ok so i know a lot of people want a 6th gear manually trans, i just dont understand why!?
the way i look at it, which is prolly wrong so thats why im posting, is its just an extra gear that you have to go thru which means more work shifting gears, more time staring at your RPMS as they quickly go to redline, then you have to shift again. i mean would a 12 gear manual transmission be twice as good as a 6 speed? do you want to shift 5 times before getting to 60km/h? the more shifts you have to make the more time and concentration it takes. with staring at your redline every half a second whlie looking ahead the other half, doesnt that make you more prone to accidents ect.. without actually paying attention to whats on the road in front of you.

 

i would like a 6th grear as like an extra overdrive, to keep rpm's down on the hwy...its about 2 1/5k at 65-70..i wish it was mor elike 1 1/2- 2k

 

No one really needs a 6th gear in any race unless it's circuit racing and you have a LONG straightaway or short gearing. I'd just like the extra gear for highway cruising and, as a result, better MPG. And besides, if you don't enjoy shifting, why buy a stick?

 

JINX!

 

I would like to have a 6 speed on my cobalt where 3rd, 4th, and 5th were a little shorter for improved high speed acceleration, and 6 is much taller than 5. I'd like to cruise at 77 mph at about 2200 rpm.

 

shift time aside, better gear ratios are achievable.

i like the cobalt 5 spd tho and i do not see any reason to change it.

 

I went about an hour and a half to lebanon dragway.......6th would've been nice so i was'nt tackin 3 grand at 80 in 5th

 

in 6th gear for me doing 80mph i'm at like 3500 rpms.

 

that and after driving your car for awhile you can listen to it and tell when to shift. unless your trying to run it up to redline every single time you shift you shouldnt have to watch the tach that closely

 

It'd be nice if we had 6th like the vettes do... just a 2nd overdrive gear. We'd be getting 45-50MPG highway then.

 

I would want a six'th gear just to shorten third - 5th to keep the car if I want it more in it's natural power band. It would eliminate the 3rd gear bog and give us an overall tract time improvement. Then we could use 1'st through 4'th to get on the highway. Fifth to make speed on the highway and 6th to cruise.

 

You wouldn't want your 6th gear to be too steep or you would only use it when going 80 MPH, and that seems like a waste. If you cruise at 1.5k on the highway at 70 or 75 MPH everytime you come to a little hill you will have to either downshift or your car is going to start boosting to get up the little hill. This is definately not going to save gas. The Cobalt engine needs to be at least at 2k or better to have enough HP to continue forward movement, especially at such low gear ratios. If you look at your RPM at 60 MPH you would see that you are in this "sweet spot". All a 6th gear is going to do is shorten shifts and make more shifts. Most cars that benefit from a 6th gear have higher redlines (like 8000 or better) allowing the shifts the be longer. With Stage 2, the redline is 7000 and we could probably benefit a little from a 6th gear, but it would require regearing the ratios on all the gears as well to get maximum performance.

 

I'm happy with the 5 speed. We get a lot better gas mileage than other cars with 6 speeds. It's all in how well they suit the tranny to the car.