Force

Subtitles added to Misc. Tips (Section 4) to make it easier to read. It was getting a bit long.

On a side note, you guys are awesome. Thanks for the input.

DaBuzzard

One more little thing that wandered into my head.....

When stopped at a light (or anywhere else), if you know you are going to be there for a while (light just turned red for example), put it in neutral and let the clutch out. Watch for the cross traffic lights to start changing and get it back into 1st, ready to roll when you get the green.
Sitting for extended periods of time with the clutch in will cause excess wear and tear on the throwout bearing.

Also, make sure you have decent grip between your foot and the pedals - nothing worse than a wet leather sole slipping off the clutch causing a stall or a lurch into the back of the car in front of you.

trey ss

ive been on a manual since this summer.. im think i will be taking a couple tips off here.. thanks OP

Force

You're right. I never sit on the clutch, ever. I'll always sit in neutral. Thing is, if you're going to do this, make sure you're on the brakes until someone rolls up and stops behind you. Even if you aren't moving (i.e. on flat ground), you wouldn't want some inattentive moron hitting you.

You don't even really need to focus on the cross lights... I don't know about everyone else, but I can get into first so fast that I've never been honked at.

K-Train04RL

iTrader: (1)

I didn't read if neone explained floating gears, or clutchless shifting. Well i don't recommend neone doing it because unless you know your car VERY VERY well and where the engine speed meets the road speed, youll grind like hell.

Basically what you do is get rolling in first like normal, the 1-2 shift is the hardest w/o the clutch, but is very easily do able i just wouldnt make it your first clutchless one. so I suggest getting into third, get to about 3000-3500 rpm, pull out of third before you start to coast. now watch you rpms drop to what they would be when you shifted to fourth. say you leave at 3500 rpms, i would put my shifter into 4th by around 2200 rpms. and if done right, it will let me in the gear. if not i will grind.


you just match the engine speed to the road speed, and you have a very small window to get the car into gear, and if you miss. grind like mad. lots of damage to your tranny. so whats cheaper, tranny rebuild? or clutch and throw out bearing?

again do not try this unless you are ready to grind the **** out of your gears. there is tons of videos on youtube if you want to understand better. type in clutchless shifting or floating gears.

HunterKiller89

iTrader: (1)

you would still be slipping the clutch though...because road speed and engine speed do not match, which is why you cant just drop the clutch, but have to release slowly and let it slip a bit. At least, thats how I understand it.

DaBuzzard

^^^^ True dat.

Something has to slip, either the clutch or the tires
Think the point SuperchargedSS was making is that you don't need 1500 on the tach to get going, that just causes excess slip and wear. You can roll off the line just fine at near idle.

I can't, not every time anyways Sometimes have to pull it in to second before I can get it into first. Seems to be random chance with how the synchros line up on any given stop......

Good point on the brakes, I keep enough pressure on them so that I don't get punted into cross traffic if some texting twinkie decides to try and mate her car to mine

HunterKiller89

iTrader: (1)

one thing im not sure of...is trying to get moving from an idle/very low rpm requires you to slip the clutch for a lot longer than if you try and slip it from 1500-2000rpms. greater RPM diferential for less time, or lesser RPM differential for a greater time...i would think theyre almost identical in clutch wear, or at least similar.

DaBuzzard

True enough......just don't be launching at 4k and expect your clutch to last very long

Force

HunterKiller's point is kind of what I was getting at with saying the Cobalt doesn't have the torque to launch without throttle. You end up slipping the clutch longer in these cars than if you just dialed in a little revs (i.e. 1,000-1,200rpm). This isn't a V8 beast with so much torque that it launches as fast with no revs as we do with a clutch dump

It's for this reason that I don't advocate launching with no throttle.

As for DaBuzzard's point about 1rst, I'm not sure why it locks you out like that. Mine did it when the car was pretty new, but hasn't since. I rev-match and downshift every gear all the time, though, so maybe the synchros just work well since I was already down to 2nd by the time I stopped at the light?

exninja

iTrader: (1)

Well written. I gave my Integra to my wife so that she can stop driving her pos '94 corolla, but she's hating driving the manual. She's actually really good for just learning and has me to help, but this article would be a great help for someone who doesn't have someone around to help learn.

Also, the low-end tq is great on the tc! I went to San Francisco and had no trouble at all Really didn't need to give much gas and never had to cheat!

fslick

how come when im above 2250rpm in 2nd gear after a downshift and im off the gas, the gas mileage still stays at around 8L/100KM, shouldnt DFCO result in 0L/100km or 99MPG? I tried it again this morning and down shifted to 2nd and was off the gas at 2800RPM and the mileage doesnt go much below 8L/100km

Stamina

On mine it'll usually show 99MPG, but sometimes it gets "stuck" at a random high value (like 97MPG) before getting to 99MPG and will stay stuck there until the DFCO disengages. Once it goes below 2,250RPM, it will start reading again even with the foot off the pedal and it'll be a lower value.

I don't know why it does that. It's like it sometimes freezes the DIC number before it got to 99MPG.

HunterKiller89

iTrader: (1)

for starters, its gotta be at that RPM for a couple seconds before DFCO kicks in. Given this, you probably need to be over 3k rpms to activate it, and it will stay activated until X rpms (1500rpm on my old car, 1100 on my new car)

Nightmare9

Nice thread, I had no idea that they cut the fuel off while coasting at higher RPMs, I was always a fan of just leaving it in neutral or coasting with the clutch in (quick side note for anyone with a NEW car, the GM manual recommends NOT engine braking for the first 500mi or something like that, i'm not going to get into why as that's always a hot topic).

I've had my clutch cable break on a motorcycle I owned and got to learn clutchless shifting on my own (downshifting wasn't fun... the starter was able to move the bike in first which is how i got going) but with a hydraulic clutch I don't know if there's much of a reason to risk clutchless shifting in this car, since if you have a leak in the hydraulic line you will be out of brake fluid as well and you might NOT want to get the car moving...

fslick

Yeah i tried it again today coasting down a mountain in 3rd gear. I let off the gas at 3000RPM and it stays stuck at 6L/100km, then all of a sudden goes down to 0L/100km. So does this mean the DFCO is actually kicking in earlier than the DIC is telling me? IE: shouldnt DFCO take like 1 second to kick in, not like 10 seconds. If it actually takes this long to start working, then its basically useless in city driving where u have to brake anyway (which will lower your RPMs) in about 4 seconds.

HunterKiller89

iTrader: (1)

^^ you should be able to hear/feel DFCO kick in...

Stamina

No that's the DIC quirk I'm talking about. The DFCO is working, but it isn't properly reflected by the DIC sometimes. If you logged it, had a scanguage of some sort, or an RPD you'd see that it was working every time in about a second or two, but that the DIC sometimes doesn't tell the truth. It's like the ECU computed mileage goes to infinity but sometimes jumps there before the DIC can jump to 99MPG / 0L/100KM and so the DIC sometimes sticks at a random high value that was the last finite reading it had.

Force

My DIC never really reads below 2 or 3L/100km during DFCO, which is something like 117mpg .

Stamina

Okay, cool. I never roll metric () so I wouldn't have known that detail.

JohnnySasakiMGS

lololololololol

Force

Well, I've PMed two mods about potentially getting this stickied. Feedback has seemed positive enough, so let's hope for the best. I feel like there's enough good information in here to warrant it.

Black SS/SC 06

iTrader: (6)

Got it

Force

Awesome, thanks so much! Hopefully this helps out some new drivers. I have this same thread posted (modifications and all) on another Cobalt forum with members who are less experienced on average than here. A lot of the newer manual drivers there have been loving it.

See, CSS is capable of more than just flame wars and mindless thread jacking (I'm particularly bad at this ) when we put our minds to it

SuperchargedSS

/\ Agreed. Mainly cause you are not talking about another car in here. Thats when the sh*t gets flying...