotors driving on the street and especially in the scenario the OP is describing...possibly ever. the clutch on the other hand you definitely will...it just depends on how long you can make it last.

 

Hearing the engine rev match upon downshifting is so sweet though

 

I don't think there is much if any clutch wear on down shifts.
I guess the mechanism is working but there would be little or no slippage.
90% of clutch wear is on take off.
Saying that, if I'm coming to a stop light I flip to neutral, coast and brake.
An approaching corner, very different, definately downshifts.

 

Yeah, don't get me wrong...I downshift coming to a stop much of the time as well, I just do so in a way that makes sure when I get to 1st I am not letting the car slip the clutch at all (as in, when I am coming to a stop - I stop and don't let it ***** foot around and scoot forward a couple inches incessantly like all the gapers ). If I am having to dick around in traffic - then I always blip enough to grab full gear and then grab neutral and coast. In addition to weak take-offs slipping the clutch a bunch, I have always felt like stop-and-go traffic was the F1 clutch death sentence...well that and I constantly want to have my foot down in this car, so it's incredibly annoying as well

 

Honestly, this is probably the most over discussed issue. It has almost no impact and is talked about almost as much as the stupid pricing threads.

Let's do some math:
- clutch is good for 40K+ miles, so I don't have to debate it let's use 20K
- average driver puts 1-2K per year
- clutch will last 10 years or more

Do I really care if I get 11 years?

 

This!

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk 2

 

John- You would rather talk about cambelt changes?

 

thinking of how much costs for breaking is something that shouldn't bother a Ferrari owner.
Especially if car is not a DD.
Clutch replacement is another thing, more complicated and costly and concerns more the 360 models than 430

 

Touche'

Cambelts were last year so I don't need to discuss them again for another 2 years. No wait, 5 years. No .....

 

Congratulations! For actual stopping/ slowing the car you should use the brakes. They are far more powerful than the engine is and also they operate on all 4 contact patches. Its a good habit to form, since a panic stop you need to grab those brakes hard. You shouldn't really get in the habit of making really big downshifts because that can lock up the rear end which results in a spin (though more likely in a stick car). If you are coming to a stop just use the brakes and the F1 system will put itself in the correct gear- the programming is surprisingly good on this. If you are performance driving then I suggest you pick the gears yourself.

Of course, there are times you are slowing down gently and you want to enjoy the sound of the downshifts.