Caught Dead w/S-logic

[Justin Chan <pcathome@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Luckily, there _is_ a solution:  RaceLogic's SwitchLogic controller gives
you a
lever on the steering wheel stalk that you push forward to upshift and pull
back to
downshift.  Two pulls means downshift two gears.  And it will wait until it
can do
so safely... so, coming into a slow speed corner at 90 mph, you can pull
back twice
at the end of the straight, then as you are braking, as soon as it can, it
will
downshift and then as soon as it can downshift again.  By the time you are
ready to
floor it again, your transmission should be in the right gear, locked-up,
and ready
to go.

[JC] Unfortunately, I do have an automatic.  I also have a Switchlogic
which I installed myself (about 4 hours).  The 4-sp transmission on my
318is leaves a little more to be desired than the "S"-mode can manage.  One
nice touch is that even if the car is in "E" or "S"-mode, you can
"preselect" the Switchlogic gear using the lever.  So if you're cruising in
4th on "E" and want to go to Switchlogic mode, you can flick the paddle
three times (to 4th) or twice (to 3rd) before flicking the selector to "M"
- - if you don't do that, the Switchlogic always goes to the lowest safe
gear, usually 2nd if you are below 60.

Now, if you could just get a JimC-aware SwitchLogic controller, you might have
something that a lot more people would use.  Well, except for anybody on
this digest
- - -- nobody on this digest would be caught dead with an auto trans.  

[JC] You can (as I did) actually specify at what point you want the tranny
chip to match your EPROM.  There is also a fast shift option which will
instruct the transmission to shift faster than stock.  Apparently this
shaves 0.2s off the normal shift.

The downshift on the S/logic is much faster than the BMW tranny's kickdown,
and I daresay a 2-gear downshift is faster than a 5-3 shift in a
conventional manual (if say you were to match an average stick-shift driver
against an automatic driver - excepting skilled drivers here).

I find the s/logic an acceptable compromise for persons who do majority
urban driving and are prepared to take the performance hit of the torque
converter.

Justin Chan
Singapore
	

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