A guide to smooth shifting for your Si, Sports, or other Civic manual

amirza786

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I thought I would write this up seeing as there are a lot of posts on people having issues with 1st to 2nd gear shifts, as well as 3rd to 4th. Many are complaining that is not smooth, crunchy, and some are even experiencing gear lockout. Before I get into how to deal with these issues, just some background on myself.

I am 51 years old, and drove nothing but manuals throughout the 80's and part of the 90"s. I learned on a VW Dasher, moved on to two VW Rabbits and a GTi, drove my dad's VW Vanagon occasionally (4 speed manual). Finally being sick of the mechanical issues of VW, in 1995 I bought my first Toyota, a 5 speed Corolla LE and never experienced mechanical issues since. I got married in 97 and in 99 I bought a Camry and left the world of MT behind, (the wife can't drive manual), owning 6 trouble free Toyotas until 2018, when I bought my first Honda. So there you go.

Now before I move on, there are a few things I would recommend, in fact in my humble opinion at least one of these items is pretty much mandatory:

Change out that junk OEM MT fluid for Amsoil Synchromesh. I have a pretty extensive thread on this so I won't go into to much detail. I will just briefly mention that it not only smooths out shifting, helps with the 2nd gear lockout, but makes this transmission smooth, the way it should be, and makes this car pleasurable to drive

Invest in an Acuity Shifter Rocker Upgrade. It basically replaces the OEM plastic shifter rocker with an machined aluminum shift rocker, making the shift gates tighter and closer together. It does not eliminate the notchiness, but makes overall shifting smoother, brings the gears closer together and will last much longer than the plastic rocker Honda installed. At $70 it's an inexpensive upgrade, of course you will have to tear apart your center console to install, so if you want to install any other acuity upgrades, this would be the time to do it

Honda Civic 10th gen A guide to smooth shifting for your Si, Sports, or other Civic manual IMG_20190802_082534


Honda Civic 10th gen A guide to smooth shifting for your Si, Sports, or other Civic manual IMG_20190802_082558


Now that I got these prerequisites out of the way, let's move on. First of all I want to mention that although I have the TSP Stage 1 tune, I do have Rev hang enabled. With Rev hang disabled I felt the car was way to jerky between shifts, as the RPM drop is to rapid. In my opinion, it drives way better with Rev hang enabled. Also, Rev hang does not interfere with shifting, it is more of a mental block that causes people to delay the shift which leads to messed up shifting, but once you get over this, you will find that you can shift at any RPM with no problems.

The first thing we have to realize about this car is that it has a synchronizer. I don't want to get into technical details about this, but in a nutshell it lines up the gears properly so they don't grind. If we do not allow the synchronizers the chance to line up the gears, that is where we get the grinds and gear locks. It will take some practice, but if you shift properly, you can do so at any RPM, even near redline. The best way to shift from 1st to 2nd is to give about a .2 to .5 second delay before going into gear. Don't yank the gears from 1st to 2nd, but more pull it into neutral, give it the .2 second delay, than shift into second. This works well even when "power shifting". It is really hard to explain, I might post a video on it, which would probably demonstrate this much better.

This technique also works shifting from 3rd to 4th and 5th to 6th. Another thing I find very helpful is shifting after 3000 rpm (I usually shift around 3500 or so). For those worried about fuel economy, as long as you are not going into to boost, fuel economy is not really affected. I have been able to maintain an average of about 27 mpg street driving. By doing this you are able to keep everything smooth and maintain the powerband, and prevent engine lugging, which actually puts a lot of strain on our engines.

One thing I can tell you, by following the above advice, your shifts will be smooth, you will experience much less notchiness and grindings and gear lockouts will disappear, and you will enjoy what this car actually has to offer. If anyone else has any advice they would like to share, please feel free to weigh in
 
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amirza786

amirza786

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Great write up but in my opinion the only mandatory thing to achieve smooth shifting is practice.
Agreed, but the other two options (especially the Amsoil) makes things a thousand times smoother
 

PowerPerLiter

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Awesome thread. I will be doing these later on in the cars life when I feel like slop is starting with the stock stuff.

I will add to this the quality of calibration affects shifting as well....probably more than it ever really should. But I am telling you small differences with my experimenting over the past 1.5 yrs has shown me DRASTIC differences in shift quality as well as clutch engagement.

I truly believe this is why the extreme difference in opinions that are out there about the shift quality.
 

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I’ve had my Si since April, it only has 2500 miles on it and I don’t even notice the rev hang any more. I drive it normally and I shift slow. Not really slow, but I don’t shift fast. It might actually take 1-2 seconds to shift. I have no grinding, no notchyness (not even a word lol), no nothing, just a smooth shift. I believe to many people think they’re driving a race car and it’s not performing like they think it should.

I am going to disagree on your shifter comment. Coming from a 2003 manual to a 2019 manual, the shifting is very short. Adding something to shorten it up further will just create problems for people who aren’t as experienced as some of us. When I first got this car, even I was having issues going from 5th to 6th gear. I was coming back down to 4th. So by adding an even shorter throw, I’m sure people could accidentally go from 3rd to 2nd instead of 4th. There are many videos with people racing with this happening. Even going from 2nd back to 1st.
 


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amirza786

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I’ve had my Si since April, it only has 2500 miles on it and I don’t even notice the rev hang any more. I drive it normally and I shift slow. Not really slow, but I don’t shift fast. It might actually take 1-2 seconds to shift. I have no grinding, no notchyness (not even a word lol), no nothing, just a smooth shift. I believe to many people think they’re driving a race car and it’s not performing like they think it should.

I am going to disagree on your shifter comment. Coming from a 2003 manual to a 2019 manual, the shifting is very short. Adding something to shorten it up further will just create problems for people who aren’t as experienced as some of us. When I first got this car, even I was having issues going from 5th to 6th gear. I was coming back down to 4th. So by adding an even shorter throw, I’m sure people could accidentally go from 3rd to 2nd instead of 4th. There are many videos with people racing with this happening. Even going from 2nd back to 1st.
The secret to the 5th gear issue you mentioned is to push the gear all the way to right and not worry about it going into reverse by accident
 

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So basically modify the shift setup and change up OEM fluid to insure great shifts...

Lol, glad others have trouble, for me it’s just be numb clutch feel. I need to get a rear motor mount someone said that helps.
 

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So basically modify the shift setup and change up OEM fluid to insure great shifts...

Lol, glad others have trouble, for me it’s just be numb clutch feel. I need to get a rear motor mount someone said that helps.
 

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I've had great results just adjusting the CMC rod a bit. Such a small adjustment had an impressively large positive impact on my shifting experience. Not taking anything from your suggestions but simply adding another.

I can now shift from 1st to 2nd as fast as I want.
Having siad that, I still plan on dumping the OEM fluid in favor of amsoil.
 


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amirza786

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I've had great results just adjusting the CMC rod a bit. Such a small adjustment had an impressively large positive impact on my shifting experience. Not taking anything from your suggestions but simply adding another.

I can now shift from 1st to 2nd as fast as I want.
As I understand, the shifting experience with the CTR and Si are a little different, with the CTR having a slightly harder clutch feel. As far as messing with stock adjustments, I'm not very comfortable with doing that. Anyway one of the biggest issues with shifting in the Si is not allowing the synchronizers to do their job
 

krees

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As I understand, the shifting experience with the CTR and Si are a little different, with the CTR having a slightly harder clutch feel. As far as messing with stock adjustments, I'm not very comfortable with doing that. Anyway one of the biggest issues with shifting in the Si is not allowing the synchronizers to do their job
Understood and agreed. I experienced very similar issues with my 17si as I was with the 18r (granted the overall experience is still different) so I thought they might share similar root causes. Either way, great suggestions.
 
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amirza786

amirza786

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Understood and agreed. I experienced very similar issues with my 17si as I was with the 18r (granted the overall experience is still different) so I thought they might share similar root causes. Either way, great suggestions.
You may want to consider also changing out the OEM MT fluid in your CTR for Amsoil Synchromesh, I've seen a few youtube videos where it made a difference in transmission and shifting quality
 

krees

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You may want to consider also changing out the OEM MT fluid in your CTR for Amsoil Synchromesh, I've seen a few youtube videos where it made a difference in transmission and shifting quality
Yeah, I updated/added that to my original reply since I totally intend on doing that.
 

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Nice writeup! I am curious if you tried the throttle padding options on the KTuner after disabling Rev Hang? Did you still not like the driving experience after trying the padding options? Thanks!
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