Thanks for an awesome link- I seriously think I'm going to burn those to discs and hand them out at meets!

 

When you're used to the car, you should be able to shift down to the appropriate gear pretty quick if you need to. Not racing quick maybe but good enough for regular driving.

If you need to shift more than one gear down, you're generally going slow enough that you can keep the clutch down and not miss the engine braking, at which point I habitually shift down through the gears without lifting the clutch, finishing on 1st when I'm stationary.

 

Just a thought on this thread. One person mentioned that you should just ride the brakes to a stop. Not always possible, especially in snow, here's why:

Any manual transmission subaru is only AWD when the car is in gear. So down shifting/rev matching in the winter time is quite important. Especially when sliding through a turn

 

If the conditions are bad, one could question the wisdom of downshifting at all - as you noted, while the clutch is in you lose the benefit of engine resistance being delivered to all four wheels. (Might not be much if you're a couple of gears too high, but it's better than freewheeling)

Besides, if you're sliding through the turns then either you know what you're doing or it's already too late.

 

Please do! The links don't work anymore so if you live round Sac and can make it to the meet on 9/6, it be much appreciated. I'll buy them from u if necessary cuz it seems like good info. Thanks!

 

got the vidz!! Dude greg can drive! He raped all those other cars at Laguna seca...wow!

As long as the forum is still alive though. I was wondering bout deccelerating by downshifting. Say a light turns red and you're about...well let's just say you're far enough u can see the light change to red and you have the time to downshift to second and you're in 5th. I usually just pop it in neutral and brake but since I've been reading bout double clutching and downshifting as a method to keep ur tranny and brakes for a lil longer, I've given double clutching a couple of tries. I usually downshift all the way down to 3rd and then when I try to double clutch to get to 2nd, the car jerks like a **** cuz I guess I'm still goin too fast. uhm...I guess what the question is...isn't it just better to shift to neutral and then brake all the way?

 

And your transmission is still attached?

I don't think that would do much for me... I've just got a TS, not a WRX

 

Typically you don't want to downshift more than twice from the freeway (5-4-3), once in the city (4-3 or 3-2).

By that point, the downshifts and a constant, light breaking should have you rolling pretty slow and almost to the traffic lights - no need to downshift again.