Proper Way To Down Shift?
 

WHAT IS THE PROPER WAY TO DOWNSHIFT? I BELIEVE I READ ON THIS MESSAGE FORUM A FEW WEEKS AGO THAT THE BEST WAY IS (FOR EXAMPLE) IF YOUR CRUZING AT LIKE 40 MPH AND YOU WANT TO DOWNSHIFT TO 2ND GEAR, YOU " DO NOT " WANT TO JUST PUT IT IN 2ND GEAR AND LET OUT OF THE CLUTCH, ... BUT UNSTEAD YOU WANT TO PUT IT INTO 2ND AND " BEFORE " LETTING OUT OF THE CLUTCH YOU WANT TO GIVE IT A QUICK REV TO WHERE THE RMP'S WOULD ABOUT BE WHEN YOU LET THE CLUTCH OUT AND THEN LETTING THE CLUTCH OUT SLOWLY WHILE THE RPM'S ARE STILL UP???? IS THAT CORRECT?

You want to make the rpms match as much as possible. By the way, are you talking for racing, normal driving, or just slowing down?

What you described is basically correct, although you do not have to let the clutch out slowly once you have practiced enough. in order to properly do this you use your toes on the brake and 'blip' the throttle with your heel/side of your foot, hence the name 'heel and toe shifting'. The best way to practice is when you are braking in a straight line for a stop sign or stop light. The lower gears are hardest to do smoothly. You will know when you've got it right because you won't feel like jerking forward in your seat when you let the clutch out.
The whole idea behind it is to prevent loss of traction at the drive wheels and reduce wear on the clutch by matching the engine speed to the vehicle speed so that the tires and clutch don't have to make this happen. This is especially important when downshifting just before corners because a bad late downshift can cause you to spin out.
As a side note, on the 99+stangs the gas pedal is much lower than the brake, making it a lot more difficult to pull off without your foot slipping off the brake. There is a mod that you can do by adding a spacer in your throttle cable to raise up the gas pedal. The install is described on mustangworld.com. This can also give you more available throttle as it is rumored (I have no way of knowing if it's true or not) that on some 99+ GT's the carpet prevents the pedal from hitting full throttle.
Hope that helps and happy Heel and Toeing.

For the most part just normal driving and slowing down. I like to downshift when I'm coming to a stoplight or something cuz my car sounds pretty mean when doing so. I just want to make sure I'm doing it right. So mainly just slowing down or when I'm coming to a stop.

Downshifting while coming up to a light may sound cool, but you are putting extra wear on your syncros and on your clutch.

You try to bring your engine RPM's as close to clutch RPM's when releasing the clutch to reduce wear and make a smooth downshift.

I always downshift when coming to a light or slower traffic. My '89 has 72k on it, still have original brake pads, clutch and no shifter problems.

The Rev-matching post is pretty close to spot on. I believe I remember reading somewhere that you really aren't saving wear on the dynos unless the transmission becomes completely disengaged--which requires double-clutching. If the clutch is not let out as you pass through neutral, all you are doing is avoiding the snap as engine speed is brought in line with the road speed.

Here's a pretty decent tutorial on the technique. Definitely install the spacer to raise the accelerator, and install performance pedal covers to allow you to work both at the same time.

http://www.turnfast.com/tech_driving..._heeltoe.lasso


Cheers!