To learn how to drive a stick, let the clutch slip a lot at first. With the S it is a bit harder because it catches in such a short distance, however, it is doable. I never owned a manual before this one and had only driven friends cars on very rare occassions. So, at the beginning, I rev'd higher than normal and let the clutch in slowly. The car takes off and doesn't stall. Of course, there is extra wear for the clutch, but it is such a short period of time before you get it that I wouldn't care too much. For hills, it is easiest to use the hand-brake to help until you can manipulate the tranny fast enough. Fortunately, where I live the hills are few and far between. I'd get one and enjoy it.

Cheers

 

Also, the other problem I had was jumping from 2nd to 5th! It isn't going to hurt the car, but it isn't what you want. Fortunately, the tranny helps with this one by centering the stick when left loose. So, from 1st to 2nd, drop it down; from 2nd to 3rd, push up only and be loose so the stick is pulled to the center, and from 4th to 5th, push up and to the right.

Cheers

 

Learning to drive a manual is very easy. I taught both my kids. 10 minutes in a parking lot going from a stop in first gear. After they got good at starting, I had them shift to 2nd.

Then we went to an empty street( new contruction after working hours) and had them shift through all the gears. This took about 15 minutes.

Next time out I taught them to rev match and down shift. Another 30 minutes.

After they had been driving a few weeks, we went to an area with hills and they learned to slip the clutch from a stop, so they can drive on hills.

Also, I bought a manual Honda accord from Enterprise so you can rent a manual.

When you first learn, you will be a bit hard on the tranny so rent a car for a day. Get someone who knows a manual transmission to go with you and get you started.

You will love the S!

 

Dunno if this helps, but the way I learned to drive was on my dads old POS S-15 with a steel clutch cable that took like 40 pounds of pressure to budge. I've also taught a few friends on an Accord and Eclipse GSX. Compared to those to the S2000 would be a breeze to learn on. The clutch isn't heavy and has great feel (unlike a lot of cars with super-soft clutches with no feel in them or heavy clutches which are harder to finese). So as long as you can grasp the concept of shifting (which some people really don't get at all which just baffles me) I don't think learning on the S would be too bad.

Anyway, I started of in an empty parking lot. A school parking lot on a weekend works well. Start by not using the gas pedal at all and just easing the clutch out slowly to get a feel for it. You'll stall out the first few times, and after that it'll be shakey when you take off. It shouldn't be that long until you can take of smoothly, albietly very slowly, without even touching the gas.

Next start using the gas pedal and easing the clutch out. In general the more gas (and hence the higher the revs) the quicker you let out the clutch. Start out using less gas and slipping the clutch longer. Try and keep the RPMs below 1,500. It'll feel weird and uncoordinated but fortunately you've already got your left (clutch) foot somewhat trained. Now you just need to get the right and left foot working together. Again it shouldn't take that long until you're able to get moving without excessively slipping the clutch or stalling out.

With the newer S2ks you've also got the clutch-delay valve which will minimize any damage you might due by releasing the clutch too quickly... so the only real damage you could do unintentonally would be to take forever slipping the clutch at high RPMs. After each launch come to a complete stop, and put the clutch in. Don't ride the clutch, ie don't leave your foot resting on the clutch... this creates wear spots on the clutch and will lead to premature clutch failure. It bares repeating because so many people do it. DONT RIDE THE CLUTCH.

Next practice stopping, takeing off and then shifting into second. Stop and repeat. Don't worry about down-shifting when stopping. And as a general rule you don't want to ever down-shift into first, especially when your learning.

Now head out into some quite residential neighborhoods and just drive around. You'll probably never get out of 3rd gear, but for getting from point A to B the only real difficult part is getting moving. Practice down-shifting a few times while your in neighborhoods. Go from 3rd to 2nd. The first few times let the clutch out slowly and let the transmission due the work of bringing the RPMs up to match your speed. This will NOT be smooth, especially if you let the clutch out too quickly. It will also give you a feel for a miss-shift over-rev would feel like. It should also give you some confidence, because unless you're shifting quickly at red-line you'll have some time to jab the clutch back in before spinning the engine into a 12,000 RPM death .

In the long term you don't really want to be using the clutch/tranny to do all your downshifts. So practice blipping the throttle to pick the RPMs back up to where you think they'll be after you complete the downshift. Roughly 800 RPMs per gear. So if you're going from 4th to 2nd blip the RPMs up ~1600 RPMs. You don't need to be that precise, because you won't be releasing the clutch super-fast so the synchros should have plenty of time to do their magic.

By this point you should be pretty proficient. You'll still stall out more than you'd like (and everyone still does once in a great while), but you shouldn't have any trouble with regular driving. Remember: Don't ride the clutch. And put the clutch in when your coming to stops!

Now all thats left to conquer is the bane of all drivers new to stick shifts. The dreaded hill. The worst part is you can't take your dear sweet time as you'll just roll backwards into that behemoth of an SUV that stopped 3" from your rear bumper. This is the only part I'd reccomend finding a beater car to practice on, because it involves quite a bit of clutch slipping. But in general you just want to use more gas and release the clutch quicker. On really steep hills when someone comes up right on my ass I still use the hand-brake to keep from rolling back into them while I move my foot from the break to the gas. It's a nice crutch, especially when parallel parking on hills =P.

 

man just jump into the car and take it easy......as long as you drive it sensibly while your learning it will be fine. The only thing that will ruin it is trying to do really quick shifts and missing the gear change and crunching the gearbox.......trust me i know because i learned manual on my last car and i thumped the gear changes right from the start when i coudn't shift quick and i crunched the **** out of the gearbox!

 

I am a huge advocate of the "baptism by fire" school of learning manual. You can only learn so much from practicing on a friend's car now and then. You'll never get really good at it until you actually have to drive a car every day with one, and then you'll get *really* good at it *really* quick.

The thing is, just be patient for a while. Try to find someone who knows how to help you out in parking lots for a while, then move out on the real road as soon as it's practical to do so. First when traffic is light, then keep challenging yourself. You'll make some mistakes at first, but your muscle memory will develop quickly if you "immerse" yourself in the experience.

Peter

 

i'll teach u if u want (damn why didnt i live in kentucky) in all honesty though, the s2k DOES have one of the very best gearboxes out there. it is so easy to drive it's unbelieveable. it will be very easy for u to learn stick shift on...however after knowing how to operate this car's clutch/gearbox, u might not feel very comfortable with cars with less perfected gearboxes (eg. civics, integras, etc) i've driven manual transmission versions of almost every sports cars under 70k including the famous M3, and s2k transmission is the BEST. the clutch is very easy to control. dont worry just get the car and drive it everyday, u'll be shifting butter-smooth in just a few weeks!!!!

 

Here's a link on for shifting on short shifters (practicing this technique eliminates the dreaded money-shifts):
http://www.shortshifter.com/techniques2.htm

 

Before I bought my car I limited stick time. Mostly little jaunts around the nearby church parking lot with my roommate's 330. I was a bit nervous driving away from the dealership the night I bought mine, but within about 20 seconds that nervousness turned to exhileration. Within a week I was reasonably proficient with stick, and now a little more than 6 months later it's second nature.

Good luck with it.

 

yea, I had similiar experience with you, all my friends who got stick, they all being a dick and wont let me drive it and learn it all. So i went and buy myself an integra to practice. and it been like 5 yo 6months. I'm getting the hang of it and about to sell the thing to get myself an s2k and join up with you guys.