Shifting gears
Thread Starter
Team Owner
Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 26,394
Likes: 482
From: Ontario
Shifting gears
OK it’s a slow day down here in the 30c endless days and I tuned up the bike because the gears were grungy and while doing that I got to thinking about the old days of racing and gear shifts. My first recollection of that was at Zaanvoort in 67 and the GP race. I was amazed at how fast the drivers made the shifts, not at alike my Pops shifts. It was as though they didn’t use the clutch at all. hint:: they didn’t. In later years while driving a truck I learned how to shift up and down without clutching and with some practice got pretty good at it.
Back in the day many race cars used Hewland gearboxes and I only recently discovered that his business got started by a request from a racing team that was looking for a light easy to change ratio gearbox. The choice for that was the VW magnesium box which was fitted with non synchro square cut gears with four locking dogs. It’s those dogs that allows up shifts with only a slight and momentary lift on the throttle without clutching similar are downshifts and rev matching in neutral. That how the drivers made those blindingly fast shifts.
It’s not as easy in a modern road car because of the synchros but still simple enough and can be done smoothly. I don’t do it in the Boxster but shift the Jeep without clutching all the time. Here’s a link to a discussion on the subject and I wonder about others experiences.
https://www.apexspeed.com/forums/sho...t-Foot-braking
Back in the day many race cars used Hewland gearboxes and I only recently discovered that his business got started by a request from a racing team that was looking for a light easy to change ratio gearbox. The choice for that was the VW magnesium box which was fitted with non synchro square cut gears with four locking dogs. It’s those dogs that allows up shifts with only a slight and momentary lift on the throttle without clutching similar are downshifts and rev matching in neutral. That how the drivers made those blindingly fast shifts.
It’s not as easy in a modern road car because of the synchros but still simple enough and can be done smoothly. I don’t do it in the Boxster but shift the Jeep without clutching all the time. Here’s a link to a discussion on the subject and I wonder about others experiences.
https://www.apexspeed.com/forums/sho...t-Foot-braking
Pro
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 675
Likes: 20
From: Etobicoke
Back in my younger days had the clutch cable on a 69 Bug snap while in rush hour traffic on the DVP. Hobbled home shifting gears as best as possible given intermittent stop and go conditions. Also had a more recent clutch linkage failure on a 2003 Jetta up in Huntsville. Made it home just fine. Most recent was with the 911 about 3 years ago. Luckily only a few miles from home, but my prior experiences proved valuable.
Rennlist Member
Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 7,011
Likes: 690
I've actually been thinking when/if my GT2 ever needs a transaxle rebuild, to go with dogs...the way it wants to be driven...
… and actually for early Porsche guys, if you're driving a 901/915 gearbox right you probably can drive clutchless very well too..
… and actually for early Porsche guys, if you're driving a 901/915 gearbox right you probably can drive clutchless very well too..