Learning to drive stick? Advice.

[azygoustoyou]

Not to discourage anyone,
I tried to teach my ex-wife how to drive a stick shift using both feet right off. She had the car jumping around. She blew my clutch up. The shop said they never saw a clutch come in like that before. I wasn't laughing at the time. It was a new car which was a turbo. It also was front wheel drive.
Thankfully it was covered under the warranty.

[124JOE]

very goog advice there guys

heres one more
never never never stop without the clutch in all the way
or in neutral.joe

[pastaroni34]

Wow, I guess I do things differently for teaching people this..

Start the car, put it in gear, foot on the brake, and let out the clutch and stall it. Do this a couple of times. This is the worst that can happen. Now you know and it will ease your nerves. You've experienced the worst, now you can only get better from here.

Now you can slowly let out the clutch be able to feel the engine start to stall, learn how to recover by pushing in the clutch and letting the engine regain idle. This will teach you when and how the clutch engages.

Once you've got that, cruise around in first gear a bit. Then changing gears is all that is left.

If you're blowing up clutches just doing this, there's something else wrong. Now if you're revving it up and letting out the clutch, that's a different story.

[Spiddy]

Once you've mastered all of the above, you can then move on to "heel and toe" and "left foot braking". Both are for getting round corners fast. Heel and toe is the right foot operating your gas and brake peddles at the same time, whilst your left foot is pumping the clutch and your right hand is changing gear and your left hand is gripping the steering. It's all done very quickly and is primarily for setting the car up when entering a sharp bend and is extensively used in rallying. Your rear-wheel drive is perfect for this.

Left foot braking is better for front weel drive. Both techniques take a lot of practice, but once mastered, boy, can you have fun

[azygoustoyou]

Wow, I guess I do things differently for teaching people this..

Start the car, put it in gear, foot on the brake, and let out the clutch and stall it. Do this a couple of times. This is the worst that can happen. Now you know and it will ease your nerves. You've experienced the worst, now you can only get better from here.

Now you can slowly let out the clutch be able to feel the engine start to stall, learn how to recover by pushing in the clutch and letting the engine regain idle. This will teach you when and how the clutch engages.

Once you've got that, cruise around in first gear a bit. Then changing gears is all that is left.

If you're blowing up clutches just doing this, there's something else wrong. Now if you're revving it up and letting out the clutch, that's a different story.

I like this idea to show the worst. The ex had the car jumping to the side several times. I didn't think she'd hurt the car. She just couldn't get a little gas.

[baltobernie]

I agree with this technique. The Spider has such a low first gear that it should pull away on level ground with no throttle. Most noobs use too much throttle. This exercise eliminates that.

[Kingme2]

lol... made me remember my first (all me) car when I was 18.

I'd quickly learned to drive stick in the Datson 510 we'd group purchased (mentioned earlier in this thread). Wanted a Fiat X-19, but there was only a "1974 Fiat Spider" in the newspaper classifieds (kids, this is before they invented INTERNET ). Couldn't even Google it to see what a Spider was (see internet comment)

I had no idea what a "Spider" was but went to take a look. Didn't have the pointy angles of the X-19, but "I guess" I was interested. Owner gave me the keys, told me to take it for a spin.

Our group-Datsun had NO GUTS, so even though it weighed niothing, you had to give it LOTS of gas to get it started moving... Hopped into the Spider, clutch out, gas IN.... left the owner standing there with road pebbles falling all around him...

Bought it, loved it... miss it.

[kuchman69]

My suggestion is, find a level parking lot.
start by getting a feel for the friction point (the point where the car starts to move when you release the clutch)
just release the clutch to the point where it begins to move and step back down on it immediately--you don't want to hold it in that spot for very long...that's how a clutch will get burned.
do this a few times to get a feel for where the friction point is.

then, start doing this in reverse gear (just make sure behind you is clear) but now let the clutch out all the way.... don't bother pressing the gas just yet.
since reverse is such a high gear ratio, it's almost impossible to stall it even without pressing on the accelerator.
Give this some practice to get familiar with how to release the clutch.

just remember that when you want to stop, step on the clutch same time as you step on the brake.

once you have this mastered, do the same in forward and practice applying a little bit of gas as the clutch is being released.

I've successfully taught 3 people, including my wife using this technique. (talk about a test of my patience though )

Shifting up through the gears is a matter of perfecting the timing of clutch in, shift, clutch out. With practice, you can be smooth as silk and will soon wonder why everyone is so intimidated by this when first faced with it.

Good luck.