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Power Shifting.


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Posted

I've heard of a few people discribe power shifting in different ways, but I'm not sure on the truth.

 

Now, here what I have HEARD, but it doesn't make sense to me...I've never done it, and I prolly wont if this is the truth:

 

"Power shifting is when you press the clutch in, but dont let off the gas"

 

Wouldn't that just kill the engine? Think about it, you rev it up to redline, and keep your foot on the gas and put the clutch in, the engine is going to rev even higher... That would cause horrid damage to the engine, right? I can understand cars with rev limiters, and I'm not sure if this car accually has one.

 

It does make sense how it would make it faster, however second gear in my car is terrible, and I miss it all the time because this damn 284 is damn notchy. Now if I missed a shit, it would be even worse, correct?

Posted

Power shifting is also referred to as Wide Open Throttle shifting (WOT). This is when you keep the gas pedal pinned to the floor as you depress the clutch and throw it into the next highest gear. People usually do this to keep a turbo spooled on turbo'd cars where the turbo takes time to "recover" between shifts

 

I certainly wouldn't ever recommend it to anyone :bonk:

Posted

it makes sense, and it doesn't make sense...thats all, I'm trying to put logic to it, and I've been tempted...

Posted

I dont see why you couldnt do it, as long as you can shift very fast, kinda get the hang of how long it takes you to shift, and eventually you will get it to where you depress the clutch and shift right as you hit redline. My buddy has a 96 Mustang GT with 4.10 in the rear and when he power shifts, its one hell of a ride..........I say give it a shot, but whatever you do, dont miss a shift.

Posted

I wouldn't necessarily take it to redline inbetween shifts, but a nice tap on the gas *might* place you higher into the power band once you complete the shift into the next gear.

 

It's worth a shot anyways.

Posted

Personally I wouln't do it Kyle. That last thing you would want is to break somthing on the 284.

Posted

Personally I wouln't do it Kyle. That last thing you would want is to break somthing on the 284.

DItto on breaking the 284....

 

I used to power shift my Geo Metro at times, but that's because I didn't give two shits about the car. I could bang the gears fast enough to not hit redline in between the shifts. On a nice car I wouldn't try it.

Posted

Personally I wouln't do it Kyle. That last thing you would want is to break somthing on the 284.

 

Werd.

Posted

Personally I wouln't do it Kyle. That last thing you would want is to break somthing on the 284.

...On a nice car I wouldn't try it.

 

Especially YOUR CAR!!!

Posted

Personally I wouln't do it Kyle. That last thing you would want is to break somthing on the 284.

...On a nice car I wouldn't try it.

 

Especially YOUR CAR!!!

 

 

yes, yes, and yes.

Posted

I used to powershift my 'stang all the time, then I got the HPM lower control arms in the rear and new tires out back - they hook up too well and cause the clutch to slip way** too much. Either way, I never had a problem with overrevving.

 

Once you get the hang of shifting extremely quickly, you can often do it with little lift on the throtle (not holding it at wot the whole time, but actually lettin' up a bit - this is more helpful with a carb'd setup then with an EFI setup because with the carb, letting up a bit will allow the accelerator pump to dump a lil' extra fuel)

 

The other thing I have a habit of doing is letting off the throtle, and not touching the clutch between shifts, and I don't mean the slow way which is actually real easy for the trans. I mean forcing it into the next gear, it's extremely hard on the transmission - but the T5 I got in my 'stang is junk anyhow.

 

--Dave.

Posted

Obviously we don't have very many drag racers here :lol:

 

Back when the parents were Corvair freaks, they were doing it all the time at the track, this is with shit ass shifters too....If you are fast enough, no damage is done, oh and if you can believe this, if you actually put the clutch shortly before redline, it won't go past redline if you shift fast enough. Besides free reving a few RPM over redline isn't going to be nearly as deadly as total load on the engine.

 

Thats nothing compared to doing clutch drops at 7,000 in the V8 Corvair :eek: :willynilly:

 

Posted

Too bad the V8 corvair was a mid-engine'd vehicle, which was something built completely out of aftermarket eqipmen, and never offered as a stock form. :)

 

I do love those flat-6 motors with the turbochargers, or even the 4bbl carb's - they're fun as hell to drive when done up properly.

 

I'm a HUGE corvair fan, and I'd trade my Stang straight up for a turbo-vair instantly.

 

--Dave.

Posted

Obviously we don't have very many drag racers here :lol:

 

I was thinking the same thing....

 

If you are interested, go ahead and try it, but practice doing it well before redline (shift at 5,500 or so) that way if you miss a gear you won't have to worry about reving the engine to the moon. As long as you do it right, it won't damage the trans.

 

- Justin

Posted
"Power shifting is when you press the clutch in, but dont let off the gas"
I may be wrong, but Power Shifting can also be applied to cars with automatic trannys. It's basically going WOT and shifting the auto tranny manually like a stick shift tranny. The only difference is no clutch pedal. I did it all the time in my old 85 Parisienne wagon with its 355cid Chevy and TH-350 3-spd auto. Here's a .wav file I made to record myself powershifting my wagon: http://www.stillruns.com/land-barge/manualpeel.wav

 

Also I heard that Powershifting could also mean shifting gears at WOT on a manual tranny, without touching the clutch at all, and just CRAMMING the stick in gear.

Posted

I've power shifted in my RX-7 last fall when I took my buddy for a spin it in....gave a nice chirp of the tires and a nice "launch" when I hit second that normally isn't there.....but what can you expect from a 1.1L engine lol...I shifted from first to second at redline too, but redlining the rotary doesn't really hurt it all that much as long as the ignition system is keeping up. Haha, the redline buzzer scared my friend though

Posted

Lol, ok I guess the question at hand here is this...

 

When your "racing the car" You want to bring the car up to about redline then shift. now as a result, RPM's are ALREADY redline... so the true form of power shifting (not letting off the gas) would hurt your tranny/engine logically.

 

How-ever, I have heard a guy on this forum (the one with all the DSM links) say that powershifting can accually be better for your clutch?

 

I have power shifted in my buddies 98 z24, but it had a rev limiter.

 

I dunno, I don't want to mostly because of the notchy gears in my car (yes I have said they were buttery before, but thats at low speeds, WOT is another story), but during some real close racing I kinda want the advantage...oh well.

 

 

Posted

It really is not that hard to do. I used to do it all the time in my Trans Am, but thats because I don't care about it and if it blows up I would probably be happy. I haven't done it since I got my new valvesprings because I'm kinda a little scared, but before it would valve float at around 4800rpm, so if I left my foot on the floor it wouldn't hurt anything because the engine wouldn't spin past 4800. Now it has new valve springs and will rev way higher than it should. (redline is 5k and I've spun it to 6k+ with no problems although it makes no power up there)

 

I don't think I'd do it in any w-body cars because I can't see a 282 or 284 taking that kind of a beating for very long.

 

Shawn

Posted

Too bad the V8 corvair was a mid-engine'd vehicle, which was something built completely out of aftermarket eqipmen, and never offered as a stock form. :)

 

I do love those flat-6 motors with the turbochargers, or even the 4bbl carb's - they're fun as hell to drive when done up properly.

 

I'm a HUGE corvair fan, and I'd trade my Stang straight up for a turbo-vair instantly.

 

--Dave.

 

My uncle has tons of Corvair parts at his house. He has a '66 Corvair and a '62 I believe it is, plus a '62 Van. He also has several engines, including a turbo one, plus a killer engine has that has tons of mods it is a killer motor, just needs the right Corvair.....

Posted

On the truck, I don't let the rpms drop inbetween shifts at all when i drive hard...i sure as hell don't hold the throttle all the way down though, i manipulate the throttle so the rpms don't drop between shift...and that's only for maybe a nano second. I have yet to meet a person who can shift as fast as me.

 

My friends worship my shifting abilities....hopefully some of you will get to ride along in my truck soon :twisted:

 

I usually don't brag....but i'm in a good mood :willynilly:

Posted

You won't damage your engne... you still have a rev limiter on it, right? I wouldn't leave it to the floor though... just like everything else, to do it right requires just a little bit of skill. Let off to the point where the engine doesn't lose or gain revs while you clutch, but keep it constant. Then when you let off the clutch pedal, the clutch will bring the engine down to match trans speed, instead of up, which would be the case if you let off the gas to shift. It's all the same to your clutch, but you get the little added power from your engine being faster when you reengage the clutch.

Posted

I remember when my friends had this piece of shit '85 Accord....it was the 4 banger (dunno probably the only option)...anyway to get going faster we used to accelerate like normal....but after we were moving we would push the clutch in....pin the gas to the engine was at redline, and then dump the clutch again....without shifting gears. We did this because the engine had NO torque and this procedure brought it back up to higher rpm where it would actually move lol...

 

However this along with "hopping" the car killed the clutch. "hopping" the car consisted of punching the gas to the floor repeatidily....the rear coil overs or whatever it had were fucked, so all there was left was spring and nothing to stop the bouncing. We were told MANY times there was sparks coming from under the car..."that's just our trunk"...one time we hit too hard and muffler broke off lol...we could tell when we were bouncing it too hard because the antenna would hit the roof and short out the radio lol....god what a piece of shit car, but so many memories in it haha

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