Questions about downshifting

[Pars]

Originally Posted by stuffy

yes, what you said just makes loads of sense.

you (and everyone else on the road) have LESS reaction time when you are travelling faster, simply because your time between hitting or avoiding an object is lessened due to your speed. it can't be any more common sense than this, i dont' care if you have the reflexes of martin brodeur, the laws of physics apply to everyone on the planet (as far as i know).

what i really hope is that i never have a run in with you pars, while you are driving fast with all of those distractions. this is the definition of dangerous driving, imo, and your arrogance probably adds to the problem.

The more you focus the better your reaction time, but I get your point. At least we agree that it's important to pay attention to the roads, though you seem to insinuate that speed's a bigger problem. I suppose, if you're a stuffy driver (with good intentions) but can't handle speed, then going fast would be a huge problem or compensating for other drivers on the road that are going fast can be difficult.

Personally, I like the slow poke who follow the rules, even when they're about to cut you off or run you off the road, at least they take their time, which give you time to compensate. I suppose that's the one of the biggest problem on N.A highway, we've got two type of driving habit sharing the highway. One more akin to the Europeans who have very high speed limits and other who like camping out on the highway in comfort and want to be isolated from the road as much as possible.

Regarding arrogance on the road, 'been there done that' and already know how it can get you in trouble. Hopefully, you practice what you preach, having a narrow minded attitude while on the road can lead to disaster, even if you're the only on the road who's following the rules.

[Yaris TTE JWRC]

I started this tread to find the answer to the question of Is it safe for the car to downshift muti gears at once to speed up the car as NEEDED, not about how everyone drives on the road, not about is it good or bad to drive slow, or fast, many posts have been off the topic, please everyone, stay with the topic, I WASN'T asking about how we should drive on the road.

[cleong]

Whether the RPM's at 6000rpm on third gear, or 3000rpm in fifth doesn't matter as long as you are doing a sensible speed. Right?

Just remember to rev-match the sucka when you do drop it down the gear, ie, blip the throttle whilst you're in neutral when moving gears across the gate. Clutch replacement is troublesome and costly.

But seriously, normally if where I'm caught in a situation where I'm in fifth gear when I'm really needing third, I'd drop it to fourth to see if it gives enough torque, before I'd drop it again.

[Yaris TTE JWRC]

Originally Posted by cleong

Whether the RPM's at 6000rpm on third gear, or 3000rpm in fifth doesn't matter as long as you are doing a sensible speed. Right?

Just remember to rev-match the sucka when you do drop it down the gear, ie, blip the throttle whilst you're in neutral when moving gears across the gate. Clutch replacement is troublesome and costly.

But seriously, normally if where I'm caught in a situation where I'm in fifth gear when I'm really needing third, I'd drop it to fourth to see if it gives enough torque, before I'd drop it again.

I see, thank you , thank you for the info

another thing, doesnt matter what gear nor how many gears i drop, as long as i dont hit the red line im oaky right?? then i need to get an RPM gauge

[cleong]

Originally Posted by Yaris TTE JWRC

I see, thank you , thank you for the info

another thing, doesnt matter what gear nor how many gears i drop, as long as i dont hit the red line im oaky right?? then i need to get an RPM gauge

Do that. Its a little bit dangerous to find out where your redline is by the pitch of your engine note, especially if you're downshifting. You could bend something inside the engine.

Good thing the dashboard in front of you has acreage for mounting a big 11,000rpm-style rev counter without blocking anything important.

[Pars]

back on topic

In my old car (Civic Hatch) it had a tinny engine but huge gearing (at 4000rpms I'm doing 165km/hr). So, top gear acceleration was pathetic, but fuel economy was amazing (5L/100km in both city/hwy...the sohc engine had very good low rpm power).

So, you'd think with the above setup, my car would be pigeon-hole into a mundane driver. Not so, cause there's this thing called double downshift and in the case of my old car, always put the car into the power-band (right rpm). So if you know how to work the shifter, you could get the best of both world, quick engine response or amazing fuel economy. But it ya don't like constantly rowing the shifter and downshifting, it could get cumbersome, to constantly have to downshift in order to dial-up some decent passing power (but in my case, all the downshifting was just plain fun).

Unlike my old Civic, my new Yaris is more practically geared and makes good use of the engine broad mid-range power, without having to downshift. So, dropping 2 gears when you're already doing over 3000rpm (which is most of time) does not return a big enough pay-back to make it worth while. Granted, they'll be those times when loafing around at around 1k-2k rpm and need to get going in a hurry, in which case, double downshift would be ideal.

What would be great! is if the Yaris had a bigger engine (TS's 1.8L) that could comfortably drive six fat gears. It might not be a drag-race setup, but it would make for a much more usable car that's great for low rpm cruising and have more hidden power on tap, if you wanted to work the shifter, when on the go.

[ChinoCharles]

One time I downshifted from fourth to first on accident. It wasn't pretty.

Don't do that.

[hystria]

I always downshift when slowing down -1 or 2 gears, I've also read that the ECU cut the fuel injection but not sure about this one. Depending on the speed, It makes the engine to rev more or less, but I never felt the need to hit the gaz before downshifting.

[Pars]

Originally Posted by ChinoCharles

One time I downshifted from fourth to first on accident. It wasn't pretty.

Don't do that.

One time, I was cruising at over 150km/hr but it felt like I was going much slower (probably favourable wind condition), so I dropped into third cause I need to zoom over to the next highway ramp

I'm never doing that again...

[sam07yaris]

I use a lot of heel-toe downshifting. Just second hand nature for me. Often at times I'll do the double clutch/ heel toe while shifting up or down. Its WAYYY SMOOOOOTHER. but u need to get used to doing the clutch twice then giving it gas. ... I LOVE IT!