My friend and I were driving and this came up:
Is it bad to shift from 4th to 2nd gear, skipping 3rd. Or any downshift like that, or upshift for that matter. Cause I was thinking, say when you're going around a 90 degree turn or something, usually I like to be in 2nd gear coming out of turns, but if I'm coming into the turn in 4th... see where I'm going? Do people downshift for turns, and not skip gears, or is it ok to skip gears?

 

Its always best not to, but as long as you are braking enough, and rev-match properly, it should be OK.

 

Downshifting from 4th to 2nd should be all right. Just don't shift from 2nd to 4th. Grinding may/will occur. The word for today is sequential.

 

The second to fourth shift really depends on your exit speed of 2nd, and Rpm engagement of 4th....
and you must double clutch in this situation... (are we talking spirited driving here or am I not getting it ?)

 

i go from like 3rd to 5th all the time... rev match of course

 

he's not talking about rev matching..he just wants to know in general..revmatch or not is skipping gears no good on the tranny?

 

Is it good for the tranny ? Sure ! As long as you don't come out of second at 30mph and go into 4th expecting a nice purring engine..... exit 2nd at 50 + and you can safely go into 4th.... there will not be a reliability issue there ......
but for that matter, if you are going to 50 in 2nd, that's DRIVING the car.... not just cruising.....

 

Going from 4th to 2nd is fine as long as the engine speed never goes past redline. You can double clutch if you want to, or just single clutch. I personally just single clutch simply because double clutching is a really old technique which was meant for old cars with no synchros. But if you're going to single clutch you'll put some wear on the synchros.

 

wat is single/double clutching???

 

pushing the clutch once or twice in order to change gears

 

Yes it's absolutely fine to skip gears either up, or down, when shifting...provided of course that you do it properly and match revs. Heck, you can go from 5th to 1st if you do it properly.

The proper way to downshift is to always brake first and shift second. Using your example, say you're reving at 6000 RPM in fourth (moving along at a good speed obviously) and you want to drop to 2nd. If you shift into 2nd at this point, you will overshoot the rev limiter and your engine will go bye bye. But, if you brake first dropping the speed of your car (and your RPMs) it will then be safe to blip the throttle and put the car in 2nd gear without any problems at all.

Double clutching is an older technique for shifting that was predominantly used before trannys had synchros. It's still used on trucks and in race cars. The double-clutch sequence for downshifting goes like this...starting in gear...clutch in, shift to neutral, clutch out, blip the throttle to rev match, clutch in, shift to lower gear, clutch out.

 

Call me old school, because that is how I downshift ALL the time. It is just so much smoother than just slamming the tranny into the lower gear.

 

I just step on the clutch, shift to a lower gear, blip throttle, and release the clutch. This is what I mean by single clutching.

 

this is the way I do it, but the only time I really do it is when exiting the freeway, at 55-60 mph I go from 5th to 4th. no other time I can think of to need to do it on the streets.

as far as shifting from 2 to 4, or 4 to 2, as long as you are matching the rpm it won't hurt anything more than a normal shift.

often time I will skip third, wait for the engine rpm to slow down to the point where I can shift into 4 without alot of trouble and drop out the clutch.

same with down to 2nd, when turning I always exit in second gear, just match rpms. I don't think I have ever double clutched...