Best way to learn manual transmission?

[RoostKing]

Originally Posted by Venthos

Well, I gave it a try. My sister's friend has a Neon SRT4. He knows all about me ordering a Challenger and was actually pretty excited to let me learn a bit on his car. Was quite grateful for his willingness to let me try it out.

He said he has an aftermarket clutch and I believe transmission as well, and said it is much less forgiving than a stock set so if I can learn on his car I'd be set. After a bit of tooling around in a parking lot and then a subdivision I have to say it's pretty fun. The most difficult part seemed to be getting off the line from a dead stop. Upshifting and downshifting was easy.

After I got the hang of it I was able to reliably start off without stalling the thing from there on out, but I definitely have room to make it smoother. Not buckin' and jerkin' around wildly when I take off but it could be smoother.

Have yet to take it around on surface roads but getting familiar with it and more comfortable with it. I'm definitely teetering towards a manual now...

Good for you, but honestly, you are putting too much thought into it. You saw how quickly yoiu learned how to drive a car with an aftermarket clutch setup on a high widing 4 cylinder. It will be 10x easier on the stock challenger with the torque to help get you moving.

The any questions you should be asking yourself is:
1. Am I driving in heavy traffic or commute in heavy traffic.
2. Do I plan to drag race this car is a bracket race style format where consistently is more important that trap times. Im guessing not.

Once you get the hang of the manual, you will wonder why you ever even considered the auto, for this particular car anyway. There is only one thing that compares with dumping the clutch at 4000 RPM and that is speed shifing at 5500 RPM!!!!!

[NOTSURE]

Venthos,

I have that auto stick in my magnum I love the system it is easy to operate and use, sort of like the hold Challengers that had an automatic/slap stick.
On the magnum if you hold that shift lever and pull it toward you it will find your gear for you.This is nice believe me when you need some fun it can provide an adventurous shift,but its actually harder to get used to than an actual stick if you want smooth power shifts.If you live in the city the auto may be the best choice of coarse.

You still have time and make your own mind

If I had the option to have every car I ever owned be an auto or stick I would have had them all as sticks.
I know this is gonna sound weird but It links you to the car.I'm serious here you actually become part of the machine more so than having the car shift for you,and with this horse you want it to run free.
That may not be a thing for you to consider but it has always made me more of an alert and competent driver,also it brings out the gear head thing a bit.

Just give it smooth throttle increases at first as you let your foot off the clutch and never drive with your foot on the clutch not good!Its good exercise if any thing,lol.

I drive my vette its a 6 speed manual and I never tire of shifting and running thru the gears on that car unless I'm drinking a coffee or grabbing for my phone while in city traffic.
Your the boss with a manual in a sense you call the shifts till you hit the rev limiter.
Keep in mind the six speed is what is in an entire package (trak pak) and it will be a completely different car from the auto in many ways this may not be something you may not be comfortable at first with but after a while you may really kick yourself you didn't go with a stick in one of Americas last muscle cars made.The trak pak is another 600 bucks this stuff adds up this is not a cheap car by any standards and you get it the way you feel you'll be best at home in it.
This is a damn big deal you are right and not one thing I had mentioned here in this post should sway you otherwise I thought to share my thoughts on really why I went with the stick/auto in so many words or less as a friend in this forum.
This is similar to my 3 week long torture self session debating sunroof or not,lol.
I hope this helps a bit the trak-pak is so cool and old school I couldn't resist to reply to you just hearing that term again let in on the fact Dodge had one cool car coming down the pike for us all.

LOl,40k+car=X=???

Im afraid what mine will be after all my add ons.
I set a ceiling lets see if I fly right thru it or not.
My wifes gonna kill me!LOL.
Oh, jez I think I'm gonna cry while laughing..
You should have seen her face when I pulled in the driveway in my 40th birthday present to me...The old Happy Birthday to me gift,and its not a watch this time.
The look was a cross between I'm gonna kill you right now and man hey that car is hot!LOl.
The RV experience as how I like to refer to it was just biblical,last fall.I thought the rollin pin was going to come a flying.

I usually try buy manuals shift cars so she cant drive em or wont want too.Evernt though when I met her all she would drive was a manual shift car now all she wants to drive is an automatic..I don't get it.

Have fun you only live once and not many people on this planet will get this car so make it your own.

[Venthos]

I'm on the brink of sending Bob an email saying to swap my order from Auto to Manual... This has been all I've thought about since creating this thread.

Anyone have some videos to link of some V8 goodness growling through some speed-shifts? Perhaps reassure me of how much fun it will be.

Preferably of people doing so on an onramp to get up to speed. I can sense that I will be doing just the same if I get a manual. Worrying about gas mileage is for prius owners -- who cares how much gas I eat hearing the car growl at high rpms. I wouldn't even be considering an srt8 if I couldn't afford the gas.

[Kelsey73]

hmmmmm, I'll see if I can't get my sister to loan me her new camcorder and get someone to sit in the car while I go and play.

[NOTSURE]

YouTube - White Dodge Challenger SRT8 - Return to Vanishing Point

The best burn out Ive seen yet!!!

[NOTSURE]

heres another

YouTube - Burnout melting rubber Frank's 1969 Nova at SK,NY

[Venthos]

Hehe yea I've watched and re-watched that a few times NOTSURE.

Kelsey73, that'd be sweet if you could get some footage of that I am aggressive as hell in my little Pontiac G6 GTP (V6 240hp FWD) as is, my friends make fun of me saying that I treat my gas/break pedals like binary switches, ON/OFF, no in between. I can't think of any other way to drive a car than making it drive with the power it was intended to be driven with. Seeing someone drive with some aggressive shifting/daily driving would be sweet.

[NOTSURE]

yet another

YouTube - LS1 burnout

[NOTSURE]

here we go this is nice

YouTube - My shifting at the dragstrip

[NOTSURE]

YouTube - Hemi 1971 versus 73 dodge challenger W2 Lebanon

this is a good one..

YouTube - 1969 440 Roadrunner Flexin Some Mopar Muscle!