It's difficult to explain but the hill-hold in the Cayman feels grabby and unnatural to me. Normally when you're on a hill, there is a gentle transition between coming off the brake and releasing the clutch. With hill-hold, when you come off the brake with your foot, you get zero movement from the car, then as you initially let off the clutch and the car starts to power you STILL get zero movement. At some point early in the clutch engagement the ECU decides, "Ok, it's time to release the parking brake." Then all of a sudden, the parking brake releases completely with zero modulation and you get this jerky surge of thrust as the car starts to move forward. The first few times the feature activated, I released the clutch too quickly and stalled the car. I'm better with it now, but it still feels very weird to me.

 

My downshifting skill is ok I guess, my heel toe skill is atrocious. Am I embarrassed? No, I just don't come across situations where I need to use it, I don't need to slow down that fast when driving around even spiritedly. My right foot has a tendency of pointing outwards (opposite of pigeon toed, toe out if you will) so doing heel toe in the traditional sense is difficult, and using the side of my foot is just not accurate and somewhat shoe dependent. I have a friend who is a savant at downshifting/heel toe and I envy his skill, but whatever it is what it is. My joy of the manual trans isn't the clutch pedal anyway, it's rowing the gears, it's really the only thing that's lost to me with paddle shifters.
However, as I get older and therefore more mature, I recognize that a good paddle shifter is what I really want, but my caveman auto enthusiast mind says I need a stick. But really, what do I gain other than a skill that impresses no one that will benefit my life, just because I can drive a stick doesnt mean I can drive a semi truck in a walking dead world or any other commercial vehicle, paddle shifters are superior at the track and what it gives up in "fun" it more than makes up with daily driveability. I hate driving stick in traffic, and anyone who says they like it or doesn't mind it is delusional or doesnt deal with real traffic.

 

It's really weird you almost have to dump the clutch between downshifts. I'm glad you can turn it off

 

Hmm... ITT I learned that rev matching is "hard." But I don't see how or why. You just blip the pedal enough to get the revs up to (about) the right RPM for your current speed, in the lower gear. What's difficult about that? I rev match most of the time without thinking about it (at all.) When I was 15-16 and learning how to drive, my dad mentioned that it was something one "had" to do when downshifting, because it would extend the life of the clutch & tranny. Nobody else learned this? I'd sort of assumed that it was a standard part of learning to drive stick -- no? Did he teach me that just because he was used to driving old POS's that were close to being on their last legs? If so, lol, I'll have to give him a hard time next time we talk .

 

^^ yes I learned this! You never want to drag the motor via the clutch up to speed or slow it down.

 

Yes, that practice is standard part of driving a stick. I am surprised this is even a thread.

 

Thoughts on the electronic e-brake?
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I'm indifferent to it. It's a little weird to get used to, but it frees up space on the center console for other stuff so in all it's not so bad. And if we are honest, this feature should be called "parking brake" not "emergency brake". For all practical purposes, brakes don't fail in modern day vehicles of this caliber and if the brakes fail in a new Porsche you're likely to be going too fast for any emergency brake to do much good.
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FYI I had brake failure once. No it wasn't my Porsche, haha. But I had a rear caliper piston freeze once (after the car was sitting for a week whilst on vacation). I didn't notice anything wrong while driving despite the rear brake being locked on. After 10-15 minutes of driving the brake got so hot that the brake fluid started to boil and when I tried to stop the brake pedal went to the floor. Aggressive downshifting and use of the emergency brake (at this point only operated the left rear but still helped) prevented me from rear ending anyone.

 

Rev matching is a way I keep the engine in VTEC range on upshifts. It's a good way to keep the car above 6K R's from 2 to 5th gear. I remember, watching Bullitt as a kid --- and listening to the rev matching upshifts in McQueen's Mustang. Jacqueline Bisset's 356 cab, in that flic...

Very bitchin.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_JYyZ1GJhs


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_JYyZ1GJhs

 

Oh, that does sound weird. In the Fit, it honestly feels like there's like a wheel chock placed behind my rear wheels rather than a brake holding me in place. I guess that's why it works so well.

Yeah, that sounds like a pretty odd implementation.

Clutch is for going, brakes are for slowing. Using the clutch to speed up the flywheel to match the transmission is a terrible idea, which I suspect everyone here knows. Speed up the flywheel with your right foot to match the transmission! Easy peasy. I love rev matching and do it in both of my manual cars. Sometimes it feels a bit silly in the Fit, but it really is an efficient way to slow down.

Hell, there's a reason why automatic transmissions have nearly always had a "L" and "2" (or even "3") selection.

 

Yes revmstching is important and a perfect heel toe feels amazing mostly because it's frustrantingly difficult to do especially at track speeds. I got pretty frakin good at it in my evo.

I'm over it. My new car has a dct and computers that do all that business for me. It hasn't diminished my love of cars or driving.