Re: [alfa] "American Style Shifting"?

[George Graves <gmgraves@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

It's a good question. Can't speak for Aussies or South Americans, of 
course, but many Americans (males predominantly) habitually bang 
through the gears quickly in order to get the best acceleration from 
their cars. Older Italian cars had gearboxes with synchros which simply 
cannot stand-up to this type of driving. The correct method is to pause 
slightly between gears on up-shifts to allow the synchronizers to work, 
and match revs on downshifts or double-clutch. If you do this as a 
matter of course, you won't end up with a gearbox full of "dodgy 
synchros." Unfortunately, most older Alfas have already been ham-fisted 
by the time we get them, and most second-gear synchros (at least) are 
already lunched.

Are such synchronizers inherently weak? By todays standards, yes. But 
European makers used the so-called Porsche synchronizers for decades 
and when they were first introduced after WWII they were considered 
state-of-the-art (the alternative being "crash-boxes" with straight-cut 
gears). Most modern boxes from Getrag and ZF etc., now use the more 
robust style synchros in their transmissions as does Ferrari-Maserati, 
and even Alfa Romeo. I don't really know what the differences are other 
than the fact that I don't think that modern trannys have brass 
synchronizer rings in them any more.

George Graves
'86 GTV-6 3.0 'S'
With NO dodgy sysnchros


On Monday, September 1, 2003, at 06:10 AM, alfa-digest wrote:


> Date: Mon, 01 Sep 2003 20:20:17 +0930
> From: Paul Bayly <thebaylys@domain.elided>
> Subject: [alfa] "American Style Shifting ?"
>
> Could someone please define this for a dumb Aussie ?  I find it hard to
> believe that the US (and UK/Aust/SA) suffer from dodgy synchros in our 
> Alfas
> but that the Italians all have pristine gearboxes, as a direct result 
> of
> some major difference in gearshift technique.
>
> Beatle
> Oz
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