[zts1986]

What a car to learn on. I learned how to drive stick on a new car as well...a 2002 PT Cruiser!

Welcome to the club. It'll take some time, but with a ton of practice and daily use it'll become second nature.

[SSDan]

If you don't want to hit the skip shift and don't want to put in the eliminator - you can drive around it. The feature only engages on a warm engine and only when you start out in first gear. It locks out between 15-19 mph. So, either shift early or do what I do which is to never shift until I hit 20 mph. Note: the display message has a delay before it goes out but above 20 mph it will not lock you out of second gear.


Enjoy - and as others have said - seat time and practice is all you need.

[anwaar404]

Originally Posted by Airfuel

In traffic you don’t have to clutch all the time. That wears on you and the clutch. Do like truckers do, coast in gear and leave space in front to basically just idle in traffic at 5 mph or so. Yes you do have to stop sometimes but that is the nature of the beast.

I actually do this already. Once i figured out that the car slows it self down in gear and don't necessarily have to be on the break I guess its just the fact that I'm hitting the clutch more than usual so it feels wrong sometimes.

[anwaar404]

Originally Posted by SSDan

If you don't want to hit the skip shift and don't want to put in the eliminator - you can drive around it. The feature only engages on a warm engine and only when you start out in first gear. It locks out between 15-19 mph. So, either shift early or do what I do which is to never shift until I hit 20 mph. Note: the display message has a delay before it goes out but above 20 mph it will not lock you out of second gear.


Enjoy - and as others have said - seat time and practice is all you need.

This makes so much sense. I will def experiment with this going forward before trying the eliminator

[Azerlazer26]

Don’t have the M6 trans but I do know that they have a unique feature called no-lift shift. Not 100% sure how it works. Hopefully one of the M6 drivers here can explain how it works. To my knowledge, if your foot down to the floor and have your RPM’s hanging high you don’t need to lift you foot off the gas while shifting! Pretty cool feature imo

[Wyzz Kydd]

A few thoughts.

One, I think I might have seen you on I75 a few days ago. The car looks familiar and I live a couple of exits north of AMS.

Two, why not just use the rev match feature? I've been driving MT cars and motorcycles since the mid 70s and I leave rev match on anytime I'm driving the car. There's no advantage to doing it yourself.

Three, Airfuel has it right, coast in gear and leave a little space so you don't have to constantly be shifting out of gear to neutral.

Four No lift shift and launch control are similar in function. Go to WOT and stay there, shift as needed, no need to let of the throttle when you shift. For my 1LE I believe it holds RPMs at 5,000 when I do that.

Five Use Waze and watch out for Locust Grove PD if you're going south on I75.

[CamaroChriSS]

Originally Posted by Azerlazer26

Don’t have the M6 trans but I do know that they have a unique feature called no-lift shift. Not 100% sure how it works. Hopefully one of the M6 drivers here can explain how it works. To my knowledge, if your foot down to the floor and have your RPM’s hanging high you don’t need to lift you foot off the gas while shifting! Pretty cool feature imo

I’ve got no lift shift but honestly have never even attempted to use it. Clutch/gas operation is so ingrained in my muscle memory that I’m not even sure I could comfortably try it.

[enzia35]

Same as how you get to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice.

[DexterBerkeley]

Originally Posted by CamaroChriSS

I’ve got no lift shift but honestly have never even attempted to use it. Clutch/gas operation is so ingrained in my muscle memory that I’m not even sure I could comfortably try it.

I used it for the first time today on a on-ramp from 2nd-3rd (and then eased up on the gas right after). I did have to really think about keeping my foot on the gas to your point, it's ingrained. It's a interesting feature but it felt like it was doing some quite violent things to the drivetrain which bothers me from a mechanical sympathy point of view. I'm not saying the car can't take it, just feels like I should be kinder to the transmission and diff.

[CrazyCatGuy]

#1: Either rev out first gear until you hit 18-19 MPH and then shift, or if you don't want to do that, just slap the gear selector back towards second after it's in center neutral and it will let you go in to second. As others have mentioned, you can also go in to third, but I haven't had any reason to buy the skip shift eliminator since I always rev out to about 20MPH in first.

#2. Learn to heel toe or just blip the throttle when downshifting and it won't be so bad. Honestly though, I love the rev match as it makes the downshifting way smoother than I could ever do. Even seems to have a little rev hang for when you're up shifting, but that might just be in my head.

[Need4Camaro]

So I'm no pro at driving a manual. I have to say, Atlanta... not a forgiving place to learn to drive a stick. Impatient drivers all expecting a 0.00001 reaction time when the light turns green and tons of hills...

I actually recently drove a friends ZL1 M6 from Columbus Ohio to Houston TX (briefly stopping in Atlanta) where I've only been involved with touching a stick a few times here and there. I pretty much had to relearn on the fly. I watched a few YouTube videos before I flew out there to get an idea how to manage the clutch to avoid stalling and for the most part it helped.

Soooo some things that helped me from a dig is applying light throttle, gradually increasing before starting to let up off the clutch...and when you let up off the clutch dont just release it...slowly and gradually lift from it while feeling the car and listening to the engine to determine how ready it is to be fully released. In Ohio and Kentucky my shifts were hard with a CLUNK... in Tennesee they were softening up... in Georgia it was almost seamless.. then did Atlanta rush hour. At first I thought I was going to really mess up but it turned out to be pretty simple..leave space, hold gears for as long as possible... I did kind of ride the clutch alot here and there because I was afraid of stalling but by the time I got to Houston... it felt EXTREMELY awkward getting back into my SS and not shifting in the auto.

[Frankie18SS]

First off, congrats on the new car and congrats for making the leap to a stick!

If you're gonna have these cars, you might as well have the fun transmission to go along with it!

#1. Skip shift sucks. An eliminator is just so much better.

#2. I've always suggested something to new clutch drivers that seems to work well. Sit in your driveway and practice blipping the throttle. After a little while, you get a feel for how hard to push it and how long the engine takes to respond. Set a target like 1500 rpms and practice hitting exactly 1500 consistently. You want to blip the gas and have the engine rev just until it hits 1500 and come back down. When you can repeat it, target 2000. This is for 2 things. You can use this same blip to match revs when downshifting and it makes taking off from a standstill easier and smoother.

Another thing to keep in mind is your clutch is new and needs a few miles to break in. It's going to be extra grabby at first which makes it a little harder to drive. You'll notice it's also going to smooth out.

Search this site for No Lift shift and it will tell you all about it. Its am awesome feature but I need to practice with it because it still feels foreign to me.

Have fun!!!

[z28pat]

I just got my first manual in 20 years and I’m loving it , practice and you’ll get better in no time, congrats on the new ride !

[anwaar404]

Originally Posted by Wyzz Kydd

A few thoughts.

One, I think I might have seen you on I75 a few days ago. The car looks familiar and I live a couple of exits north of AMS.

Two, why not just use the rev match feature? I've been driving MT cars and motorcycles since the mid 70s and I leave rev match on anytime I'm driving the car. There's no advantage to doing it yourself.

Three, Airfuel has it right, coast in gear and leave a little space so you don't have to constantly be shifting out of gear to neutral.

Four No lift shift and launch control are similar in function. Go to WOT and stay there, shift as needed, no need to let of the throttle when you shift. For my 1LE I believe it holds RPMs at 5,000 when I do that.

Five Use Waze and watch out for Locust Grove PD if you're going south on I75.

You probably did see me lol Im normally on I-75 between 9am-10am or 4pm-6pm; depending on when I feel like dealing with that rush hour. Other than that you can catch me at Magic City wasting time and a few dollas until traffic dies down

But mannn it's just me being stubborn and trying to be a "perfectionist" but when I have Rev Match on my shifting is almost flawless besides when that 1st to 4th shxt happens, it just feels wrong lol..putting more effort into coasting omw home today helped alot so preciate that Airfuel

Once I leave Fulton County, I stay aware of all the cops so im chilling for the most part. I tell people all the time there's a BIG difference between Atlanta and Georgia. Im at the bottom of Clayton County so you know the popo doesnt play out here.