NOOB questions about riding/ dumping the clutch

[nvmee]

what is the difference between riding the clutch and dumping it

and what is this called
when drive, clutch in, accelerate hard, switch gears and clutch out

and when you flat shift, does it crunch gears?.

what is blipping the throttle mean?

thanx

[Kiz_EG6]

what is the difference between riding the clutch and dumping it

and what is this called
when drive, clutch in, accelerate hard, switch gears and clutch out

and when you flat shift, does it crunch gears?.

what is blipping the throttle mean?

thanx

Riding clutch: Is using the accelerator whilst the clutch is halfway between in and out.
Why not to do: Because it causes unessecary clutch wear and you can glaze ur clutch plate over, making the clutch far less effective than it should be, even causing it to slip under normal conditions...

Dumping the clutch is revving your car up and dropping it uickly, basically it's how to do a burnout.
though this is how you get a hard launch, it is not advisable in normal day to day driving conditions, as it will ruin ur clutch and driveline in a hurry if you abuse it!

"and what is this called
when drive, clutch in, accelerate hard, switch gears and clutch out"

I do not understand what you intend to achieve by this, but i would call it "stupid" and "bad driving"

As for flat shifting, it is doable on any modern gearbox really, but i advise you to learn the physics and ins and outs of a gearbox system before you go trying it, because, inexperienced, yes you will crunch gears!

I am not certain but it is my understanding that "blipping the throttle" is basically using the accelerator to match the revs to the wheel speed to assist on a downshift, that is simplified of course, i've never really done it as i do not fully understand the advantages/disadvantages of doing this!!

[nvmee]

ok another newby question, what is dropping the clutch

how do you know if ur riding the clutch but?

[m0nty ITR]

I thought he answered that question.

Riding the clutch is when you keep your foot on the pedal at the point of resistance. The pressure plate engages slightly but not enough to grab 100%. The plate gets worn down by doing this.

Quite simply you can hear it. The engine revs will not be smooth and it can rev higher without momentum increasing.

[xntrik]

The engine revs will not be smooth and it can rev higher without momentum increasing.

The engine would rev higher (you'll hear it go louder) and you're going nowhere is what monty is trying to say.

[Limbo]

if you ride the clutch you get this bad smell like some crap is burning.
Wears out your clutch and can cause burning to the flywheel.

Usually newbies or hardcore drag racers do this.
Causes the clutch to not work as well.

Dumping the clutch/dropping clutch is the same thing. It means to let go of the clutch quickly. Usually you do this to do burnouts or whilst drag racing.
Can cause uneven wear of clutch and flywheel.
Has been known to cause breakages and shuddering of clutch.

Flat shift should not crunch, but give you more change of crunching as you have more chance to miss a gear.

what is blipping the throttle mean? - Never heard the term

[94dc2tegz]

blimping the throttle is used when performing a heel-toe maneuver.

usually using ur heel to raise the rpm's to match the revs needed for a lower gear once engaged.

i'm sure u know it, just not the term.

[Limbo]

oh you mean double clutching - used generally when you do sharp turns, to keep the downshifting smooth whist in the corner and keep in the power band, so that you can power out of the corner.

I've seen someone with the move on their avanta

[dupac->]

yeah chicken8's avatar

[EuroDude]

Avoid both lol

Riding the clutch wears the clutch down too fast, you dont wanna be up for a $600 bill only after 50,000km of clutch life

Dumping the clutch puts enormous stress on the transmission, risking blowing the poor bearings amongst other parts.

[DUST]

and what is this called
when drive, clutch in, accelerate hard, switch gears and clutch out


what is blipping the throttle mean?

thanx

These are basically a Heel Toe manuvre.

1. Clutch in.
2. Put into neutral.
3. Blip the gas to the revs at a certain point for downshifting.
4. Downshift.
5. Clutch out.

It is mainly used for racing around tracks. I wouldn't do it on the streets cause it uses alot of fuel and quite dangerous if you do it wrong!!!

Blipping the gas helps you REV MATCH on the downshift. REV MATCH helps you downshift smoothly, beacause it puts less stress on the clutch and mainly the DRIVETRAIN.

You know when you downshift and the car jerks abit??? Well thats what the HEEL TOE manuvre is ment to eliminate. :thumbsup:

[dsp26]

yep all answered above posts, but i'll try shorten the answers


what is the difference between riding the clutch and dumping it
Riding = clutch not fully engaged and aplpying throttle. Good at the track for perfecting/controlling your launches at the cost of clutch material.

Dumping = clutched in, accelerating, releasing clutch


and what is this called
when drive, clutch in, accelerate hard, switch gears and clutch out
^^^ = Similar to DUMPING except really only works in 3rd gear or less. IF you bog start, while still accelerating.. quickly clutch in and out and it will boost you A BIT, it's like doing a burnout launch while car is moving. This is great if you have, light fly, solid mounts, HD clutch and pressure plate.

and when you flat shift, does it crunch gears?.
IT WILL EVENTUALLY as you damaged your synchros and other drivetrain parts including possibly the diff.

what is blipping the throttle mean?
as bove, used mainly for rev matching and heel toe. Practive this in an empty straight road only.. it is hard and learning it is the equivalent of learning to drive for the first time and trying to negotiate steerin, pedal work, gear shifting at same time if you don't know what your doing... above instructions are quite sound though.


thanx

[Lukey]

You know when you downshift and the car jerks abit???

I just let it out slowly and it doesnt jerk at all :D. Probly wearing my clutch a fair bit though lol.

[andiiso]

when downshifting and letting clutch off while pulling up to a stop, as long as u are matching ur downshiftin wid ur km/h well then it wont jerk, say if im going 80 and i downshift from 5th to 4th at the same time applyin my brake till the km/h drops to about 60 (also meaning the revs drop lower) itll be smooth (i dun mean releasing clutch straight away, but with pratice u could release clutch faster overtime, slow at start mayb a bit of riding) cos there is less rev to recover from when u first put the clutch in (0 rev to like 4k rev compared to 0 rev to like 2-3k rev) and im not talkin about any toe heel blips either, just normal. Another way of saying it is like, driving at 80km/h put clutch in and just put to 4th and let go of clutch without braking or matchin up km/h itll jerk since the rev from 0 when u first put clutch in had to recover all the way to like 3-4 where its almost power time lolz.

Downshifting (to a stop) = timing between braking and clutch release (normal driving no toe heel etc)

Upshifting - timing between accelerating and clutch release (like rev matching but ur just revving the accel from 0 to wat it WOULD be on the nex gear UP and also matching throttle, no blip, just a constant accel to wat it would be and keep going), but careful if u rev too much and still on the clutch at friction point then BURN !) different on every car of course.

blip = a tap on the throttle.

if pplz here are wondering wtf im on about, its hard to explain lolz, but to show someone much easier haha so yea i tried but hopefully someone noe wat im on about and mayb can explain it better.

thanks
andiiso

[dsp26]

^^^makes sense. 2 factors cahnge the way the above is done though:
- Lightweight flywheel
- Clutch type (button, sprung, etc)

[andiiso]

yea lightweight flywheel will actually be easier for the smoothness since no matter how light or heavy the rev will drop to 0 when ur shiftin or atleast close and with the lightened flywheel revving bak up quicker, itll recover quicker so .. all ur reactions n response will havta be quicker ! lolz .. i think ?.. and yer the clutch type changes the whole concept lolz .. but most my theory just on the stock clutch n flywheel ..

but but but, im driving stock atm, only ever drove a lightened flywheel and HD clutch once and thats no where near enuff to experiment and trial and error etc to get the smooth driving. Gotta learn to walk bfore learning to run, so gettin ur NORMAL everyday driving smooth etc is a step to get up there before starting to do all that racing etc.
The lightened flywheel thing may not be exactly correct in this post Since my car is stock :p

[AzKik-R]

Avoid both lol

Riding the clutch wears the clutch down too fast, you dont wanna be up for a $600 bill only after 50,000km of clutch life

Dumping the clutch puts enormous stress on the transmission, risking blowing the poor bearings amongst other parts.

Yes, but I think the car in question would be a Honda, in particular a front wheel drive honda, and the gear box is well suited for the application, any excess power would go straight to the wheels, if the car was say a 1995ish 0suby or worse yet a gti-r then absolutely do not dump the clutch :D

[T-onedc2]

yeah chicken8's avatar

Heel Toe

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b55/Tykie/avatar5266_23-1.gif

[NAY]

Yes, but I think the car in question would be a Honda, in particular a front wheel drive honda, and the gear box is well suited for the application, any excess power would go straight to the wheels, if the car was say a 1995ish 0suby or worse yet a gti-r then absolutely do not dump the clutch :D

I dont know how bad gti-rs are. My brother has had his for 4 years or so, still on his first gearbox. That includes a few 12 second runs at the drags, launching off the limiter! It spins all 4 (or 3, open front diff) which probably the saviour for the box. If it had more power (pretty stock) or more grip i dont think the box would survive too much longer.


Riding the clutch can be useful at the drags, but its not good for clutch life. I had a fairly modded tx5 turbo once upon at time, the way you got a best 1/4 time out of it was to ride the clutch through first, keeping the revs at about 4500rpm until the car speed got up and the thing would hook up (even then 2nd was probably break into wheelspin anyway).


As for blipping the throttle/heel toe. It has its purposes. Often you will find on a tight track situation you may need first gear. A lot of cars can be difficult to get back into first on the roll short of just forcing them, this is where the double declutch may come in handy. Another example, I did a skid pan day in my r33, one of the track setups you really needed to go back to first. Just about the only way I could get it to go 1st to 2nd at about 30-40km/h was to blip the throttle and try and rev match. Other wise you will sit there pushing the gearstick and it would take a bloody long time to happen.

So there, a bunch of anecdotal evidence. Probably not really useful but anyway.

[dsp26]

^^ 12sec passes isn't "pretty stock"... stock is low-mid 14s lol.

agreed with your 3rd paragraph about heel toe for 1st gear. have a +rep for that paragraph :P

[Limbo]

Lighter flywheels are harder to match as when the clutch grabs it stops the flywheel quicker due to its lighter force. Also it speeds up quicker so you have less margin of play. So you need to rev higher to engage and mix better. Same can be said for coming out of first.


yea lightweight flywheel will actually be easier for the smoothness since no matter how light or heavy the rev will drop to 0 when ur shiftin or atleast close and with the lightened flywheel revving bak up quicker, itll recover quicker so .. all ur reactions n response will havta be quicker ! lolz .. i think ?.. and yer the clutch type changes the whole concept lolz .. but most my theory just on the stock clutch n flywheel ..

but but but, im driving stock atm, only ever drove a lightened flywheel and HD clutch once and thats no where near enuff to experiment and trial and error etc to get the smooth driving. Gotta learn to walk bfore learning to run, so gettin ur NORMAL everyday driving smooth etc is a step to get up there before starting to do all that racing etc.
The lightened flywheel thing may not be exactly correct in this post Since my car is stock :p

[andiiso]

Lighter flywheels are harder to match as when the clutch grabs it stops the flywheel quicker due to its lighter force. Also it speeds up quicker so you have less margin of play. So you need to rev higher to engage and mix better. Same can be said for coming out of first.

ahkz fair enuff, ill experience it when i get to it, and about the first gear thing .. i have alwayz thought that You should never go into first gear while the car is moving (unless at a verii verii slow speed) even if rev matching is applied perfectly, i dont exactly know y you shouldnt in technical terms but in my mind it just seems to be categorized in "bad" lolz.

[Shraka]

ahkz fair enuff, ill experience it when i get to it, and about the first gear thing .. i have alwayz thought that You should never go into first gear while the car is moving (unless at a verii verii slow speed) even if rev matching is applied perfectly, i dont exactly know y you shouldnt in technical terms but in my mind it just seems to be categorized in "bad" lolz.

Because first gear is quite a bit shorter than the rest of your gears. The difference in ratio can make it quite hard to get down from 2nd into first. Doing it a lot wears out the syncro. So I hear anyway.

The reason to get into first from second is if you hit a 1st gear corner, and need the extra power on the exit. Come into the corner hard under brakes, once your speed drop below the redline of 1st gear, swap out for first and take the corner in first gear.

Double clutching makes it way easier to get into first from second, or down any gear when you're rolling, especially when you're at higher revs. My car will not go into first AT ALL when above 5000rpm unless I double clutch.

Heel-toe'ing is just double clutching while half your right foot is on the brake in order to slow down quickly.

[andiiso]

i know about the heel toe n all, but even when perfect matching on the heel toe it just doesnt seem like a great idea haha. I agree with you, heel toeing/ double clutching/ rev matching makes it much easier to downgear and much smoother if done with exact rev match.

[AzKik-R]

sounds strange, but I've seen 12.7's 12.8's from a full exhaust (no cat). the engine internals were a bit of a lucky dip tho. might of been a good one.
in regards to your 3 or 4 wheel spin launches, again, must of got a good one. the other 99% of them gti-r gearbox's just dont last

[NAY]

Oh yeah pretty stock was front mount and exhaust dropped from stock down pipe at the cat. No boost controller though.

3/4 wheels spinning was due to 195's and the goat track that is the townsville drag strip. Any car will get wheelspin on that strip! Driving through the water on the burnout pad also helped keep the wheels spinning and the revs up.

Oh yeah i just remembered I had a vid on my webspace, how not to launch a car gently (the gtir in question, gt4 in the other lane).
http://users.tpg.com.au/timw83//gtirandGT4-SV302344.AVI