I'm the guy who had troubles with buying the wrx earlier in the year. I've finally test driven the BRZ and fell in love with it, so I finally bought it!

I'm considered a new stick shift driver and I have a couple of questions regarding gear changing.

1. When I changed from 1 to 2, I see my rpm dip really low, so when i release the clutch, the car will move back and forth. What do I need to do to improve this?

2. At what speed should I be changing gears? For instance, going at X - Y miles, I should be in gear Z.

Thanks!

 

1St 1-10mph. 2Nd 10-20mph. 3Rd 20-30mph. 4Th 30-40mph. 5th 40+

 

Shift a little later it give a little blip of the throttle before going into 2nd so it drops into a higher rpm. I like to shift around 5k so it drops into around 3k for daily driving. Sorry if that doesn't make sense. This is just what I do from driving stick for 9 years.

 

Id use RPM rather than MPH for gear shifting. All cars have diffrent gearing and final drive so shifting at certin mph varies for diffrent cars.

Rolling from a stop is the hard part, every gear after that you make sure your at a high enough rpm to grab the next gear. Not at a high enough RPM will cause the car to vibrate and have no throttle response(bogging). 3k is usually a good number to shift

While in 1st gear relese the gas pedal completly, press the clutch, shift into 2nd, relese the clutch completly, throttle up smoothly, repeat for all gears.

Note, you dont have to shift fast, you can shift through your gears pretty slowly.

 

shift at 2700 rpm. you should be able to hit 30 mpg. freeway

 

I learned stick on my wrx less than a year ago, so my words aren't going to be as valuable as some of the other members who have driven longer.. but..

1. You are releasing the clutch too fast, and/or you are shifting gears/releasing clutch too slow causing RPMs to drop too fast.
2. Not really sure about BRZ gearing, but rule of thumb apparently is the gear x 10 is the max speed you want to be. so 1st=10, 2nd=20, 3rd=30, 4th=40, 5th=50+. I usually shift gears between 2500-3000rpm.

 

I actually tried doing this and it improved. But isn't that sorta rev matching? I thought rev matching was used only for downshifting, I may be wrong though. Thanks!

 

You're on point with #1. I think I am releasing my clutch too slow. Because if I release it too fast, the car will shake, if I release too slow, the car will drop to too low of a rpm and still shake.

The BRZ is probably the same but I have 6 gears instead of 5. Thanks for your input!

 

As I release my clutch, I should also be throttling up also? I was under the impression as I switch from 1st to 2nd, I shift, clutch, gas.

I'll try shifting around 3k rpm!

 

You should blip the throttle if the rpms drop too fast inorder to prevent the car from jerking.

If you learn how fast you need to release the clutch without the car jerking, you wont need to blip the throttle. Its precision. Too fast=sudden jerk, Too slow, riding clutch, and jerk from the engine needing to speed up to the driveline instead of the other way.

 

Drive a lot and it will come natural. I notice that most new stick drivers bog or shift to early, keeping the RPMs too low. My car seems happy cruising around 2500 rpm. I usually shift around 4k.

Although reading about it online is not the best way to learn.

 

practice and experiment with different speeds of clutch release. I also find it easier if you barely rest your foot on the gas while releasing the clutch into 2nd. Just take it on a few drives around residential areas where you're accelerating a lot and you will get it

 

Its a balancing act of both gas and clutch. As you release the clutch you will start to feel the engagement point of the clutch and you should be starting to give it some gas. How long you should be keeping the clutch in/around the engagement point is all a matter of the driving situation at the time and will come with experience. You don't want to shift at to low of an rpm as then you won't have enough power to get down the road in the next gear and you will have the stuttering you seem to be having. However, you don't need to rev the thing out to make it work either. You also don't want to take too long to shift either, which it almost sounds like is going on with you.

 

I never shift the lower gears under 3k when I get to drive it because it doesn't accelerate quickly enough. It's good to shift by 4k~, it will become natural. Say you are going from a stop to 45 speed limit, you will probably rev to 4k or maybe even 4500 in first second to get going then once you are up to a safe enough speed your last shift or 2 you can do by 3,000. I wouldn't worry too much about it, but if you are being gentle and economical you want to use as least revs as possible without bogging or going super slow. When you are trying to raise hell or really pass on the freeway take her all the way to redline

If you are breaking it in I'd stay below 4k and while some people will say it's silly, I think gradually working you way up to redline over a few days is good. Either way it likely doesn't matter though once the car has a couple hundo on the clock.

My biggest complaint is the clutch on the brz doesn't have great feel which is ok but it's horrendous friction point that is so high up makes it a ***** to drive when you start from a stop. That supposedly can be adjusted easily. You want it to release close to the floor as possible as it makes for quicker faster shifts and easier as well.

 

just keep driving it, and get use to it. Since it's your first manual car it's no biggy. Also dont worry about the speedo, just focus on the tach.