We aren’t talking about power… if I wanted the most power out of my setup, I would run the driveshaft off of the crank and eliminate all gears, and all slop. Or I would just put wheels directly on the crank and eliminate the u-joints and the differential.
And it isn’t a lot more power… that is completely dependant on who built your tranny, and for what purpose…stall, line pressure, clutches… and so on.
You can get Centerforce clutch A with your T5 and get a completely different time at the track than you would with clutch B. If you run the DR class… you don’t want 100% tq @ at the 3rd yellow… you want them to spin once or 2x then hook and go. If you have 500+ lbs of TQ and you just pop the clutch, you aren’t going anywhere. Sometimes you want some slip in your clutch… as you would in an auto…
it is completely dependent on the application at hand:
A Noob driver looking to go fast in a straight line
Automatic hands down. Can anyone really debate this?
Don’t forget, you’re comparing fairly stock vehicles, to those with 500+ hp.
With that amount of power, any drivetrain loss is virtually unnoticable.
However, when you take a car like, mine for example.
You’re looking at stock numbers of 150hp/155tq.
And in a case like mine, sure, maybe the auto shifts faster, but the ability to bring the RPMs higher into the powerband, whereas a stock auto shifts at set points, unless overdrive is activated, where I believe it goes a bit higher into the powerband, but unlike a manual you can’t bring it right to the redline before shifting.
Pull the stick all the way past OD and you can “shift” manually… higher than if you just floored it in 3… but you wtill won’t be able to control when it shifts… the computer will only let it rev so high before it tells you no.
Even Neutral is labled in Autos… very easy to rev… from OD click once forward… you don’t even have to press the button on the shifter… rev like mad. If you want to do a burnout when you leave the light hold the gas down, and the click it back into OD… this will do a nice burnout across the intersection. If you want to leave lots of rubber… rev in neutral… put your left foot on the brake… click it all the way back into 1st… leave your left foot on the brake, and push in the gas with your right foot… hold it to the floor. The car will not move but the tires will smoke a lot. When you want to leave… leave your foot on the gas and just release the brake. if you want to leave marks a couple hundred feet long… you have to manipulate the brakes so that you go slow… but also the tires keep spinning. This will definetely impress your friends at school if you do it when everyone is leaving for spring break.
No matter how fast you shift, you still are not accelerating…
but word, when we are talking about the lower HP cars, Manual > Auto due to less drivetrain loss.
The engine management I’ve got for my kaa, the MT guys have NLTS which basically allows you to keep the throttle open (foot on the gas) and push in the clutch at the same time without breaking shit… Best part of an AT is the boost at the line without the turbo damaging Anti-lag…