This is a similar vein to the thread which mentioned the top 10 cars to have sex in....but quite different. The Fit ranked no. 5.

Top10: Reasons Real Men Drive Stick - AskMen.com Canada

 

Just found this on YouTube for those who love to shift.

YouTube - Insane Shifting incar

 

lol + rep for a great find

 

Someone needs to do a Top Ten Reasons Girls Should Drive a Stick Shift ;-)

 

Hmmm...they make fun of that infamous "granny shifting" line from The Fast & THe Furious but then they go on to say "Listen to any car mid-drift and you can hear the engine bouncing off the rev-limiter. This noise often means that the car’s engine is in the sweet spot of its powerband, allowing the car to maintain its drift as it powers through the course."

 

Lol I don't think that is insane. Looks like a typical driver drag racing a stick

 

Same reasons girls should play video games!

 

All the more reasons why I'm glad I picked a manual!

 

probably in the minority on this but, while i thoroughly enjoyed rowing my own gears in a s2k and g35, having to do it in a fit would simply annoy me.

 

My wife will soon be 59 years old and wouldn't have a car that had an automatic transmission..... Beware of this type of woman, they have control issues, especially the ones that are small in stature.

 

Outta curiosity why??

 

Yeah.... I find that driving a car with a small high revving engine much more fun to drive using the advantages of a manual transmission the stay on the power band..... Not to mention the loss of power to the wheels suffered with an automatic..... A Fit with automatic transmission and turf tires might make a nice golf cart for a retired person in Arizona.

 

jep, my GD is MT and wouldn't have it any other way. it's fun driving a slower car fast with MT. takes technique to be in the powerband.

 

Now if our cars were equipped with more and closer gears or closer with an in line overdrive imagine how much happier we'd be.

 

I tried heel toeing today and failed.

 

Asians have smaller feet and shorter legs than the average person of European or African extraction..... Get some driving shoes or try driving bare footed.... If the seat would go back further heel toe driving would be easier but then you couldn't reach the steering wheel.

 

Im just having a hard time with the five things at once. (clutch, brake, gas, shift, steer)

 

Yeah heel-and-toe is fun.

It does take some getting used to on GDs because of the relatively poor brake modulation...it's easy to screw up the smoothness of the maneuver under braking. It takes practice to do it smoothly. Just sharing my experience.

If you're new to it, leave the braking out of the equation for now. Try to practice throttle-blipping while downshifting instead.

Say you're in 3rd gear.
1) Disengage clutch (push it in)
2) Move to 2nd
3) Blip the gas pedal a little
4) Re-engage clutch (let it go)

If you do it correctly the downshift will be much smoother than without throttle-blipping.

Now add braking to the equation and you get heel-and-toe:
1) Brake with the ball of your foot and hold it with constant pressure
2) Disengage clutch (push it in)
3) Move to 2nd
4) Blip the gas pedal a little with your heel or the knife-edge of your foot - rotate your ankle to do this
5) Re-engage clutch (let it go) and let go of the brake, while pressing the gas pedal

 

I was doing the heel toe thing 42 years ago in a 62 Austin Healey sitting 4" off of the floor with no power assist on the brakes and a mile of throttle pedal travel..... It was a much better car for that technique than a Fit ...... The throttle spring fix helps a lot.

 

I'll try the first one for bit and then try braking.

The vid was pretty sweet, but writing it out really helps my brain.