my dad let me drive it a few months ago when i was about to get my license. i already KNEW how to drive it, it was just the matter
of actually doing it. it was alot of fun, and now i can drive it all the time.

 

I learned to drive on an RX-7 and never had an issue. The only problem is the lack of torque makes for some more finesse.

Also I had never heard of the stalling issue on the RX-7, but that didn't have the side ports and all...

 

Well I picked up my RX-8 yesterday and stalled the car at least a dozen times. But I'm quickly getting the hang of it, which is really cool. One pointer my friend gave me about hills, is if you are on a hill, let your clutch out slowly until you feel it start to grab, and then take your foot off the brake and your car will not drift back. I attempted this myself and I was surprised, I didn't drift back except maybe a few inches.

Also just to let you know, this is the first manual I've ever owned, and the only training time that I have in a standard is the 15 minutes the dealer, and one of their sales people taught me in a honda civic. So my best advice as a newbie is slowly let the clutch out until you feel it start to grab and then just give it gas and get going. But hey wish me luck because I'm still picking up the whole standard thing.

 

I'm 20 years old and my family has owned nothing but MT cars. When I was underage and my father used to teach me on MT in parking lots in his All Trac Celica. He is also a believe in keeping driving aids off while learning. Its wierd, but I thank him for it. I will probably only buy MT cars for the rest of my life (unless everything goes F1 style... which would be cool) Actually, all the cars we have now are MT, including my sisters 91 firefly.

With that said though, with all the experience I've had in the last 4-5 years driving all sorts of different MT cars, they are all diffeferent. I find sports cars to be the easiest because you dont need to fully disengage the clutch (I mean, push the pedal in all the way). I don't have my 8 yet. I haveta wait another month. But on my two test drives I hadnt stalled it yet.

 

RX8 is my first manual car. Just driving from the dealer back to my house, I stalled 4 times. I got the 8 on July, back then no one knows about the flooding. I think the hot temperture in CA saved from flooding. Now, I paid extra attension to warm up the car before shutting down the engine.

 

I didn't have any problems drive the stick on the rx-8, I drive mostly manuel trucks and the rx-8 was the first car manuel car i ever drove.

 

One thing to remember - don't do this unless you really, really enjoy paying for clutch replacements.

I would recommend using the handbrake if required; even on hills once you've become used to driving stick even hills are no big deal anymore...