StandardShift.com

Being the cool guy that I am in my 05 STi, I felt the need to pick on my friend who has a 97 Accord auto. So I drag raced in an empty parking lot by our house..of course I SMOKED HIM. But for the .0001 secs. that he was close enought to me for me to see him I noticed that he was shifting his automatic himself. After the race I got in the car with him and he showed me what he was doing..tapping the brake then shifting into the 1,2,3 on his auto. Than he did the drag race again in D and I have to say I did notice a difference..shifting from 1,2,3 was a little faster. Also we did some drifting and other cool stuff in his crappy Honda using the same 1,2,3 technique. Has anyone else ever seen or heard of this..and do you think its damaging his transmission.

it's not great for the tranny but i don't think it's TERRIBLE... i'm nost sure why he taps the brake when he changes it though. i would sometimes do this for a particular left turn where the next light changes red right after the left turn light turns green and you can only make the next light if you go fast and my corolla would go all the way up to 4 during the turn then i'd have to wait for it to go back down to 2 to take off for the light so i would start the turn in 1, go to 2 and leave it there until i finished the turn and floored it then drop it in drive.

jomotopia wrote:it's not great for the tranny but i don't think it's TERRIBLE... i'm nost sure why he taps the brake when he changes it though. i would sometimes do this for a particular left turn where the next light changes red right after the left turn light turns green and you can only make the next light if you go fast and my corolla would go all the way up to 4 during the turn then i'd have to wait for it to go back down to 2 to take off for the light so i would start the turn in 1, go to 2 and leave it there until i finished the turn and floored it then drop it in drive.

He taps it because he cant shift unless his brake is depressed so he pushes it in just enough to allow him to shift.

A SiK STi wrote:

jomotopia wrote:it's not great for the tranny but i don't think it's TERRIBLE... i'm nost sure why he taps the brake when he changes it though. i would sometimes do this for a particular left turn where the next light changes red right after the left turn light turns green and you can only make the next light if you go fast and my corolla would go all the way up to 4 during the turn then i'd have to wait for it to go back down to 2 to take off for the light so i would start the turn in 1, go to 2 and leave it there until i finished the turn and floored it then drop it in drive.

He taps it because he cant shift unless his brake is depressed so he pushes it in just enough to allow him to shift.

He should be able to shift from 1-2-3 without touching the brakes or the shift release button. He shoud be able to just push up and the gear will change. And doing that is actually VERY bad for the transmission. i heard of peopels tranmission prematurely dying becuase they constantly shifted like this.

the 1 2 3 on the automatic has a shift on the fly mechanism. He doesn't need to tap the brakes (but shhh, don't tell him that)

JackBauer wrote:the 1 2 3 on the automatic has a shift on the fly mechanism. He doesn't need to tap the brakes (but shhh, don't tell him that)

To my knowledge, this only works on upshifts. Dont even try this on downshifts.

i think it may work on downshifts too? truthfuly i dont know- i never was stupid wnough to do it on an automatic. But once me and this kid were playing around- and as he passed me on the wrong lane- i saw him shift down and the rev limiter was kicking in for a good 2 seconds or so- so i think on some cars it may work during downshifts too.

But was it just me or does this method improve on acceleration on auto cars and make it a little bit faster..is their any advantages to doing this (don't mention ruining your tranny) because if there is no reason to do it I should probably tell him to stop before he ruins his tranny and his piece of crap car gets even crappier..LOL

In an pure automatic ECT, there is no advantage to "manually" shifting the lever (as opposed to letting the transmission shift itself). Actually, it could slow him down, as he might be taking the car past the powerband (where the transmission would shift) when he waits and shifts himself.

Tell him next time to just floor it. Actually, he should probably stop racing around in that 97 Accord now, as their transmissions have a horrible track record.

Johnf514 wrote:In an pure automatic ECT, there is no advantage to "manually" shifting the lever (as opposed to letting the transmission shift itself). Actually, it could slow him down, as he might be taking the car past the powerband (where the transmission would shift) when he waits and shifts himself.

Tell him next time to just floor it. Actually, he should probably stop racing around in that 97 Accord now, as their transmissions have a horrible track record.

++1!

Why does manual shifting on an automatic transmission hurt the transmission? Is a simple automatic transmission different from a tiptronic in anything else except the tiptronic letting you change gears more comfortably?

Chrono, while a Tiptronic transmission is set up to accomodate high-revved shifts (and will force a shift if the computer sees an over-rev), a regular transmission is not programmed to allow for such shifting.

If you have an just a typical automatic, refrain from "shifting." Just drop it in D and let it go.

Why I'm telling you SS folks, I don't know.

But the automatic transmission doesn't shift on the same RPMs. It shifts according to the amount of pressure on the throttle. Therefore, I can decide on the shifting timing by playing with the throttle and get the same resulst as by pushing the shifter from 2 to 3. But the latter method allows me to shift at the same RPMs while allowing me to decide how much gas to waste...

However, remember that a regular automatic transmission is simply not built to stay at those kinds of RPMs.

The message that I'm trying to convey is that a regular automatic transmission is not designed for that kind of driving. With some programming modification, it might be able to run like that; however, in a "stock" state, it is simply meant to shift through throttle input.

While I don't have a very technical understanding of this, I do know that doing such a thing will f*ck up the tranny. Maybe not right away, but it will make it much more likely to happen. Trust me. I've known people who have abused their autos, and ended up paying out the a$$ for it.

I agree with those who said it would be better just to smash the gas and let the car shift itself. After all, that is what it was made to do... shift itself.