Last one (I swear) (archive)

If you are talking about the way we drive when we are just going to the video store, that is a completly different story. In that case, not only do I take my time shifting but I also shift at 3-4K, I only use about half throttle and I make sure that I don't run into the car in front of me. In those circumstances, your acceleration has nothing to do with your transmission, its all about how fast you want to accelerate. Some guy in the lane next to me in an auto 323i may slam the gas and take off while I slowly creep off behind the minivan in my lane. Is his steptronic making him faster? Absolutely not. If I wanted to, I would have smoked him. But I didn't. I have a friend who drives an Acura Integra LS very fast on the street. Whenever he has room he floors it, he always adds 30mph or more over the speed limit. I have another friend who drives a 96 911 Turbo, most of the time he pulls out really slowly and always drives the speed limit + 10mph at most. 99% of the time in the "real world" my friend in the integra is faster. Does this mean an integra LS is faster than a 911 turbo? I won't bother answering that. My point is that you can't compare what you see people doing in general, all you will arrive at is a psychological profile of people such as: Manual/steptronic drivers tend to accelerate slower when they are just cruising around town. Tells you nothing about how fast they can go when they want to. For that we rely on instrumented testing.

Oh and about the step being under acceleration while shifting: maybe, but it makes no difference, I am assuming the same acceleration for a pro or an amateur (8s for 323i) you can break it down however you want, the math still works out. You could even theorize that the shift is instantaneous and in that case the car is actually so power-robbed that it takes a full 8s to do what the manual can do in 6.8s (just an example- not my personal opinion).

One very last thing. Shifting is not in any way comparable to driving. You claim that a "pro driver" in a manual is very different from an average driver in a manual and analogize that to an actual lap on a road course. Not only does the lap on the road course incorporate all the elements of shifting, but there is also weight transfer, threshold braking, heel-and-toeing, trail braking, picking proper entry points, apexes, track out points, proper passing, smooth control inputs, getting feedback from the car and making decisions about it at 100mph. Insinuating that there can be as much difference between a pro shifter and me as there is between an instructor and me on the road course is like telling someone that peeling an orange is as hard as doing a coronary bypass. There is really not that much to master in the art of synchronising two pedal pushes with a very simple hand motion. We are talking straight upshits here anyway. I concede that heel and toe downshifts require a certain finesse and ability, but upshifts? In a staight line? With a 170-193hp car? How do you mess that up?

Rudy

P.S. Can we end this? I havee too much work that I am avoiding right now.

Follow Ups:

Well said Rudy...Amen (nt) 323i 16:41 5/08/2000 (0)

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