For those of you experienced driving a stick and driving a sports car, the revelations I had yesterday will be no big deal. As I am a new stick driver and this is my first sports car... yesterday was a blast.

I went out with my boss in the afternoon and let him drive my 8. He has been driving sports cars for years and I asked him to show me what the 8 could do. We went out to some curvy back roads and I watched him drive my 8 the way it can/should be driven. I came to some realizations:

1) Drivng stick will be alot of fun when I truly get comfortable with it
2) I need to be more deliberate with my shifts and work on keeping my revs up
3) Once moving, this car is/will be as fast as I will ever need/want.
4) Sitting in the passenger seat when someone else is driving hard is SCARY!

He was also trying to show me the benefits of double cluthing when downshifting. His point was that if you try to rev match without double clutching you don't spin both sides of the "something" because the clutch is depressed. I am not sure I understand this but his results for accelerating were pretty cool. Any comments on this...?

Also... just feel like sharing my gratitude with the board for making my ownership of the 8 a little more fun!

 

What kind of car does he have? What were his comments on the 8? Does your 8 have DSC and did he have it on or off? After you have 3000 to 5000 miles on the car I would sugest Red Line or Royal Purple in the tranny and diff to make shifting smother. Now go out and drive that 8 and enjoy. :D

 

Right now he has an audi S8 (which can't be classified as a sports car even though it kicks ***). He has had porsches in the past. My co-workers have an amazing array of cars. Our garage has an Audi S8, Audi S4, BMW Z8, Porsche Boxster, 3 Porsche Carrera CVTs, and 1 Porsche Carrera Turbo - and we only have 20 people in our company!

We tried with the DSC on and off... I couldn't really tell the difference but I wasn't driving. He loved the sound of the engine and it's smoothness. Commented on the low torque. Thought it looked amazing and was really fun to drive!

 

About the double clutching. He was probobaly referring to the synchro's. And the only time you really need to double clutch is in a big truck (semi etc.). No need at all to do it in the 8. When you downshift - just gotta blip the throttle to the proper rpm while the clutch is depressed then let the clutch out for a smooth downshift - it will take a little while to get used to so it's smooth - but it's much easier and no worse than double clutching. Quicker too.

 

Question:

In general when shifting, do you completely remove your foot from the throttle as you depress the clutch? I find that the RPM's drom too fast so that if I do this i get a little engine break (even on an upshift). Last night I tried keeping my foot lightly on the gas while i shifted and it seemed to work better.

 

No sir. Try to rev match all the time. The rev's drop quick in this car. If you slow shift you will be bouncing forward and backward all the time!!! I always give the throttle a little juice with every shift. I'm sure this negatively impacts the gas mileage, but...whatever.

Enjoy your 8 and welcome to the cult!!!!

- Irish