Hey, i'm Keith, i'm from the Philly area
I recently got a 97 hx
anyweay, i learned how to drive stick on an 88 fiero (ouch) so the ej felt real nice. i jsut want to make sure i'm working the stick properly.
since i've got the car everyone says "oh your going to burn the clutch real soon" and i dont want to do this... so everytime i come to a stop.. i mean EVERY time i slow down, i throw it into neutral, its just become second nature now, because i try to clutch as little as possible. i dont know if this is good or bad...
i've heard, though, that it is better to downshift before a corner and corner in gear because it gives the tires more traction, is this correct?

 

In general it's better to be in gear through a corner than try to shift through a corner because you can get on the gas right away to get out of the corner and, more importantly, you don't change the attitude of your car by "jarring" it when you shift.

 

Interesting!! lol

anyways.. Everyone has their own feel for driving, play with you car & get comfortable with it. Your not going to burn out the clutch unless your royaly beating the shit out of the car.. & then at that point.. if everything is still stock.. it's still going to take a while to burn up a clutch.

 

haha. man i gotta watch what i say eh?
i love that quote in splash waterfalls by ludacris
"know how to drive stick"

anyway... yeah, im very comfortable with my car, and driving the manual has become second nature. its just the other day some guy was telling me to stay in gear through turns for traction, espcially during the winter. i just want to make sure im not comfortable with a bad habit.. you know?

 

oh yea everytime i go to a red light, i go to neutral and take my foot off the ckutch, and hit the brakes, if the light turns green, i clutch it, shift to 1st, then gas and slowly let off the clutch. a friend of mines always keeps the shifter at 1st, and depresses the clutch all the way everytime hes at a red light. once it turns green, he just gas it and let off the clutch. is that bad for the clutch since the engine is at like 1krpm and your clutch is depressed for a long time?

 

No, when the clutch pedal is in, the friction material is totally disengaged from the flywheel. In neutral, it will be clamped to the flywheel and freewheeling on the input shaft of the transmission. Neither will wear the clutch any faster. What wears the clutch is:

1. Hard high RPM shifting

2. Dropping the clutch when the motor is revved much higher than the engaged gear would anticipate at that RPM. <-- That didn't make a whole lot of sense...

Go to howstuffworks.com and you will understand much better. I read up on brake boosters last night and those things are amazing!

 

Either in or out of gear isn't exactly a bad habit...you can get into traction trouble on slick roads either way (just imagine if you gunned it while in gear and going though a turn).

Your friend's leg must be pretty tired at the end of each light