I never had a manual trans car and I'm getting a 6 speed z28 camaro. I was wondering, if my rpms where high enough could I just skid gears to not go thru all that gear shifting or is it bad for my car or what. And why doesn't anyone drive in six?

Help please.

 

theoretically you could rev the crap out of the motor and start in sixth gear but as you will find out pretty quickly your first going to burn out the clutch disc and second you will have NO torque to move the car, its going to putt-putt along no where fast

you need someone to teach you how to drive stick
the hardest part is starting in 1st
once you get going its pretty hard to stall
as your speed increases you will find the higher gears give you what you want, the lower gears give you more torque but they have their own speed limitations
i.e. 1st gear wont get you faster than 45mph, 4th gear wont get you past 115mph etc etc

now what you need to know, is NEVER let the motor get to redline, especially if you are just learning how to drive stick
that means, dont punch the gas if your foot is on the clutch of the car is in neutral
that means dont floor it in 1st gear until redline, or any gear for that matter

that also means, don't downshift when rpm's are high and dont ever downshift more than one gear at a time


since you are just learning how to drive its better than you learn how your car drives before you beat the snot out of it

 

since your just starting, i would reccomend upshifting around 2500-3000 rpm
if your gunning it a little bit, shift it around 4500-5000
dont go any higher until you really learn how to drive stick

 

Yeah, I kind of got it down. First is like my only problem, it isnt always smooth, but after that im coll and I stay between 2 and 3 rpms. But I was wondering if in first I get the rmps up to like 4.5 I heard someone saying they throw it straight into 3 so they don't have to go to first then third. Say I'm just crusing and don't need accelerration and just want to cruis. Could I do that.

 

When i'm city driving . . . I go from 1st to 3rd and cruz in 5th. MPG's aren't too bad, it's when I get the need for speed and go thru the 5 gears does the mpg's drop. 6th is for the hwy.

 

So how would I do this exactly. Go from first to third to third to 5. What rpm's would I need to be at. And what are the pros and cons of doing this.

 

Play with your car. Experiment.

You can damage things if you rev the engine too high and putting it in the wrong gear. Practice doing things slowly at first. Like letting the factory "skip shift" do its thing for a while. It makes the transmission shift from first to fourth when you're keeping your revs down. Now, if you let it do that a few times, you'll be able to feel the difference in your engine with the revs down low and almost "lugging" in too high of a gear.

This well teach you what it feels like when you're lugging and you'll know when your engine is protesting that you're driving it wrong. As you get to know your car better, it will come to you. Practice makes perfect.

 

Well said Ziggy!

 

I'm not really following sorry. What do you mean about factory skip shift.

 

all 6 speed camaros (except maybe 93, i'm not sure) have "skip shift", which is designewd for better fuel economy (and maybe driver irritation)
when starting in 1st gear, under light throttle, the skip shift solenoid will kick in and block out second gear, so you are forced to go to 4th gear when you pull the shifter down.

i agree with driving ziggy, you need to experiment with your car to see how it responds to different things
if you go to a hgher gear too early, you will lug the engine, basically the engine doesnt want to spin that slow
u can skip gears as you drive like go from 1st to 3rd to 5th, but you need to experiment to figure out when you can do it smoothly

i feel that if you start out following the sequence of gears, you'll figure out whichgears are best for which speeds and how much power you want, and you'll figure out which gears you can skip based on what you want to do

the more you drive your car he more you learn how to drive it

 

Thanks, and got it down.