geeeek
Senior Member
- First Name
- Daniel
- Joined
- May 2, 2018
- Threads
- 25
- Messages
- 406
- Reaction score
- 388
- Location
- Los Angeles, CA
- Vehicle(s)
- Black Civic Hatch Sport 6MT
- Thread starter
- #1
Hey guys, I've been mostly a lurker here for the past year. I got the '19 black hatchback sport this past saturday, may 18. Just thought I'd share my quick experience as a complete newcomer to manual transmission cars (but my family's '18 base elantra slapstick mode was totally legit though).
I spent all weekend practicing since I take the 110 south freeway to work on monday lol. So a lot of first gear starts and then some 1-2 shifts to learn the clutch bite point first.
That 1-2 shift.. I live in LA so there's a lot of that happening. I want to be able to match general traffic while avoiding getting rear ended during the 1-2 by those who mash the gas on green lights, so I've gotten into the habit of slowly engaging the clutch as soon as I select 2nd. I don't wait for rpm to drop, instead I let the inertia of the rev hang and flywheel accelerate me with slight throttle to keep rpm from dropping too much during clutch out. A lot of slipping but I feel like it's the only way to have smooth acceleration and also just smooth shifts in general for regular driving. Not sure if that's normal and I've just watched FF too many times.
About downshifting, man it's hard to get the blip right. I can feel the inertia of the flywheel and either it doesn't move at all or I stab the throttle too hard and wait half a second for it to come down. A lot of times I find myself double blipping and taking forever to shift lol. The heavy flywheel sounds awesome in the cabin, I thought I wouldn't like it because it doesn't have that quick whip feeling but it's something I love hearing every time. Also it's super forgiving during my noob shifts.
I love brake hold, I turn it on every time I stop on an incline with a car stuck to my rear bumper. I try to avoid using it for better practice but unfortunately sometimes a car is just right there behind me.
I'm still scared of 6th gear on the freeway because I'm never it in for more than 30 sec and I can't heeltoe let alone downshift quickly enough for potential potato traffic. Still iffy on those situations where I decelerate hard but am still rolling after, I'm confident in going from neutral to second at around 15-20mph but not higher gears at higher speeds.
Most of these things are observations centered around the anti shift triforce that I see complaints about on the forum (rev hang, heavy flywheel, cdv). I have no frame of reference to compare my experience to so I'm pretty much happy to learn how to drive this car, although I'd still like to remove the cdv eventually. If I could have another car I think ideally in my head it would be an rsx type s.
Overall I love driving this car and I keep finding reasons to go out for a drive, I just got back from buying milk 2.5 miles away when there's a liquor store a block away from me.
edit:
Another thing that's great is the increased low end torque, in the elantra I never ever wanted to be below 3k because it felt like pressing a limp gas pedal, but then again I haven't really been able to drive this car more spiritedly because I'm still super focused on shifting right
here's some pics
I spent all weekend practicing since I take the 110 south freeway to work on monday lol. So a lot of first gear starts and then some 1-2 shifts to learn the clutch bite point first.
That 1-2 shift.. I live in LA so there's a lot of that happening. I want to be able to match general traffic while avoiding getting rear ended during the 1-2 by those who mash the gas on green lights, so I've gotten into the habit of slowly engaging the clutch as soon as I select 2nd. I don't wait for rpm to drop, instead I let the inertia of the rev hang and flywheel accelerate me with slight throttle to keep rpm from dropping too much during clutch out. A lot of slipping but I feel like it's the only way to have smooth acceleration and also just smooth shifts in general for regular driving. Not sure if that's normal and I've just watched FF too many times.
About downshifting, man it's hard to get the blip right. I can feel the inertia of the flywheel and either it doesn't move at all or I stab the throttle too hard and wait half a second for it to come down. A lot of times I find myself double blipping and taking forever to shift lol. The heavy flywheel sounds awesome in the cabin, I thought I wouldn't like it because it doesn't have that quick whip feeling but it's something I love hearing every time. Also it's super forgiving during my noob shifts.
I love brake hold, I turn it on every time I stop on an incline with a car stuck to my rear bumper. I try to avoid using it for better practice but unfortunately sometimes a car is just right there behind me.
I'm still scared of 6th gear on the freeway because I'm never it in for more than 30 sec and I can't heeltoe let alone downshift quickly enough for potential potato traffic. Still iffy on those situations where I decelerate hard but am still rolling after, I'm confident in going from neutral to second at around 15-20mph but not higher gears at higher speeds.
Most of these things are observations centered around the anti shift triforce that I see complaints about on the forum (rev hang, heavy flywheel, cdv). I have no frame of reference to compare my experience to so I'm pretty much happy to learn how to drive this car, although I'd still like to remove the cdv eventually. If I could have another car I think ideally in my head it would be an rsx type s.
Overall I love driving this car and I keep finding reasons to go out for a drive, I just got back from buying milk 2.5 miles away when there's a liquor store a block away from me.
edit:
Another thing that's great is the increased low end torque, in the elantra I never ever wanted to be below 3k because it felt like pressing a limp gas pedal, but then again I haven't really been able to drive this car more spiritedly because I'm still super focused on shifting right
here's some pics
Last edited: