Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2015 12:51:32 -1000
Reply-To: "SDF ( aka ;jim lahey' - Scott )" <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: "SDF ( aka ;jim lahey' - Scott )" <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Organization: Cosmic Reminders
Subject: Re: Automatic vs Manual trans. ( Friday )
In-Reply-To: <CAHTkEuLeMZF4KLodhLv84EEjO635DK_OTBOJUAux_mJpGd4q9A@mail.gmail.com>
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Hi Don,
1. do you have to know of your GM rig has a lock-up torque converter ?
I assume you know what that is .
2. Does it have a very high overdrive top gear ?
here's why I ask ..on an excellent car I own, an 88 turbo 740 volvo sedan ..
it's a 4 speed automatic.
Top gear is quite high , like this car will go 90 in 3rd gear easily
and not be very high up in its rpm band.
It defaults to 'high range, early shifts' every time you start the car up.
This is for EPA fuel economy numbers.
It has a button on the shifter to push, so it's kept from being in 'high
gear gear mode.'
Which is push every time I fire up the car,
because ..left to it's own ...and with light driving , the engine won't
get over about 1600 or 1700 rpm until about 60.
That's lugging !
the right way to drive this auto trans is to keep it from shifting into
top super-high gear until about 55 or 60 mph. It likes that a lot .
it's also very fun to be going in 3rd gear ..say 60 .....push the button
so it's ready to shift up ...
but keep some throttle on ....then when I want to upshift ..a slight
ease of throttle and it hits the next gear.
Very sweet.
The gearing on this car ..in top gear ...at half total rpm ( it's a
6,000 rpm engine ) it's going 80 !
that's high gearing.
with turbo though..nice wide torque band ....so it has both wide torque
and good oomph overall ( ( 2.3 liters inline 4 gas ) .
heck ..you can downshift out of top gear at 90 and it doesn't mind at
all. It's still not that revved out in 3rd at 90 mph.
my point in all this is the major advantage of manually controlling when
an auto trans shifts.
Just putting in D and driving like , whatever...that D stands for Dumb
in my opinion.
on a vanagon ..I always put it in 2nd..and when I want it to shift up
..then I move the shift lever to D.
Also ..many vanagon auto trans drivers don't know the shift lever is
designed so you can hit 2nd from 3rd, like on a hill say, real quickly ..
just slap the shifter into 2nd. There's an interlock so it won't go
into low ...and you don't need to push in the button on the shift lever.
Shifting up from 2nd back up to 3rd ( D ) ...you can't 'slap' that one
as it will go further than you want into neutral.
re auto versus manual .
in Vanagons I'll take a manual as ..
you can push start it easily if the starter doesn't work.
You have infinitely more control on ice and slippery roads.
you can keep moving with a gear not working ..
and better fuel economy over auto trans.
I thought when I got my first Mercedes car I would convert it to manual.
Now I have 3 auto trans Benz's and they work just fine.
And I do 'manual shift control' as needed..
although ...adjusted properly ...throttle position determines shift
point ..
the more you hold the throttle open ...the longer it waits to shift up ..
and when you are winding out in a gear ....with good throttle applied,
when you want the upshift...a slight lift of the gas pedal ...and
there's your shift.
Oiginally the car was slow to shift up from 2nd to 3rd..I'd be
waiting and waiting ..
an adjustment to the length of the rod from throttle body to lever on
side of the trans fixed that real good.
It'll shift up as early as I want...or as late as I want, all controlled
by gas pedal position. Luv it !
so ...if people are really tuned into their rig ...and can interact
intelligent with it ..
there's no reason to just put it in D and push on either the go or stop
pedal, and that's all ya get.
Generally I think american cars are junk.
I actually semi-admire Ford ..or think they are the least bad american car.
My first car ever was a Chevy.
I am still appalled at how sloppy they are designed and built.
Darn right they would have been out of biz back then during the bailouts ..
they made too many models..
sold them too cheap, built some real junk ( Vega ? pure waste of good
car building materials )
if us taxpayers hadn't bailed them out ..
they'd be where Rambler is now ..non existent.
last paragraph ..I had a 64 Pontiac..acquired by relationship, I'd never
buy one ...it was the body style of the famous GTO ..had inline 6 with
auto trans.
that car ...simply Would Not power slide in any controllable way ..
it had stupid-too-powerful PS ..
zero feel ....I like to power slide and counter steer cars in
less-than-optimum-traction conditions ..
that car just was not controllable in that mode.
On the other hand ...one time a customer's 84 Vanagon tin-top ...I still
don't know why that particular van had such excellent handling ..whether
alignment, or shocks or what. It had the Michelin LTX for tires ...that
particular 84 vanagon with manual trans was incredibly predictable and
responsive in it's handling dynmaics.
On any gravel surface I wanted to drive it crossed up as much as possible.
I've owned 25 or more vanagons and driven hundreds of different ones ...
they can vary quite a lot in their handling response and dynamics.
Anyway, it's all good.
scott
On 9/11/2015 5:21 AM, Don Hanson wrote:
> Over the past year I have 'learned to drive' an automatic transmission
> vehicle. I've always chosen a manual transmission vehicle. Never liked
> having the car or truck shifting for me...but I needed a van with AWD for
> work and winter, so I picked up a GM Safari van inexpensively, and most ot
> these are automatic transmission vehicles..
> When I began with this van, I hated it, the way it 'surged forward' in
> response to a slight touch of the accelerator....the way it 'cycled' back
> and forth as I climbed a long steep grade with a load...the way it has a
> sense of "un-connected-ness" between coasting and holding a steady speed or
> climbing....the lack of 'feel" as you negotiate rough terrain or try to get
> going on ice....no ability to 'slip the clutch'... the Safari is just a
> regular automatic transmission, no worse than some, no better...
> So,..... I LIKE driving. It is one of my passions, I often do it
> just for fun...but I've never owned an automatic transmission vehicle
> before this one. Hence, I realized that I needed to learn some new
> driving techniques. As my Safari seat-time builds so does my ability to
> "work around" the constraints of an automatic transmission:...I've learned
> to modulate the gas pedal to help control 'stupid' shifting, brake and gas
> at the same time for slow speed parking lot maneuvers, influence the
> automatic transmission to behave as closely as possible to the way I want
> it to...
> It still bugs me when the transmission 'insists' on behaving like the
> engineers designed it to rather than how I would like, but lately I've
> become much better at getting it to behave, within it's design parameters,
> the way I'd like it to...
> It never occurred to me than I should need to learn how to drive an
> automatic...Like most folks, I just thought you jumped in and mashed the
> gas and let the vehicle do it's thing....but now I know I can actually make
> the thing go smoother and better with my newly learned automatic
> transmission driving skills....Driving it with skill also enhances the fuel
> economy some....It IS convenient to drive if I get caught on Interstate 5
> in one of the Portland traffic snarls.
>
