Wow! :-D Thank you everyone for your prompt and informative replies. This is much appreciated. So let me go out on a limb and give a couple more scenarios, seeing that I'm on a roll. Let's say you are rolling up to a stoplight. You have your foot on the brake to slow the car down. I am hearing that if you take both feet off of the brake and gas pedal for a few seconds, the car will automatically put itself into neutral. But how can you do this in real life? You can't just take your foot off the brake and wait a few seconds for the car to put itself into neutral, because until then, the car will continue to roll because it is in 1st gear with no foot on the brake, right? So the assumption here is that if you want the car to go into neutral as you pull up to the stoplight, you must physically manipulate the paddles (flicking both at the same time?) to get it into neutral. Is this it? Now, let's say for the sake of argument that, once you have the car in neutral, that, instead of trying to rev the car with your foot on the brake (which I now understand is a no no), you never put your foot on the brake, but rev the car anyway, it should be free to rev to whatever RPM you want, because the car is in neutral, correct? Continuing this argument, let's say that, while holding the engine at, say, 3500RPM, you flick the paddle and drop the car into 1st gear. Although you'd never want to do this, would this be the same thing as revving the engine in a 6-speed with the car in first and the clutch in, then quickly lifting your foot off of the clutch? If this is the case, then it is a very interesting one. If someone walked up to me and said they'd give me 20 thousand dollars if I'd light up the tires in my Ferrari, I've have to tell them sure, but I could only do that on level ground, right? Because if the ground was not level, I'd have to have my foot on the brake to keep the car from rolling, thus nullifying the above algorithm. Did what I just say make any sense? Because I'm sick of hearing from my friends that they'd never buy a paddle shifter because you don't have the control you'd otherwise have with a 6-speed. Not to mention that I myself want to be convinced. Thanks! Mike
Wow! :-D Thank you everyone for your prompt and informative replies. This is much appreciated. So let me go out on a limb and give a couple more scenarios, seeing that I'm on a roll. When slowing down to come to a stop you have two options: slip the car into neutral with the paddles as you slow down (coasting in neutral), or allow the car to downshift gear by gear as the vehicle speed slows down. This is done automatically by the car. The second option is extremely clunky and seems to put more wear/tear on the system. The car will only put itself into neutral when: the car is stopped in gear, and there is no input with either gas or brake for 5 seconds, the car is stopped in gear, and a door is opened or even when the engine bonnet is opened. Yes Remember, your foot must be on the brake to engage first gear. If you do so with your left foot while your right foot is on the gas, as soon as you release the brake, the car will take off.
>>>Remember, your foot must be on the brake to engage first gear. >>>If you do so with your left foot while your right foot is on the gas, >>>as soon as you release the brake, the car will take off. So if you manually put the car into neutral, keeping your foot off the brake, rev the engine up, then flick the paddle into first, nothing happens? This is confusing. You'd think the back tires would break loose. If you have to put your foot on the brake to take off, then, according to previous posts, the car would try to take off immediately, while your foot was still on the brake. Which from what I understand was a big no no. So if someone offered me 20 thousand dollars to light up the rear tires in my 100K Ferrari, I would have to tell him that there's no way?? Wow. Maybe I should buy the 6-speed.
Interesting questions, as were those in your earlier thread. I had a 355 F1 for a little while and just picked up a BMW with SMG as a daily driver. I am still learning my way around the latter, which is a little different than the unit in the ferrari. Just thought i'd share, so long as its not confusing: The BMW doesn't seem to go into N when you come to a full stop. It will downshift itself, even when in sequential mode, at a full stop, but i have been shifting it myself. I have also been putting the box into neutral manually, even though i was told by the dealer tech that it is not necessary. The BMW has some neat features that were not on my 355 and i don't think show up on the 360 or 575. (Clueless about the Enzo). These include a 5/6 step control to vary the quickness of the shifts. At the slow extreme, when you click the paddle it shifts like my grandma might after the palsy. Clicking up to 4/5 is about right for non-sport mode shifting, its fast but not choppy/quick. 4/5 in sport mode is way too choppy for local street driving at reasonable speeds; i inch the control down a click to 3/5. (The sixth detent is only available when the traction control is turned off, and there is a launch control as well, neither of which i have tested yet, since there is ice/cinders on the roads here now:- more about that later when the weather in the NE improves). Finally, there is a hill "lock" function actuated by pulling on the downshift lever for a second or so with the brake on; it gives you about 2 seconds before it releases, more than enough time to stomp and go. (I learned to drive a stick in Pittsburgh, a very hilly place, so got pretty good at hill starts, but with these paddle thingies, there is obviously a different routine. I don't know if Ferrari is considering any of these or other features in its next paddle iteration, or whether such features currently exist on the latest F car transmissions.) I do like the fact that the console still has a full fledged stick, rather than a stubby little T-bar. It just looks better, and is actually easier to use than the one in my 355 was when actuating reverse. You can also use it to shift, rather than using the paddles, but that seems pointless.
. So if someone offered me 20 thousand dollars to light up the rear tires in my 100K Ferrari, I would have to tell him that there's no way?? Wow. Maybe I should buy the 6-speed.[/QUOTE] I dont know all the specifics, but I can tell you that in sport mode at a dead stop, when you floor it, the motor will rev to 7k or so and leave a couple long black marks in the road. An associate threw me the keys to an f1 360 and I did this in front of my house several times. It was alot of fun.(no I wouldnt do this in my own)
whart, i asked a bmw sales rep about the launch control in the SMG II transmission, which i assume you have since it's a new m3. he told me they don't have it in the US models because it will "fry your transmission" (his exact words) when you do it after a couple of times. i thought twice knowing that it does put a lot of stress on your clutch, but i had heard previously that they still had it in US versions. do you know how much wear the launch control puts on the clutch for the BMW? i'm sure F-cars have a similar issue with launch control, but how is the wear on that?
[/QUOTE] I dont know all the specifics, but I can tell you that in sport mode at a dead stop, when you floor it, the motor will rev to 7k or so and leave a couple long black marks in the road. An associate threw me the keys to an f1 360 and I did this in front of my house several times. It was alot of fun.(no I wouldnt do this in my own) [/QUOTE] I agree, I wouldn't do this normally either. But it is the *choice* that matters to me. So, how exactly did you pull this off? Had you manually put the car into neutral? Did you have your foot on the brake at any time during this? Were you on level ground? Was the car a Stradale with launch control? Thank you! Mike http://northwest.nsxca.org/mike.html
BMW here tells customers that the number of launch control starts is limited (a counter in the ECU) to avoid running into warranty issues. I tried it once on a demo car, fun (for those who like to show off at trafic lights) but certainly not something I would even do once on my own car. The hill holding feature is nice, but left foot braking works just as well.
1) The F1 Shift IS 6 Speed...It's just a 6 speed manual gearbox with a clutch. It's just that a robot actually changes the gears and operates the clutch for you. 2) To "take off" all you need to do is wait at the lights in neutral, foot on brake, then when the lights go green select first gear, releasing the brake almost at the same time and nail the throttle. 380BHP will soon generate black lines. Ricard
Just to make sure this is totally clear... if you want to light them up, you just: 1) Turn off ASR (traction control) 2) Put it in first 3) Take off like you normally would except FLOOR IT Nothing difficult. In fact, if you drive around sans ASR, you'll find that you do this by accident every once in a while!
Just thought id clear up a few things about the BMW M3 SMG system. The US version DOES indeed have a launch control feature. It launches at 1800 RPM as compared to the Euro version which launches at 2500 (optimal). The Euro version is limited to 7 while the US is unlimited due to Federal Law. The SMG tranny is great for traffic in Orange County and is just wonderful for those triple downshifts (6th to 3rd) on the freeway. From what I have seen, most M3 drivers, myself included, drive with the shift program set in S5 (sequential 5) for manual and i like to use A3 with Sport Mode in automatic mode. This is my 1st post so i hope im helping!
one more comment about putting the 360 F1 into neutral. maybe it's obvious, but in case it's not you can also be driving down the road, pull both handles to put the car in neutral, rev the throttle and tug either paddle and the F1 system will put you in an appropriate gear so you continue on your way as for the little T handle i'm glad they replaced that with a reverse button on the 360 CS. lastly, driving a 360 F1 (and especially the 360CS F1) is a blast. period. i would never go back to a manual gearbox in a ferrari. if you like a manual gearbox then buy a car that doesn't offer an F1 gearbox. if you buy a ferrari you will definitely enjoy the F1 experience...especially in the newer models say 2000 and newer. i have a 360 stradale and the F1 is virtually flawless!
Sorry for bumping an old trhead but I got really curious after reading SoftwareDrone's f1 gearbox questions. From what I understood there's no way of properly launching a 355f1? I mean, if being at a stop in 1st gear with throttle+brakes, and then releasing the brakes to get going shouldn't be done or doesn't work, then do you just have to anticipate when you'll launch and accelerate a bit before that time, so you give time to the revs to build (that's the main problem I see, waiting for the revs to build up) and get to the automatic clutch release point corresponding to your trhottle imput? If there is such a lack of control, isn't there any aftermarket company that has developed a piggyback or something to mod the tcm or tcu or whatever, to let the driver control the moment and intensity of clutch engagement/disengagement during launches? Again this is just from curiosity, I'm nowhere near ferrari-buying status
certainly on the CS, and i imagine on the other f-cars, buttons like "sport mode" and "race mode" vary the shifting speed. it's been a while since i played with it, but i believe the CS does this by default (presumably the others too?). it's not too hard for the computer to know whether the car is pointed uphill. well, where "appropriate" is defined as sixth usually. i find it's way too conservative - times when i'd be in third it goes into sixth when i come out of neutral (just messin' around stuff). i was hoping that pulling on the down paddle might help, but it doesnt' appear to - the computer picks a very conservative gear and touching any paddle says "put it in that conservative gear". not that you ever really care about this, but why not whine when given the chance? doody.
I don't know what you mean as lack of control. There is complete control, the clutch actuation is proportionate to throttle application. The more aggressive you are on the throttle, the more aggressive the clutch actuates. If you are in a big enough hurry just wack the throttle open from a dead stop, at 6000 or 6500 the clutch will engage and you can modulate wheel spin with the throttle. Back way out of it until the tires just start to hook up and keep rolling on the throttle and the car accelerates quite well. It just takes a couple of sets of tires to get it down. Launch control does more or less the same thing it just brutalizes the clutch instead of the tires.
So when stopping at a light when decelerating should you? (with f1 360) A: Put in neutral prior while slowing and coast to stop and brake or B: Let the car change gears for you automatically when slowing. Thanks MARKYMARK
Long term it will mean slightly less wear on syncros to just put in N when slowing to a stop. In a practical sense it prob makes little or no difference.
I mean that you can't exactly control when the clutch will engage (disengage?). For instance in the case you pointed out, you have to wait for the revs to get from idle speed to 6000 and then the car will go. I think it would be better if there was something you could do to stay at 6000 or whatever rpms you want, and then, whenever you want, the car goes. I always thought (before reading these paddle shifting logistics threads) that you could do that by selecting 1st gear, braking, throttling to the desired launch rpms and then releasing the brakes when you want the car to go. Ah, and also maybe it would be nice to get aggresive clutch launches not necessarily at very high rpms, that's why I wondered if there was some sort of aftermarket device that would let you push a button or something when you want the car to start moving, and different clutch aggresiveness levels regardless of rpms/throttle. So by lack of control I mean that the f1 system allows certain clutch speeds only to certain rpms/throttle positions, and that you can't control exactly when the car will start moving.
What you aren't getting is that it will do most of that. Some things it will not. The things it will not do there is no need to do. The collective experience at Ferrari could not envision a need for them in a sports car. You can take off from 2k RPM spinning the tires or 4k RPM smoking the clutch. It's just that the system is doing it with one input, not two. It was designed and programed by a bunch of pretty smart guys whose first and foremost desire is to build a car that gives absolute control over vehicle operation and dynamics to the driver. This system was built with that and only that in mind. Unfortunately most people don't understand that and many that have driven them (and usually their critics) have not become familiar enough to appreciate it either.
meh, good points. Although I still think a clutch-pedal-release button of some sort could be useful, just to save those tenths lost in getting the revs from idle to the launch rpms. Ah and thanks for replying and taking some time discussing with a noob
Just adding to the launch control discussion. I just purchased a E-Gear Murcielago and the was told that EACH application of launch control burns 20% of the clutch. So effectively after 5 Launch Control application you need to buy a new clutch.
