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TechTranscript
00:00Hello, TH here.
00:06So you're probably wondering why I'm doing a video on how to shift a car smoothly when
00:12there is a million of these videos online that you can watch and learn very effectively
00:17because a lot of them are fantastic.
00:19Well the reason is is that I'm still waiting on performance parts like my new differential
00:23and my cold air intake and a few other things to make other videos that I want to make and
00:29I'm kind of bored and as it turns out it's in the YouTuber car guy rule book that you
00:33have to make one of these videos I think.
00:36This is not about learning to drive a manual or pulling away slowly or starting on a hill
00:40or anything like that.
00:42There's lots of videos out there, go watch them.
00:44This is if you're already driving a manual car and you want to learn how to not make
00:48your passengers go like this in between shifts.
00:51Now in order to shift a car smoothly you have to unfortunately have a pretty good fundamental
00:57understanding of what's going on in your transmission and in your drivetrain.
01:01So the thing that a lot of people miss out on is that at a certain speed, whatever that
01:06road speed is, each gear is going to give you a certain RPM.
01:11So for example at 50 kilometers an hour in third gear I'm at 2,000 RPM.
01:18If I was in second gear at this exact same speed I would be at about 3,000 RPM, give
01:23or take.
01:24Now what does that mean for actually shifting a car very smoothly?
01:27Well when you are upshifting, let's say from second to third, and you depress the clutch,
01:33the revs fall, okay?
01:35So the engine speed slows down because it's not connected to the wheels anymore.
01:39The engine wants to be at idle.
01:41So when you put the clutch in the engine speed starts to drop or the revs drop or you can
01:45see the little needle in the tach start to go like this.
01:48Now what you need to do in order to shift smoothly is you need to time when you release
01:53the clutch pedal and you're in the next gear.
01:56If you don't and you release the clutch pedal too early or too late, what will happen is
02:01the clutch will have to clamp onto the flywheel and spin the engine up to the correct road
02:06speed for that gear, okay?
02:09So what happens then is that you end up with a little bit of a lurch because the car is
02:14not happy with where you release the clutch pedal and it has to change the engine speed
02:19and that directly affects how the car transmits power to the rear wheel.
02:23So it might have to slow down or speed up a little bit abruptly.
02:27So that being said, here's my technique for shifting up through the gears smoothly.
02:32Accelerate up to 3,000 or 4,000 RPM, different for every car really, where you should shift.
02:36And if you're shifting hard, you rev higher than that, obviously.
02:40Now you push the clutch pedal in, you shift into the next gear, and you release the clutch
02:47pedal at the correct time.
02:49If you release the clutch pedal too early, the car will jolt as it has to change the
02:53engine speed and the rear wheels don't like that because everything's not going the same
02:57speed.
02:58If you shift too late, then it has to bring the revs back up.
03:01Here's what it looks like when you don't shift at the right time.
03:06Did you see it jump down?
03:10It jumped because I released the clutch way too quickly and the engine had to, or sorry,
03:16the wheels, the speed of the road, had to spin down the engine to the correct RPM.
03:27And okay, here's another one up through the gears, first, second, third, fourth.
03:42You see, I took my foot off quicker in fourth because the gap between the ratio is smaller,
03:47so the revs don't have to fall as far.
03:50Yes, downshifts, little heel-toe action there for you, keep you entertained.
03:59Not the topic of this video, by the way.
04:01Okay, so take a look here, second gear into third.
04:07I took my foot off the pedal quite quickly, but I took it off smoothly.
04:12I didn't just dump the clutch, okay?
04:14That's a pretty important distinction.
04:16So when I say take it off quickly at the right RPM, I never do anything snappy with a clutch
04:21pedal unless you're trying to dump the clutch and launch, right?
04:25But just driving around casually, it should still be smooth, but that doesn't mean that
04:28it can't be quick.
04:32And up through all the gears.
04:42I'm not feeling this jolt at all in the cabin.
04:46There's nothing pulling me forward or backward, only because I'm releasing the clutch quickly
04:50and smoothly at the correct time, end of story.
04:56That's also a really good way to not put a lot of wear on your clutch, because if you
05:00release the clutch slowly and you're always burning it to bring the engine to the correct
05:05speed for the next gear, then you put a lot of wear on the clutch disc.
05:09So there you go.
05:10There is how I shift my car smoothly.
05:12I just didn't do it right there, so that's embarrassing.
05:14There you go.
05:15That's all I have to say.
05:16If you have any comments or requests or questions, just put them in the comments.
05:21As always, thank you for watching.
05:23Talk to you next time.