Rev Matching 6-Speed Manual

[Mark's M]

[emoji106]

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[Tim Hilliard]

And there I went and bought the 300a so I actually have to adjust my
Driving style in rain and snow

 

[Tim Hilliard]

I'm not getting in a tizzy. But your MO seems to be that if the opinion isn't what you want then it must be wrong. Same as your comments about what options do and don't come on 50th LE. Just cause you don't want rear parking sensors, speed sensitive wipers and ACC then you act like those that do are lazy or whatever. I don't want them either but I'm not gonna put down those that do. That is the way you come off by the way.

I find this feature works very well....

This message is hidden because Brent302 is on your ignore list.

 

[KGrGunMan]

Any skill you don't use, you lose. As the cars get better the drivers get worse.

I've always been of the opinion that when you're in control of a deadly weapon, you should be in full control.

 

[Grimace427]

Any skill you don't use, you lose. As the cars get better the drivers get worse.

I've always been of the opinion that when you're in control of a deadly weapon, you should be in full control.

That's not a valid analogy. Some deadly weapons are too much for a single person to handle, be it from weight or recoil etc. Such weapons often come with assistance devices to help the person wielding the weapon do so safely and effectively. Your analogy makes it sound like a stone-age club is deadlier than a precision-guided bomb all because there isn't anything assisting the person wielding the weapon.

 

[KGrGunMan]

Yea....I feel ya....but I've been in control of my fair share of deadly weapons (never anything capable of killing more than tens of people) and I've never felt that less control would be a better thing, if you don't like my my analogy then replace weapons with vehicles.

My analogy may be debatable but regardless of that, I've never in my life felt "less control of something that can kill me would be a good thing."

 

[Grimace427]

Yea....I feel ya....but I've been in control of my fair share of deadly weapons (never anything capable of killing more than tens of people) and I've never felt that less control would be a better thing, if you don't like my my analogy then replace weapons with vehicles.

My analogy may be debatable but regardless of that, I've never in my life felt "less control of something that can kill me would be a good thing."

Your definition of control is what is most debatable. The idea that the user must consciously control every aspect of a machine's operation is as flawed as all of humanity. Our reflexes and predictability are all over the map, and because of that assistance systems have come to be to try and eliminate much if that variance so that only our judgement is required. It's up to us the point the machine and tell it how fast to go, but asking a human to keep it in complete control while pushing it to the limit is what gets people killed.

But back to topic for the operation of a manual transmission it's simple enough to not need computer assistance and such I would feel a rev matching feature unnecessary to my driving enjoyment.

 

[KGrGunMan]

If you want to get pedantic, I've seen studies that show even from best to worse, our reflexes are extremely predictable and not all over the map; I know that was not your main point, but you seem hung up on something that was not my main point either.

My point was and still is, any skill you don't use, you'll become less competent at. Any argument with my main point?

I'm board, so i'll still go down the rabbit hole anyway...as long as it's all in good fun/entertainment.

If you want to debate my definition of control then that is valid. I was not referring to anything the machine does to follow through with one's orders, I was referring to anything the machine does on it's own without being told to do so.

With electric variable ratio steering racks, where a little steering input = a little movement sometimes and large movements other times, how much in control are you when the same input = different results. With (some) CVT transmissions (and throttle by wire) that continue to accelerate after you've taken your foot off the accelerator, how in control are you?

You may remember a couple years ago when a CHP officer killed himself and his whole family because his car kept accelerating after he stopped telling it to, did he have control or was that just his poor judgment?

I agree that clearly no one can be in control of everything all the time and I have no issue with a machine acting in order to follow my commands, but a machine doing anything I have not commanded it to do is my definition of out of control.

Asking a human to keep in complete control while pushing a vehicle is what makes racing drivers money. Formula one doesn't even have ABS, they only have skill.

 

[Grimace427]

If you want to debate my definition of control then that is valid. I was not referring to anything the machine does to follow through with one's orders, I was referring to anything the machine does on it's own without being told to do so.

That is a malfunction which can happen to anything be it mechanical or electronic. Would you feel in control if the throttle spring broke on an old carb'd car going WOT without you being able to do anything about it? I never had anything to say about malfunctions and never took any implications of that from your first post so I don't understand why you are bringing that in.

With electric variable ratio steering racks, where a little steering input = a little movement sometimes and large movements other times, how much in control are you when the same input = different results. With (some) CVT transmissions (and throttle by wire) that continue to accelerate after you've taken your foot off the accelerator, how in control are you?

Is that implying that having variable steering or a CVT trans makes the driver out of control?

You may remember a couple years ago when a CHP officer killed himself and his whole family because his car kept accelerating after he stopped telling it to, did he have control or was that just his poor judgment?

This sounds like a tragedy caused by a malfunction. There isn't a vehicle on planet Earth that would be immune to malfunctions that could potentially cause such a tragedy so how is that relevant?

Asking a human to keep in complete control while pushing a vehicle is what makes racing drivers money. Formula one doesn't even have ABS, they only have skill.

When I'm driving my 400+hp car to work 5-6 days a week I'm not competing with other professional racecar drivers on a closed course but rather lunatics and various distracted drivers through construction zones and highway merges. I'll take the advancing technology in a modern car over the bare bones steering wheel with an engine. If I lived in the boonies maybe I'd feel differently.

My point was and still is, any skill you don't use, you'll become less competent at. Any argument with my main point?

I never considered this your main argument and thus never tried to argue it.

 

[KGrGunMan]

It's so hard to tell peoples feelings in type, as much of communication can't be expressed fully in words, so I do hope you're smiling as much as me, because sometimes I question that.

That is a malfunction which can happen to anything be it mechanical or electronic.

In that statement was not referring to a malfunction, I was referring to something a programer or engineer put in place for the machine to do that the driver didn't want the vehicle to do.

Would you feel in control if the throttle spring broke on an old carb'd car going WOT without you being able to do anything about it? I never had anything to say about malfunctions and never took any implications of that from your first post so I don't understand why you are bringing that in.

I wasn't trying to imply that either, so who brought that up? [super late edit: I just re-read and now see how I worded that would lead you to that implication, that was not my intent at the time. - my bad]

I would feel in control, because there would be things I could do. Press the clutch would be the simplest. Neutral is also a very nice (lack of) gear to remain in control.

Is that implying that having variable steering or a CVT trans makes the driver out of control?

It without question gives the driver less control...of something that every day kills many people.
How many grains of sand does it take before you have a sand dune?
How much less control does it take before you're out of control?
It becomes more and more gray, but what direction do you want to move towards, less or more control?

This sounds like a tragedy caused by a malfunction. There isn't a vehicle on planet Earth that would be immune to malfunctions that could potentially cause such a tragedy so how is that relevant?

Every vehicle I've ever owned was immune to this, but only because I don't choose options/cars that remove control from the driver, believe it or not, every vehicle I've ever owned has not one, or two, but three different fail safes to prevent such an event. It's about whether or not you're in control. That is the point.

so, let me talk you through how one would kept in control in such an event.
Press the clutch - remain in control.
OR
Put shifter in neutral - remain in control.
OR
Turn ignition off, lose power assists, but not control.

I'd actually argue that this event was also impacted by the officers poor judgment as his car came with 2 of the 3 fail safes that my vehicles come with. This shows my point about not using a skill leads to less competency with that skill. He had the means but because he was use to cars doing most things for him, in his time of need and panic he didn't think about what he could do, he could only think about what the car was doing.

Why this is relevant is because we're talking about machines doing things the driver is not commanding the machine to do and why you should not give up any area of control that is not necessary.

When I'm driving my 400+hp car to work 5-6 days a week I'm not competing with other professional racecar drivers on a closed course but rather lunatics and various distracted drivers through construction zones and highway merges. I'll take the advancing technology in a modern car over the bare bones steering wheel with an engine. If I lived in the boonies maybe I'd feel differently.

I only said what I said there because you said...

It's up to us the point the machine and tell it how fast to go, but asking a human to keep it in complete control while pushing it to the limit is what gets people killed.

So you brought up pushing it to the limit, not I.

However well below the limit, at even sub-legal speeds, if my deadly vehicle is doing things i'm not telling it to do, then I have that much less control; how much less control over something that can kill you are you ok with?

I never considered this your main argument and thus never tried to argue it.

It was the very first thing I said in my original post that you quoted to start this all, I'll quote myself...

Any skill you don't use, you lose. As the cars get better the drivers get worse.

My analogy that you were so focused on trying to shoot down was in the context of that; context is everything.

 

[Trackaholic]

Fun discussion. I prefer the stick shift over any type of automatic, be it torque converter, CVT, or dual clutch, in almost every driving instance.

The only time I can see myself preferring the dual-clutch is on a race track, where the paddle shifters allow me to keep by left foot on the dead pedal (maintaining seating position better under braking), and both hands on the wheel (also maintaining seating position better, and keeping steering smoother). I drove the C7 with the rev match (I also do my own heel-toe, but had a hard time with the throttle reposnse in that car as it is so much different than my 350Z), and even with the assistance I would get sloppy due to moving my feet around and letting go of the wheel. A racing harness really helps here, but is sometimes difficult to incorporate into the safety systems in a street car without also going to a full cage (or at least some type of rollover protection) and a HANS device.

On the street, I really like the stick shift and don't like paddles at all.

So, giving the driver more control in one area (like the stick shift), does not always give them more control overall (they may lose focus on other, more important aspects).

So, there's always a balance to be struck, based on the driver's preference, capability, experience, and situation. Imagine if we still needed to manually control the choke, timing advance, or even double clutch and rev-match just to get the car in gear? Were drivers 100 years ago better than drivers today, or did they just have other areas on which to focus?

F1 may not have ABS or traction control anymore, but they did in the past. They still do have paddle shifters, so the driver does not need to modulate the clutch or heel/toe. Is a NASCAR driver better than an F1 driver because NASCAR still has three pedals and a manual transmission?

While it is true that any skill you don't use, you lose, that does not mean that as cars get better the drivers get worse. Many of the skills that become lost are arguably not necessary to be a good driver. In fact, maybe it is trying to use those skills that make the driver worse.

-T

 

[KGrGunMan]

Fun discussion. I prefer the stick shift over any type of automatic, be it torque converter, CVT, or dual clutch, in almost every driving instance.

The only time I can see myself preferring the dual-clutch is on a race track, where the paddle shifters allow me to keep by left foot on the dead pedal (maintaining seating position better under braking), and both hands on the wheel (also maintaining seating position better, and keeping steering smoother). I drove the C7 with the rev match (I also do my own heel-toe, but had a hard time with the throttle response in that car as it is so much different than my 350Z), and even with the assistance I would get sloppy due to moving my feet around and letting go of the wheel. A racing harness really helps here, but is sometimes difficult to incorporate into the safety systems in a street car without also going to a full cage (or at least some type of rollover protection) and a HANS device.

On the street, I really like the stick shift and don't like paddles at all.

So, giving the driver more control in one area (like the stick shift), does not always give them more control overall (they may lose focus on other, more important aspects).

100%^

So, there's always a balance to be struck, based on the driver's preference, capability, experience, and situation. Imagine if we still needed to manually control the choke, timing advance, or even double clutch and rev-match just to get the car in gear? Were drivers 100 years ago better than drivers today, or did they just have other areas on which to focus?

I've never had any experience with manual chokes or adjusting timing on the fly, because of that I would say a driver who does know how to do those things Is better than I.

While driving I watch all these people randomly applying their brakes for no reason in a straight line and people swerving while staring at their phones, speeding up randomly and slowing down randomly. Overall, simply distracted.

Driving seems to be 3rd or 4th on their list of priorities...while driving. It seems to me as if vehicles have made driving so easy that people feel they no longer need to focus as much, so they don't.

I know parents (and I fully agree with them) who insist that their child's first car be manual transmission, but their intent is not to teach their kids manual, it is to make it harder to text and drive. If one has to put more focus and planning and thought into driving then they are less likely to get distracted from the task of driving.

Ever driven an old car with drum brakes? Like when at speed, you look and think much farther ahead than you do when you have a 100foot 60-0.
My personal experience makes it abundantly clear to me that the more I have to focus on, the more I focus - maybe others are wired differently from myself.

As it is currently, I have to attack every apex and practice crossing my arms and the playing with the balance of the car because i'm so bored at pedestrian speeds, I actively need something more to do while driving if i'm going to be forced to crawl everywhere at speeds I can do in 2nd gear.
I would be a safer driver If I was required to focus on these other aspects that being in more control of the vehicle would offer.

F1 may not have ABS or traction control anymore, but they did in the past. They still do have paddle shifters, so the driver does not need to modulate the clutch or heel/toe. Is a NASCAR driver better than an F1 driver because NASCAR still has three pedals and a manual transmission?

I'd make the argument that although manual transmission requires more focus than paddle shifters, as a whole driving around a banked oval requires less focus than silverstone, so the better driver is the one who has to give the most focus overall, even if in some area's they don't have to focus as much.
Also racing at the level of formula one is not about anything more than winning by any means, so a tenth of a second ahead is ahead and that is more important to them than all else.

While it is true that any skill you don't use, you lose, that does not mean that as cars get better the drivers get worse. Many of the skills that become lost are arguably not necessary to be a good driver. In fact, maybe it is trying to use those skills that make the driver worse.

-T

Maybe, I see your point.

When I drive automatic cars, I find myself paying less attention to my driving. Does the car shifting for me, make me a worse driver? I don't think so, but what it does do is allow me to become distracted with other things because it does not require my attention. In some instances I can understand that putting my attention elsewhere may be needed, but when a lack of attention becomes the normal mode of operation that is the point where me not having to focus on an aspect of driving has made me a worse driver.

:cheers: opcorn:

 

[Trackaholic]

I've been thinking about this discussion, and was wondering how you all would define what makes a good driver.

For me, I think the number one aspect would be "situational awareness".

Like mentioned above, every day on my commute I see people brake randomly, accelerate randomly, change lanes without signaling, only to slow down right in front of me, etc.

I do agree that driving has become so easy that people get lulled into a false sense of security. Cars are so reliable that when something unexpected happens, people have no idea how to handle the situation (technology has changed as well, which can be confusing to someone who, for example, grew up without ABS). When I took driver's ed, we ran through scenarios like "what happens if the throttle gets stuck" or "what happens if the hood comes unlatched and blocks your view". These days, you have a situation like Toyota's unintended acceleration, where the easiest thing would be to put the car in neutral, but somehow nobody was able to do that.

It does seem like in some ways people have become more passive drivers, waiting for something to happen and then reacting, rather than looking ahead, reading what other drivers are doing, and being proactive about their driving.

So, getting back on topic (a little bit), I think that for some, eliminating extraneous driving related tasks can allow them to focus on more important aspects of driving (improving their awareness), while for others, it just allows them to focus on other, non-driving related distractions, and makes them even less engaged in the driving experience.

What will be really interesting is what happens over the next 20 years as self-driving cars emerge. How will they be programmed (hopefully they'll be better than most of today's drivers about moving out of the fast lane when I come up behind them).

-T

 

[KGrGunMan]

I think situational awareness is key to everything in driving, if you don't know what's going on around you, than you don't know anything. Fundamentally this is what makes a driver a driver and not a passenger.

I often drive my mk1 mr2 and mini coopers tower over me like SUV's, so I've picked up several things from my tiny vehicle brethren. Motorcyclist's always try to make eye contact, many times in my mr2, i've seen people look towards my mr2, but not make eye-contact with me driving it and then proceed to pull into me as if i'm not there.

This is a fun little experiment I like to do while driving: when on the freeway, when you come up to someone going slow in the fast lane that just camps there and never moves right. As you pass them, try to make eye contact with them...no road rage here, just see if you can meet eyes, then look away. My findings are that 90% of them are looking straight ahead, focused on dead in front of them, never moving their eyes from 10 feet off their front bumper. They don't check any mirrors and if you pass them, staring at their face, they'll never notice you, till you get fully in front of them.

Trackaholic, I read your post this morning, but I too have been thinking on this topic and I saw 2 events in real life today, in less than a 12 hour period, that reminded me of this.

Forget about cars, let's just talk about your own personal situational awareness of your own body. I went to 7-11 today, there was a woman standing still, waiting her turn in line to pay, however she was standing in the middle of the aisle, not to one side. A man was very slowly side stepping down the aisle, looking at what was on one side of it; he found what he wanted and paused with his shoulder less than 1in from this womans head for 20-30sec, neither realizing the other was there, then slowly bumped into her....no situational awareness of their own bodies, piloting a machine takes things to another level.

Tonight I went to dinner and watched a waitress, someone who'd i'd personally assume while carrying drinks on a tray, would have more situational awareness than your average person, almost bumped into the same person and almost spilled her tray twice in a 30sec. period, while the other person stood still.

Situational awareness is simply the bare base essentials to driving, it shouldn't be what separates the good from the bad, it's what separates those who should from those who should not be driving.

 

[Tim Hilliard]

I think situational awareness is key to everything in driving, if you don't know what's going on around you, than you don't know anything. Fundamentally this is what makes a driver a driver and not a passenger.

I often drive my mk1 mr2 and mini coopers tower over me like SUV's, so I've picked up several things from my tiny vehicle brethren. Motorcyclist's always try to make eye contact, many times in my mr2, i've seen people look towards my mr2, but not make eye-contact with me driving it and then proceed to pull into me as if i'm not there.

This is a fun little experiment I like to do while driving: when on the freeway, when you come up to someone going slow in the fast lane that just camps there and never moves right. As you pass them, try to make eye contact with them...no road rage here, just see if you can meet eyes, then look away. My findings are that 90% of them are looking straight ahead, focused on dead in front of them, never moving their eyes from 10 feet off their front bumper. They don't check any mirrors and if you pass them, staring at their face, they'll never notice you, till you get fully in front of them.

Trackaholic, I read your post this morning, but I too have been thinking on this topic and I saw 2 events in real life today, in less than a 12 hour period, that reminded me of this.

Forget about cars, let's just talk about your own personal situational awareness of your own body. I went to 7-11 today, there was a woman standing still, waiting her turn in line to pay, however she was standing in the middle of the aisle, not to one side. A man was very slowly side stepping down the aisle, looking at what was on one side of it; he found what he wanted and paused with his shoulder less than 1in from this womans head for 20-30sec, neither realizing the other was there, then slowly bumped into her....no situational awareness of their own bodies, piloting a machine takes things to another level.

Tonight I went to dinner and watched a waitress, someone who'd i'd personally assume while carrying drinks on a tray, would have more situational awareness than your average person, almost bumped into the same person and almost spilled her tray twice in a 30sec. period, while the other person stood still.

Situational awareness is simply the bare base essentials to driving, it shouldn't be what separates the good from the bad, it's what separates those who should from those who should not be driving.

Exactly, our society has become a society of sloths. You describe it perfectly, everyone is operating in they're own little bubble, just walk in a crowd of people today, no one has any urgency, or planned route to a destination, we just seem to slide a long the ground in an semi-orbital pattern. Highway driving....don't get me started.

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