[spanish inquisition in red robes]
Nothing impresses bimbos like dumping the clutch into second gear at 40mph and getting sideways!!!!
[/inquisition]

Except maybe when you do some foot to the floor redline powershifting and your passeneger is screaming "jesus christ, do you even use the clutch to shift that fast?" Pushing buttons with both hands on the wheel is not nearly as impressive.


btw, you forgot another reason. My friend wanted his wife to be able to drive the car, to which i replied wtf for?

 

Good point. I don't trust any girl I know with a 300hp Z28, and I know I wouldn't trust about anybody with a 400hp (or more) Camaro.

 

They should bring back the weird 4+3 thing from the C4s.

 

How is that different than a typical manual? The synchros bring all the moving parts up/down to the same speed, at which point the slider ring mechanically locks everything together.

 

I think the problem with the crap *** AODs was Ford used the crap *** AOD across the line except for the SC T-birds and 4WD trucks (been so long, but don't they have an A, B, and C servo with the latter reserved for the birds and the trucks.) A buddy on mine had a SCT-bird fitted with an AODE and his big problem was an electronic switch or some such in the tranny.

Ah the good ol days of shifting an AOD, lets see, it was all the way down into 2nd on the quadrant, nail the pedal shift into 3rd then back down to hold second then shift into third and keep it there. Been so long ago, after I fried the 2nd DOA in my 91 I converted it to manual and never looked back. Although I do hear that a modded AOD can hold its own against a turbo 400 with torque capacity (Lenntech mods IIRC?????)

 

The fun of the shuffle-shift, lol.

Even better though, the early 90s escort auatomatics were teh same way. A girl i went to high school with had one. Since she could't drive for ****, i would drive it from time to time. I rememeber looking down and seeing the same shift pattern as the mustang and thinking, hmmmmm. So i tried teh shuffle shift, and it worked! The best part was, she got it used with a rebuilt trans, and it shifted very hard, like 700r4 with a shift kit hard. So not only could you shuffle shift, but it chirped second pretty cleanly too. Eventually she got sick of the trans and had her dad take it to a shop, apparently something was hung up in the valvebody making the line pressures way too high. they fixed that, and it never chirped again.

 

My wife can handle my Z28. I taught her (to drive a stickshift) myself, and I trust her with it completely.

 

Having just learned to drive a stick (in a Wrangler), I'm torn about this whole issue. My '99 TA is an auto - and in traffic, I'm not sure I'd like a stick (and about half of my driving is in traffic). But I'm definitely going to test drive a Camaro with a stick before buying one. With a smoother transmission and different gearing (than the Wrangler anyway), I can totally see the fun in driving a performance car with a stick....even the Wrangler is fun for what it is........snow with a stick could really suck - and yeah, I drive my TA year 'round. I've driven it through blizzards and been fine. Not sure I'd even want to do that with a 400-500 hp Camaro, but that's a ways away yet......

My boss has a BMW with an SMG and I'm unimpressed - the lag is terrible. My wife's 350z has less lag with it's autostick! The SRT8's that I've driven wasn't bad for lag either, but going sideways with the stick just feels stupid.

And btw, I'm totally protective of my car - the only other person I've ever let drive it is my wife (and she only got a Z because the TA was no longer made).

 

My GTO is the first stick car i've ever owned and i had the same exaxt fears about snow and traffic since it's my only car. I've driven stick plenty of times in the past, but since the cars were borrowed it was never really in non-ideal conditions.

Actually, stick in snow is great. You can start in second to help with wheelspin. You also can drive in lower gears to use engine braking to control your speed, which to me is much more effective than regular brakes, even with ABS, at helping you keep control. I used to do the same in my past autoamtic cars, but the TC really negates alot of this benefit since the converter slack and torque multiplication does not give you as linear of control input. The best part is, no surprise upsetting of traction and the chassis from shifts at inadvertent times, both up and down shifting.


As for traffic, it's also not that bad. IMHO, traffic sucks period. Once you've been driving stick for a little bit of time, operating the clutch is second nature and no big deal, and as long as it's not some crazy race clutch with insane pedal pressure, your leg is not going to get tired. Even here in northern VA, traffic is rarely the pure parking lot , stop and go type (unless it's caused by a big accident). And even if traffic is rolling 5mph, you can just keep it in first and use the brakes to keep you from speeding up (GTO first gear is steeper than fbody T56 and will roll 7mph in first at idle). In this type of traffic, the stick is actually pretty nice, because it doesn't automatically upshift and leave you coasting faster than you want. If traffic is going 5-9mph, i roll in first, 10-15, roll in second, 15-25, third, etc. I prefer the light engine braking by using the right gear, which lets you slow down to match the small slow downs in traffic quite easily and comfortably compared to a slushbox. Even if it is a pure stop and go hell-hole situation, operating the clutch and brake is really no more irritating to me than the constant use of the brakes with a slushbox, and again, the engine braking gives easier control of my following distance, so in the end i think i'm still hitting pedals less often with stick than a slushbox in traffic.

 

notgetleft nailed the stick driving situation, both traffic and winter.

Driving in traffic is tiring either way.

 

Sticks are worse in snow. I've driven plenty of both.

Acceleration: most autos (like the later f-bodies) have 2nd gear start to reduce torque, negating that benefit of a manual. More importantly, it's a lot easier to modulate the torque in an automatic from a standstill. With a manual you have to delicately balance throttle, clutch, and rpm to ensure an even and linear application of torque. No matter how good you are, an automatic is better.

Braking: I don't know how you can claim engine braking is more controllable than regular brakes, especially ABS. First, engine braking is only working on two wheels, so on slippery conditions you have just cut your braking power in half (less, actually, since there's less weight on the rear wheels). That's a great recipe for swapping ends going down a hill. Plus it's much harder to modulate the amount of retardation via engine braking versus the brake pedal, again increasing your chances of breaking traction. Using engine braking is definitely easier for the driver, but it is not more effective.

 

Just a couple of thoughts:

I have driven my SS with a McLeod Street Twin to work in heavy traffic. It is a bit of a pain, but not a huge deal.

Using engine brakin in the snow works wonders, especially going downill. I used to drive a 1986 Cutlass in the snow all the time. No ABS, no TC, and a 70% front weight bias. Engine braking saved my *** the two times I have driven my SS in the snow.

 

As for the acceleration, maybe from a stop an auto is a bit easier since it's one pedal, but once you're driving, the lack of torque multiplication from direct drive rather than a TC is more linear for power application, especially if you are lugging the engine keeping it away from real torque. No big deal either way on this point.

As for engine braking, i'm not talking about fast stops, i'm talking about speed control when it comes to going down hills and especially turning while going down hills. I find using one pedal (throttle) to totally control speed in a completely linear fashion to be very confortable and controllable. I'm not talking about using big RPMs and intense engine braking. as i said before, i basically lug my engine constantly when driving in the snow (rarely cross 2k), so the engine braking is very gentle and subtle, i've never had it cause the rear wheels to slip significantly. I'm not talking about driving around at 4k ROMs and jumping off the gas, which would of course be more dramatic.

The big advantage using the rear wheels for dedicated speed control is that the fronts are left to only control direction. Tires can only provide so much grip, the more you waste controlling your speed, the less they have available for steering. This is basic physics, regardless of road surface.

Also i've found that you get less weight transfer when you gently slow with the rear wheels compared to braking including the front wheels (due to front bias of brakes). Keeping more weight on the back end and the fact that the fronts are rolling freely keeps the back end from coming out on you (badly anyway, however much slide you do get is easy to control with the steering wheel).

ABS can not duplicate that. True it can keep wheels from locking up, but since your fronts will dig in harder than the rear, and weight will thus transfer, this can still lead to your rear end coming around since it won't slow as effectively and ABS can't do a damn thing about sliding sideways. I've seen plenty of cars backwards in ditches, in fact, it's a quite common sight now that most cars have ABS. In the old days, you braked, locked your wheels up and lost steering and slid into a ditch. With ABS, sure it can stop you in a straight line, unless the crown of the road or a hill interferes and gives you some sideways momentum, rendering ABS useless and around you go. Hell, i almost lost my Alero backwards into a ditch the first time i drove it in snow (first FWD / ABS car i'd ever driven in bad weather) because of this very behavior. Being FWD and front heavy, the front end slowed quite well and the back end came right around on me. Actually, now that i think of it, this happened a few times, no wonder i now vastly prefer RWD in snow, i've spent less time counter steering driving thirdgens in bad weather for 5 years than the 2 winters i drove that thing. I am very calculating and hyper defensive in bad weather, FWDs abaility to dig itself out of a mess from a stop is a small benfit compred to the handicap of acceleration and steering being tied on one axle and the poor weight bias.

I've preferred engine braking for most speed control dating back to driving A4 thirdgens in PA winters, including several times in blizzard conditions. With no ABS, the brake pedal was disasterous in such conditions, it would easily lock the fronts up first, completely taking steering with it. I quickly learned that driving in low gears was an easy way to give me explicit control of my speed, and even went so far as to use the parking brake as my primary (on straights anyway, i use nothing but mild engine braking while turning and am NEVER close enough to anything in a turn to need anything more) in the worst of the stuff.

 

One thing I will add about snow driving - RWD is TOTALLY the way to go! When I bought my TA, everyone I knew was freaking out that I'd be getting RWD in Michigan. To this day this is what happens:

them: "what do you drive in the snow?"
me: "a '99 Trans Am WS6" (cheerfully)
them: "No, what do you drive in the SNOW?"
me: "a '99 Trans Am WS6" (more cheerfully)

I had an hour drive to work and had to do it in a blizzard with a co-worker one day. When the CEO of our company saw my car in the lot, he asked and was incredulous when I told him I drove it in that day........Kinda nice when the CEO tells you that you've got bigger stones than he does

My previous car was a '94 Grand Am GT and it put me off FWD when the back end broke loose on an off ramp on an icy morning....no thanks! RWD is SO much more intuitive to control when it slips a little. In fact the only time I ever got stuck in the snow it was 6" on a 30 degree uphill grade that hadn't been plowed. Even then, a little pushing and it was off to the side....next day (after plowing) I was good to go.