Piloti

“This is not financial advice” -Coy White

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Somewhere in an alternate universe, this is what people mean when they say “Both!” after being asked “Is your car manual or automatic?”

Floating gears and clutchless shifting is often explained as the concept of knowing rpms you should be at for a specific speed, and targeting that RPM while you engage a gear - which is kinda silly and would be 100% useless in any real world scenario, like making it home with a leaking clutch line, or downshifting while on the brakes in a rally car.

The better way to think about it in regular synchromesh cars, is to provide yourself windows where you simply ask the car for the shift, and wait for the car to allow it. You can do this pretty easily by revving a little higher than a normal rev match in neutral, letting those extra revs fall freely, applying pressure towards the gear you want, and waiting until the RPM falls to the speed that lets you into the gear. To avoid grinding and damage, this should ALWAYS be done with RPM’s dropping and 0% throttle. If a gear doesn’t quite engage and you’re hovering on the throttle trying to guess the exact RPM you need, it’s very easy to accidentally send torque through those components at a catastrophic time and find yourself with bonus neutrals… Not to mention it’s generally beneficial to be looking at the road and not your tach.

Now go put your Piloti | Driving Shoes on and learn some new footwork this weekend!