Re: <all> shifting w/o the clutch / '89 M3 shifting

[Ben Keyes <bkeyes1@xxxxxxxx>]

I have done this on almost every manual trans car I've ever driven on
upshifts.
It tends to freak out people who are not mechanically inclined and do
not understand how transmissions work.  If you do it right you can't
really tell the difference so long as you are not under really hard
acceleration.

as long as you do not apply really heavy pressure on the shifter most
cars tend to just slip into gear as the revs drop.

obviously the condition of the synchros in the transmission is the
limiting factor.  the older the car/more abuse it has had, the less
likely to slip into gear it is.

I have noticed that FWD Japanese cars (driven in a previous life) tend
to do this very well, while small Ford/Mazda truck transmissions are
pretty bad at going into some gears.  My '71 2002 had massive hard
miles on it and still shifted pretty well this way, & my E28 M5 has
177k on it and it does fine too.

there is not any really good reason to shift this way on the street
that I can think of other than to practice in case you have a clutch
fail on you.  It's cheap entertainment so long as you are gentle.

It's much harder on downshifts as you have to get the revs to just the
right point to get into gear on the first try.

as I'm no race driver I'll reserve any comment on the merits in that
arena....

YMMV, don't blame me, etc.

Ben

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