Clutch Use....What's best method? Please advice

I normally blip the throttle to about 1200rpm, and ease off the clutch. RPM's will drop to about 800 when the fully synch, and then you'll be in full motion. Another way to inch about(I use this method in reverse), is to blip(I do a lot of blipping, if you can tell ) the throttle to 1200-1500ish, and quickly let the clutch out ~75% engagement, and then back to the floor. This will let the clutch catch just enough to put the car in a slow roll.

HTH.



-DC


P.S. How are you fellows doing your burnouts?(everyone seems to have a unique way).

 

it's all a matter of exercise, feeling and timing. and every car is different. the first you have to find out is the slipping point, where the clutch starts to engage. of course this is the point where you have the most clutch wear, but you just have to have a feeling for this point. about starting at a steep hill: you will need the parking brake to be able to disengage the clutch and then you disengage the parking brake and the clutch synchroneously (exercise...exercise...). with less expensive or rented cars, i do not care about the clutch and keep it exactly on the slipping point, as long as i don't have to wait too long

first car i've driven in my life was a rabbit with much too low idle revs (was stalling without giving gas), an almost totally weared out clutch (slipping area extremely short) and i was driving in the rush hour from redlight to redlight up hill !!

best thing is to learn with an old car where clutch wearing isn't an issue.

trevi

 

it's a two phase process: release the clutch up to the slipping point without gas, let it get "grip" shortly on the slipping point and then give gas and release the clutch completely. the more gas you give from the slipping point, the faster you may release the clutch.

 

This is definately a problem with people and their automatics. I initially learned to drive an automatic and when I was learning to drive manual this always gave me fits as well. You can get your revenge later on though. Once you get to the point that you can start on a hill without rolling back and someone pulls up behind you without giving a decent amount of space you can let off the brake a little while in neutral or holding the clutch in and start to drift back a bit while watching the terror on the face of the person behind you. Not that I would ever do this or condone such behavior, but I have heard that it can be kinda funny.

Small rant on automatic transmission: 99.9% of the population in the states can't drive because of automatic transmission. For them, there is no subtlety in driving. It is either MASH the accelorator, or MASH the brake! NOTHING in between. Drives me nuts!

 

I think holding the clutch in for prolong periods of time causes unnecessarily strain on the slave, and little more than that.

My rule of thumb is when pulling up to a light look at the crosswalk light. If it says Walk, then I’ll put it in neutral and wait. When it starts to blink “Don’t Walk”, it means the light will change soon and I keep a watchful eye. When it becomes a solid “Don’t Walk”, I then shift into gear expecting the green light.

An old trick from my cycling days....

 

How do you regulate how the clutch on an F1 car releases? I am assuming it has been adjusted for the right POS at the dealer.
I have found that the F1 tends to slip more than I would if in the 6-speed.

 

This is a funny thread (sorry no offence, but having grown up on manuals and driven them every day for the past 20yrs it becomes 2nd nature). In the UK almost all people learn to drive manuals (if you take a test in an Auto - your licence is endorsed so that you can not drive a manual !). In a driving test here, if you sat at the lights with the car in gear and your foot on the clutch, you would be an instant FAIL.

 

Don't hold the clutch in at stops. Use your clutch crisply w/ out too much slip. Use it w/ purpose.

 

This stupid thread has now completely spooked me.

I have always kept the car out of gear at stoplights, foot OFF the clutch. Moreover, as I approach a red light, I allow the revs to drop and ease the car out of gear without engaging the clutch at all (nice and slow gear disengaged). Any thoughts on that habit?

-Daniel

 

The reason you should put the vehicle in neutral has nothing to do with wear but with safety.

If you have the clutch depressed and the vehicle in gear then any fault with the hydraulics (cables in some older cars and motorcycles) can lead to the vehicle moving without you wanting it to. This could be dangerous as it could be if your foot came off the clutch as could happen by accident or if something unexpected happened to you.

 

Well, nobody will convince you to keep it in gear with foot on clutch... there is certainly nothing wrong with sitting with the car in neutral and foot off the clutch. And the safety point cannot be argued either... but the odds of that failure (with a non-British car) is slim... really slim. Furthermore, with your feet on the brake and clutch, dumping the clutch due to it breaking or your foot slipping is just going to result in a slight jerk and a stall in all likelihood. But, in the end, it is no doubt (even if just minutely) safer to sit in neutral.

The only real debate here is whether it is at all hard on the car to sit for 2 minutes at a stoplight with your foot depressing the clutch. I assert that modern hydraulics are NOT particularly stressed by this. Consider an F1 transmission... when sitting at a stoplight, it does NOT shift to neutral... as long as you keep your foot on the brake, it keeps the clutch disengaged (as if you had your foot on the clutch). You can sit for 10 minutes talking to someone in a parking lot that way... we'd be having all kinds of failures if this was an issue.

 

When I learned how to drive it was with a manual transmission (took the road test in the same car). Whenever I depressed the clutch pedal for a second too long my father hit my shin with a short stick that he had in the passenger floor area. All these years later I cannot get myself to leave the clutch pedal depressed for very long.

Kind Regards, Chris

 

But Mack trucks are different than Ferraris, since tractor trucks use non-syncro gearboxes, so you don't need the clutch after driving away from 1st.