Ok-I got the shifting down from fourth to second while going appr 35-38 and I get a good kickback in the seat. What I was wondering is when shifting from 5th or 6th on the highway and downshifting to 3rd for a good pull, does anyone else here get a little nervous getting that close to 1st? Is it that hard to accidentally engage first while driving that fast?

 

never had tha tproblem..all i do is double clutch it and pow good to go. no worrries puttign it in 1st since i'm sure youll have to force it sicne 1st only goes to abotu what 45ish and 3rd tops out a lill over 90. no problem...just don't down shift to 3rd if you are kicking it at 80+ mph. hehehe but you shouldn't be going that fast anyways. for fast acelleration on the highway (60mph) i put in the clutch release in neutral...rev to 6k rpm...put in clutch slid it into thrid..like butter:D

 

i'm not stupid enough to try it. but i'm sure mazda locked out 1st gear if you're trying to down shift from 5th to 6th on the highway.

 

When shifting from 6th - 5th to third gear just be carefull not to hit the cut out scwitch after you redline it ,

cheers
michael

 

haha...did you experience this personally lock & load? i remember working at toyota and seeing a bunch of blow engines in the celica gt-s (when it first came out). all these kids were downshifting from 6th to 1st (no lock out). motor would basically jump timing and kaboom. then toyota started cutting the car out whenever someone miss shifted.

 

lol i hope no one is stupid enough to try this. i've heard of people going from 6th to 5th in their 8's but missing and hitting 3rd (dunno how you can mess taht up)..and it revs super high in teh ballpark of 13k or so. ouch bet that hurts

 

Luckily the cut out came in but then re engaged quickly enough so i didnt get totalled as i was coming on to the highway with traffic right up my *** , and my engine did not blow .

Feeling a bit guilty i brought her home cooled her down gave her a good wash cheched the oil and put her to bed , occasionally i like to play rough :D

cheers
michael

 

The only problem I 've had has been upshifting from 5th to 6th and accidently hitting 4th. I've never been going fast enough, when it happened, for it to be a big deal. It has taken me some time to get used to 6th. I think I'm finally in the groove though.

 

You cant engage 1st gear if you're going over 20mph or so. Even at 20 MPH you need the revs WAY up there.

 

I'm not sure what half of you are talking about. When I shifted from 6th gear going 65 to 3rd, I wasn't even close to redline. I wouldn't dream of thrashing this car like that. In the next couple of days (my 8 is a weekend only car), I will go out on the highway and see what my revs are in 6th and when downshifting to 3rd, I will post my rpms upon shifting. But I guarantee you it isn't going to redline or I wouldn't have tried it twice.

 

but you were only @ 63..most the time when people are in 6th, they're high in RPMs already..

A few days after getting the 8 i pulled a 5th to 2nd..that was nice...shot up to about 8k before i slammed the clutch in....*sigh*

 

:D

 

A shift from 6th to 3rd at 65 would require you to rev to *about* just under 9k rpm or so, I believe.

 

Like I said-I will do it within the next few days. The difference between 6th and 5th is miniscule regarding rpms. I only see a bit of difference when upshifting to 6th running highway speeds.

 

in 3rd gear, you have 100 rpms for every 1 mph so at 30, you'll be at 3000, 60, 6000, 90, 9000 etc.

 

Yeah, I was looking for a spec sheet on rpm ranges for each gear. That's why I am fairly certain going 65 and d-shifting to 3rd, it only put me around 6500 rpms. I'm not sure what others here are talking about redlining it by going to 3rd...

 

Yeah you're right.. for some reason I was thinking that you're doing 65 at 6500 rpm's in 6th.. you're actualydoing it at 3500 rpm's

 

I bet there is no lock out to stop you goiing into 1st. Just the extreem load on the syncros. I

Get this stupid thing I did 30 years ago. In 1975 I worked for Mazda and had a RX4 wagon on a trip in northern Calif. Was driving back to LA and was tired and somewhat in a daze from a long day when I started down the grape vine (I5 entering LA). For a change I shifted into N and was coasting down hill. Speed limit at the time was 55 and they petroled that area so when I exceeded ~ 75 I shifted back into 4th (top then) to slow down every so often. Well as the hill got steeper 4th didn't slow me much and just didn't want to use the breaks so I decided to use 3rd instead of 4th. But as I pushed on the lever it didn't move. Didn't dawn on me that I was pushing into 1st so I pushed harder! Remember I was in a daze! Just when I realized what I was doing BANG! Dust and the clutch stuck down to the floor (yes I did have the clutch in) and all I had was neutral! Boy did I wake up! I rolled for a few miles and finally stopped where the power station is for the LA readers. I forget the details I figured out at the time, but 1st at 75 was something like 10,000 and the clutch disk had blown apart from the high rpm. No problem for the engine as the clutch never engaged. The pieces of the clutch had jamed the clutch disk out!
Well I had the RX4 towed to the local dealer and left it there with my business card (it was night) and a friend picked me up. Of course I had the clutch repaired under warranty, since it was a Mazda vehicle. Only the clutch disk and plate needed to be replaced. Had the car for another ~5,000 miles before it went to a dealer and someone bought it.

So since then and with my RX8 I am careful to pick the correct gear during a down shift.

 

Have u heard of double clutching and keeping your foot on the accelerator as u are down shifting gears to increase your RPMS :D

No offence to anyone but obviously us OLD FARTS learnt to drive a manual car the proper way , rev matching double cluthing , heel and toeing , and not flooding our cars :D

cheers
michael

 

I think that is an Aussie thing...I met a 45 year old 8 owner a while back who never heard the term rev matching before and when I tried to explain it I gave up since he drove the car like a scared, boring, white, american who has his toast the same way every frigg'in day for the past 25 years

 

haha old farts that's funny..i mean when did they put synchros in trannys? a long frigin' time ago is when. haha and i don't know too many old people who heel toe it...in fact i don't know any. ah well maybe the old people here are different from the old peopel there.

 

Make sure you are use to the short throws of the 6-speed in the 8 before you go from 5th miss 4th and drop it into 2nd at speed..... There have been a couple of folks on the site who evidently did this and crashed They were not use to the tranny and missed the gate.

 

^^ouch bet that wasn't fun at all. oh and never shift while in a hard turn at a high speed like that one guy who spun out and curbed his 8 going 60....those werent' pretty pics

 

There should be no problems just downshifting to the proper gear instantly for needed speed like passing.

 

When you're going down 3 gears, you really should double clutch, or atleast rev-match with the clutch in. If you JUST downshift (unless i'm mistaken, and you are tapping the gas too) then your synchros are being used to spin up 3k RPM's that's not really good for them.

So, if you're travelling at 65 in 6th, running about 3500rpm, you should tap the gas up to like 7k before you let the clutch out. You'll hear alot less whining out of your tranny, and once you get the timing down the car will shift smooth as butt

L&L, This is my first manual tranny and the only way I can downshift is to double clutch. So it's not only for old people :p