We’ll Im still in the beginner stages of learning, but I was just wondering how did you guys learn? Lessons? Family Friend? By Yourself?
I’m learning with a friend of my parents, cause I finally wanna get it down pat.
Drive.
Initially my dad taught me in some back roads of the city where there are no people. After I got the hang of it. I just drove it around the city all night long. lol.
I always suggest learning with your right foot upclose to you away from the gas. Learn to modulate the clutch to get the car moving, without the gas. This will be helpful, for all the rest of the gears. Use a parking lot and do this about 10 times, or till you get the hang of it. Then you’ll have no trouble in traffic.
WHen you finially make the decision to dump your girlfriend ask to borrow hers or her parrents to learn, then leave her after you’ve either got the hang of it or trashed her tranny, ps try not to nock her up during the last week, cause that just defeats the purpose, and for those of us that are real playas, use her car to take out her best friend and hook up!
No girlfriend?
thats easy too, call up a friend with a manual and take him out and get him drunk, then do the “nice” thing and drive his car home for him, if he is really drunk he probably wont remeber how he got home, and all it cost you was beer money and a cab ride home from his place. again for tha playas, take him and his woman out, at the end of the night drop him off 1st, then “park” the car at her place! :pimp:
No friends?
Not a problem, if you have no gf or friends, then your probably a real big assole, so go to your local dealership and ask for a test drive, now once you start to drive the dealer will probably freak, but this is where you being an assole comes in… keep driving!!. gangstas will leave befor the dealer gets in, OG’s run him down as they leave
my god he has the answer for everything
Ya know that GT game at the arcade?? LOL j/k
I learned the hardway, I bought my 88 GTA from my uncle, that was a 5sp and when he bought his car somewhere in winterburn or something, he threw me the keys to my car and said see ya later!! I said I don’t know how to drive a 5spd, he said well ya bought one!! lol It comes natural after a bit!!
But I also agree with Charles!! LOL
I agree with Jared. Try for the first hours to get the car moving not using the gas at all. Go to first then second then third. You will stall a few times but it will teach you to feather the throttle and clutch. All i did was the first day i got my liscence i took my dad’s car out when he was out of town. Just do not stop on any busy hills for a while and take the long way to work, that means hit lots of lights and don’t use whitemud or any freeway.
Yeah, and try to learn how to rev match as soon as you can - it reduces the herky jerky motion of the car when you downshift.
With rev matching, what you’re trying to do is get the engine speed up to what it will be after you let the clutch out and complete the down shift.
You can do this in a parking lot, go from 2nd to 1st because that’s often the hardest one to match up properly.
To do it, accelerate up to some speed. When you’re ready to do the downshift, push the clutch in, and then press the gas pedal to rev up the motor a little bit - This is called “blipping” the gas. With the clutch disengaged, the motor will rev freely so there is no need to go crazy with the throttle. When the engine is revved up to a certain point that you’ll have to find through trial and error, let the clutch out relatively quickly without popping it.
If you do it right, the engagement should be smooth - almost like an automatic. Rev matching is far easier on the car than downshifting and letting the engine speed up the clutch. Once you get this technique mastered, you can move on to heel/toe braking.
Anyway, don’t get discouraged at it - keep practicing. I’ve had my car for almost a year and I don’t get all of them perfect, but in time when you get to know your car you’ll be in good shape! 
:rolleyes: I ended up learning standard by just going out and buying one hell of a beater and driving it home without any experience other than, clutch in and move from 1-5 lmao… All the stalling on the way home…
I drive around quite a bit so it took me about a week to get it down pat and not stalling my car anymore. :E Video games actually ended up teaching me something…kind of…
As for downshifting, I was always under the impression that you should NEVER downshift into first. I thought that first gear was only meant to get the car moving so you could slowly accelerate it upwards. I also thought that it was bad to rev the car when the clutch was down so I avoided this as much as I could.
My Downshifting:
- Ease onto brake (Hold this for the entire time)
- Clutch In and shift to Neutral
- Clutch Out
- Blip the Gas (Revmatching)
- Clutch In and shift to lower gear
- Clutch Out and if you did it right it should be a smooth downshift
All of that seems like a lot in the beginning, but as you do it more it’ll become second nature. To me, it wouldn’t take more than a split second to get all of those actions in, but then again it took me a whole lot of driving it get it down pat.
What you’re doing is called double declutching or double downshifting. It’s really not necessary on modern cars that have synchros in the transmission, as the synchros do the job of matching the speed so you don’t grind the gear trying to get it in.
With the old cars that wern’t equipped with synchros, the drivers had to double declutch in order to get the gears lined up properly at the right speed to make a smooth transition into the gear position and then to also engage the gear itself.
And you’re right, normally you aren’t supposed to downshift into first - first gear is to get you moving. However, downshifting to 1st becomes necessary when you’re in bumper to bumper traffic, and since the ratios are normally differently spaced between 1st and 2nd compared to the other gears and thus more difficult to match, I thought he might as well learn that one first. Plus, if anything goes wrong he won’t be going fast enough to worry about hitting anything or losing control of the car.
Does me learning from a video game count? lol
Here’s what you do:
1.Rev the engine up to 4-5000 rpm
2.clutch in quickly
3.shift into first
4.then let the clutch pedal out REALLY quickly
Stay on the gas pedal the whole time though.
It’s really easy and fun. 
now thats just mean.
Just go out and drive, Another helpful thing is to watch someone who can drive one do it on your car.
My dad stopped at a busy 3 way stop. Jumped out and told me to get in the driver’s seat. There was traffic backing up in all 3 directions while I ran around the car, so I just jumped in, revved it up and dumped the clutch. Didn’t stall once that day, that’s partially contributed to having a dirtbike and knowing how to slip the clutch on that.
This is the way I do it, since it rev matches both the layshaft and the engine speed to the transmission speed. Double clutch actually also makes it ten times easier to get into 1st gear when u need to downshift into 1st gear. If I tried to downshift into 1st, the way PyreXXX describes, my synchros would never let me and all I’d hear is some grinding dogteeth
Another great way to learn is mechanicly.
If you know how it works the nyou will know hwo to drive it with very little effort.
now thats just mean.
Just go out and drive, Another helpful thing is to watch someone who can drive one do it on your car.[/quote]
How is that mean? :roll: I’m sorry you take things so seriously…
ok, I seriously can’t drive standard like I used too and I need to learn FAST, I stalled all the standard transmission cars (mostly the Focuses, wow the ST hauls ass but its still a Focus) like 50 freaking times! Can someone teach me? I’ll buy them lunch/dinner
Come to the NECC meet and I’ll let you use my car for practice.
The shifter is fairly clunky, but the huge torque means that it’s super easy to launch. I think the whole time I’ve owned it I’ve stalled it twice.