Let's go for a ride!

[cart7t]

Cool. Talk about skill. Driving stick is hard enough. Add in those high speed corners and speed at which that thing accelerates forget it. That is just coordination at its finest. Add that on to the amount of time they have to be jammed tight into that car and some of the conditions they do it under. Pouring rain? forget it. Race car drivers are a special breed. Some call it crazy others call it easy. Crazy? to a certain extent...yes. But its so much more. The amount of skill and coordination involved is just so great. Its more than anything in any other sport anywhere. The difficulty is often overlooked which is sad. Those that know how to or drive a stick shift now know what I mean. If your daily driver is stick you may say it really isn't that hard but his 1st gear last what? a second? lol Just crazy.

Well, I agree with the talent and physical beating they take but driving a stick is actually pretty easy. Those cars are not stick shift cars though, they have an electronic gear box, shifting is done with buttons on the wheel.

Most of those cars have paddle shifters mounted on the steering shafts so the driver need only flick it with his fingers so he doesn't have to take his hand off the wheel. He still has to clutch the thing though.

See that? I learn somthing every day!

So how does the paddle work? It isn't a "mechanical" connection to like, the linkage is it? I always assumed it was all electronic, up shifting on one side, down on the other. The paddle makes alot of sense. Are F1 cars the same? This is originally the car I had in mind.

* I know Cart7 would chirp in to correct any misconceptions and sure enough,....right on cue...

Electromechanical and in F1's case, the transmission is operated by hydraulics as is much of the operating components on the car.  Both F1 and WRC use the shifters.  IIRC, BMW had them available on the M series line starting with the M4.

[fishingrulz]

Yes I knew about the paddle shifters and the electronic gear box. What I was getting at was the fact that you have to time letting off the gas on the clutch shifting and then on the gas again so much quicker than any other cars. These guys know the car like the back of their hands.

[fishingrulz]

The paddle shifters are also a safer alternative to stick shift. Because F1 cars race on street courses so like I said when you accel that quickly and then have to turn and downshift again and again its much safer have a shifter where you can just press a paddle and you shift rather than than taking a hand off the wheel to grab a shifter. So with paddles you can keep both hands on the wheel and it actually makes reaction time quicker. The paddles are right behind the wheel. Right is upshift left is down. Nascar doesn't need them because they are racing on circular tracks with higher gear ratios and less turns. Paddle shifters are also becoming an option in high performance production cars like Lambos, Vettes, Vipers, Mustangs, GTs, Ferrari's etc etc.

[Redlinerobert]

SORRY RONNIE I GOT MY STORY WRONG THAT IS ACTUALLY REDLINERROBERT AS A TEENAGER

Ha!  If I had 25% of his driving abilites it would be great!

Here is a vid of me and one of my buddies cruising around in LA though.

http://www.car-parazzi.com/display/index.cfm?display=ItemDetail&media_id=8493&NavID=2

[Guest the_muddy_man]

Wow and no tickets !!!!!!! :o Which car  is you ?

[Redlinerobert]

Luckily I've never gotten a ticket in the Lambo.  My car is the yellow one.  I have a buddy that has a black roadster and another friend with a red coupe.  When we all get together it is quite a sight on the road.   Look like escapees from the Skittles factory.

[Guest the_muddy_man]

I think you escaped from a far more sinister place than that

[fishingrulz]

How come everyone who owns a Lambo always has custom plates? LOL

[Guest the_muddy_man]

Because they can afford them

[fishingrulz]

good point!

[Low_Budget_Hooker]

See now, if I owned that car they would be useless, you'd never get a chance to read them.

[Way2slow]

Actually he is not driving a stick shift. Yes he's changing gears but he's doing it with up shift and down shift buttons on the steering wheel. His hands never leave the wheel.

I know a guy, a very rich guy needless to say, that bought the Factory Porsche that finished third in it's class in the 24 hour Lamans (after it ws factory reconditioned), just to let it sit in his garage and drive it around his airstrip every now and then (not even street legal). This was a few years back and says he got a deal on it, only paid $350,000 for it.

[Redlinerobert]

I actually am changing gears.  My car is a 6 speed.  The green one however, is an E-gear.  

[Low_Budget_Hooker]

Ptetty sure this is the same guy

SPEED RACER

[Way2slow]

Hey LBH, unless they've changed for the valve system, you can probaby buy a pretty nice car for what a tuneup cost in that thing.  If like the earlier V-12's (I'm talking early 70's) were suppose to have the valves adjusted every 6,000 kilometers.  A tuneup is about a two day job.  To adjust them there are disc that go under the cam that have to be changed out to adjust the clearances. Very timely process and those disc aren't cheap when you add up how many it takes.  Shot it took a couple of hours just to get all them weber's balanced, on the earlier models, his may be FI.  I couldn't afford to keep one maintained now, much less own on.

[Redlinerobert]

Ptetty sure this is the same guy

SPEED RACER

Doh!

On a lighter note, that should buff right out.  

[Lightninrod]

Thanks for the videos guys! On that first one, I think they just speeded up the camera......NOT!

I'm an ol' gearhead too. Here's the 1991 Z281LE I use to own and driver's school with it. It was GM's attempt at a factory, TransAM race car. Came with several Corvette parts(brakes, oil cooler). Had the 305ci(TransAM limit)engine blue-printed and balanced with opened up intake, roller rocker arms, cam, MSD ignition, aluminum driveshaft, race wheels with BFG R1s(for the track), Optima battery in the rear 1/4 panel, 6-point roll cage, Recaro driver's seat, Momo steering wheel, etc. etc. It came from the factory with AC delete and no radio and a 5-speed trans. Believe it or not but I drove it daily to and from work with no AC in middle GA :-?.

Here it sits in line for a driver's school at Road Atlanta. We surprised a few Porches and Corvettes......sometimes

Here is me and my Lightning 'farm truck' running a 12.531 second 1/4 mile. It's very quick with 401HP and 502ft lbs of torque at the rear wheels after I modded it and increased the supercharger boost among other things. I now drive it daily to work and look for some fun once in a while on the streets  It has AC .

Dan

[Low_Budget_Hooker]

Ptetty sure this is the same guy

SPEED RACER

Doh!

On a lighter note, that should buff right out.

"My dads a TV repairman, he's got a great set of tools,........I can fix it."-Fast Times At Ridgemont High

L-Rod, that truck is the best of both worlds! Nice.  I love the sound of those.

[RatONaStick]

Man, I'd give my left nut to drive one of those cars.

The transmissions in these cars are sequential, similar to a motorcycle transmission. I can't speak for that car, but I know that on many these cars the only time they need to use the clutch is on take off. If any of you have any experience on motorcycles you know that aside from taking off you don't absolutely have to use the clutch. These transmissions don't use traditional synchronizers like a regular standard transmission. Instead they use what are referred to as dogs or engagement lugs.

A synchronizer in a traditional transmission actually has a braking surface on it that slows the rotation of the gear to give the synchronizer assembly time to mate with the engagement "teeth" on the gear. Don't confuse the actual gear teeth to the synchronizer teeth, they are two separate things. The reason for this is the gears in a manual trans are always spinning and the design of the synchro assembly and the small engagement teeth require the gear to be slowed down for engagement. Otherwise you will get the grinding sound usually associated with missing a gear.

*EDIT*... I could have worded this a bit better so I probably need to correct myself. The braking surface on the synchronizer doesn't actually slow the gear, what I should have said was that it equalizes the speed between two components rotating at different speeds.

A sequential gearbox has large engagement lugs on the sides of the gears. Because of the design the gear isn't required to be slowed at all before engagement. Due to this it takes less time to engage the next gear and is the reason these transmissions can be shifted without depressing the clutch. The downside is that these transmissions are clunky and tend to be noisy. For those of you that ride motorcycles, especially Harleys', im sure you have heard the clunking I speak of when selecting a gear.

On some of the high end exotics and race cars, like a Ferrari Enzo, the computer actually controls the clutching during take off. These cars don't even have a clutch pedal.

Check it out

http://cars.about.com/od/thingsyouneedtoknow/a/ag_howDSGworks.htm

http://www.autozine.org/technical_school/gearbox/tech_gear_manual.htm

[BD]

Wicked!!

[Redlinerobert]

Correct.  No clutch pedal on the Enzo or the Murcielago E-gear.  i have friends that have both, I test drove the E-gear Murcielago before I bought my 6 speed.  Kind of odd, but I felt very disconected from the E-gear car with no clutch.

[RatONaStick]

Robert

I have to be honest I *** you,  I'm Italian and have always been fascinated by the high end Italian sports cars, from Lamborghini to Ferrari, Maserati and Bugatti.

Although I have never driven a car with the type of trans we are speaking about I think I can understand what you mean "disconnected". To me It would almost seem close to driving a car with an automatic trans. One of the joys of driving a car with a standard transmission is being in control and deciding yourself when, where and how hard you shift etc. The clutch is a big part of that, being able to decide how to apply the clutch, when and how hard you apply power to the road as well as being able to modulate and use techniques like heel-toe braking etc is really a big part of the experience of driving a car with a manual trans.  

[Low_Budget_Hooker]

This is a similar issue to the bad write ups the new 6 series BMW got.  The computer assisted steering takes away alot of the feel of driving.  Everyone loves BMW for how they feel the road, this was like the "numb" version.

[Fisher of Men]

Heck, I drive that way every day to work. I make 11 miles in 3 minutes flat!! NOT! ;D

Thanks,

Fisher

[Redlinerobert]

Robert

I have to be honest I *** you, I'm Italian and have always been fascinated by the high end Italian sports cars, from Lamborghini to Ferrari, Maserati and Bugatti.

Although I have never driven a car with the type of trans we are speaking about I think I can understand what you mean "disconnected". To me It would almost seem close to driving a car with an automatic trans. One of the joys of driving a car with a standard transmission is being in control and deciding yourself when, where and how hard you shift etc. The clutch is a big part of that, being able to decide how to apply the clutch, when and how hard you apply power to the road as well as being able to modulate and use techniques like heel-toe braking etc is really a big part of the experience of driving a car with a manual trans.

You hit the nail on the head.  I can't tell you how gratifying it is to down shift, blip the throttle, match the revs, and know that I did it myself and didn't have the tranny "computer" do it.  Awsome stuff.