shift or no shift?

[GodLovesUgly]

Ha, when I was a rookie i looked at the speedo and check my mirrors for downed cones!

I think i only hit the 2nd gear limiter once when i was racing my SVT, and that was at an airport with tons of space. My rule in the Miata when it comes to up-shifting is if the rev limiter bounces more than 4 times in a particular area that will be my up shift point.

[sleepyboy]

Originally Posted by GodLovesUgly

Ha, when I was a rookie i looked at the speedo and check my mirrors for downed cones!

I think i only hit the 2nd gear limiter once when i was racing my SVT, and that was at an airport with tons of space. My rule in the Miata when it comes to up-shifting is if the rev limiter bounces more than 4 times in a particular area that will be my up shift point.

lmao!!

That sounds like what I would probably do

[thejsx]

I usually stay in 2nd in most of courses... sometime I downshift in 1st in really tight hairpin otherwise I stay in 2nd. Last course I did had a very fast quatermile long stretch with distanced slalom, I put it in third on my last run, arrived at the hairpin maybe 10-12mph faster than the other runs and entered the hairpin wayyy to fast.. lost all the gains I did with understeer! I miss RWD in these situations!

[pkolator]

The only times I ever down shift to first are when I spin. It doesn't happen often, but some times the signals get crossed between my hands and my eyes.

When I ran in FSP (3 seasons) I never went up to third or down to first. Either you just hit the limiter a few times and then your slowing for a turn or you just mash the gas and wait for the power to come on and use that time to look ahead and set up for the next sequence. Trying to put a down shift in there is distracting to most people and by the time they figure out where their hands are, which way the wheel is turned and what their feet are doing its already too late.

Granted with some practice you can get accustomed to doing it. But if you watch some of the best drivers in stock classes they get to second and stay there. I've watched multi-time, multi-class national champs run through off-set gate sequences banging the limiter in second and be several seconds faster then the next fastest car. Gear changes can drastically change the balance of the car if not done at the right time.

It also depends on the car too. Some rev limiters are nice and "gentle" and the engine will just happily hang there and spin and spin. Others are rather "violent" and it feels like the car has hit a wall and you expect it to fall apart.

[darossi3]

On my First and latest AX i ran 2 runs in second only, and ran over 2 seconds faster by downshifting into first. But that was only on the hairpin we had after first slolom and into second slolom(guitar shape type course)

[mkiisupra]

Originally Posted by pkolator

The only times I ever down shift to first are when I spin. It doesn't happen often, but some times the signals get crossed between my hands and my eyes.

When I ran in FSP (3 seasons) I never went up to third or down to first. Either you just hit the limiter a few times and then your slowing for a turn or you just mash the gas and wait for the power to come on and use that time to look ahead and set up for the next sequence. Trying to put a down shift in there is distracting to most people and by the time they figure out where their hands are, which way the wheel is turned and what their feet are doing its already too late.

Granted with some practice you can get accustomed to doing it. But if you watch some of the best drivers in stock classes they get to second and stay there. I've watched multi-time, multi-class national champs run through off-set gate sequences banging the limiter in second and be several seconds faster then the next fastest car. Gear changes can drastically change the balance of the car if not done at the right time.

It also depends on the car too. Some rev limiters are nice and "gentle" and the engine will just happily hang there and spin and spin. Others are rather "violent" and it feels like the car has hit a wall and you expect it to fall apart.

+1 to this. Too much time lost for the too little speed benefit. This is a time to work on left foot braking as well to carry speed and modulate the loud pedal as you slow and re-direct for a corner/feature on a course. We usually get 5 runs, so there is usually an extra run in there to try 'a different approach' to see if any major reconsiderations to a particular course yield lower times.

Eric G

[2000blackzx3]

I have hit third once on a very long straight into the banking of an oval, where there weren't cones for security reasons (we don't want cars meeting concrete walls). I do hit the rev limiter (7400) in second a couple times in our fast events of the year. I always hit second in the first straight / turns of the course and stay there. Tom's tune and the HFC do help a lot with torque down low on this car, much better than it was stock.

Example of a really fast course :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUKIzDpMVJ0

I think I shortly hit the limiter 3 times on this run...