How to drag Race A Manual
How To Launch A Manual Transmission Car
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hello everyone and welcome in this video
we're going to be learning how to launch
a manual transmission vehicle and for
this video I am going to be in the 2016
Volkswagen Golf R now we're going to
work through the different steps and
talk about you know some of the
different situations you may be in in
order to optimize your 0 to 60 launch as
well as kind of how this system works in
order to understand how to get a better
time and so the first step and by far
the easiest all you're going to do is
press in the clutch and so you're going
to want to be on a flat surface
absolutely you're not rolling around
anywhere at least for the start of this
you want us a nice flat surface so the
vehicle remains stationary as you press
in the clutch even without your foot on
the brake so that's step number one step
number two is applying throttle and this
is probably the most tricky of the
entire thing so what you're going to do
here is apply throttle and you're pretty
much going to hold a set rpm and that's
going to be based on many different
parameters so if you have a very high
torque engine then you're going to use a
lower rpm if you have a very low torque
engine typically with smaller engines
then you're going to use a higher rpm
now how much throttle you apply also
depends on if the vehicle is front-wheel
drive rear wheel drive or all-wheel
drive front will require the least
amount of torque in order to spin the
tires so you can use a lower rpm but
keep in mind the size of your engine now
rear wheel drive can handle a little bit
more so you may go higher but once again
you know rear-wheel drive vehicles tend
to be more powerful so you can use a
slightly lower rpm and then all-wheel
drive vehicles are able to put down the
most power without a doubt and so you
can get really high rpm without you know
sacrificing the wheel spinning too much
so because you've got a ton of grip you
can use a ton of power and so with
all-wheel drive systems typically you're
going to be using the highest rpm
possibly you know you can be up in the
4,000 5,000 6,000 rpm range whereas for
a very powerful let's say you know v8
muscle car something like that you may
only need like 2500 rpm in order to get
those rear tires to spin if you go above
that so it's all about making sure you
don't have those rear tires spinning but
you put down as much power as possible
to accelerate into it now there's other
factors to take into consideration as
well so if it's raining outside clearly
you're going to have less traction so
you use a lower rpm another thing that's
interesting is if you have a
turbocharged
engine so with the turbocharged engine
basically if you hold it at a set rpm
you're not going to be building any
boost unless you have an anti lag system
and so most cars don't come equipped
with these and so because of that one
way to kind of trick yourself out of
this scenario is build it up to maybe
two or three thousand rpm then floor it
that gives resistance to the
turbocharger builds up exhaust and as
you're flooring it then you'll move on
to the next step where you release the
clutch and so that allows for you to
build a little bit of boost and give you
a little bit more torque to put down
rather than just holding it at a set rpm
now you have to time that really well in
order for it to work right so it could
be easier just to hold it at maybe 5,000
6,000 rpm let's say you're in an
all-wheel-drive
turbocharged vehicle let the clutch out
and then go from there okay so moving on
to point number three and this is where
my props come in handy so we've got a
clutch and a pressure plate so we have
our clutch pressed in which means this
is you know not in contact with the
pressure plate we've now applied
throttle so this is going to be spinning
with our flywheel so this is going to be
spinning at the RPM that you see on your
tech ometer and so now you have a
difference in speed because this is of
course stationary as it's attached to
your wheels and first gear so now what
you want to do is release this and
actually have this oriented the wrong
direction but anyways you're going to
have this coming here and so you're
going to want to smoothly but fairly
quickly release that clutch now if you
do it too fast you'll notice what'll
happen is it'll bog down the engine and
what can happen is if you slam these
together and you don't break your tires
you're going to put all that strain onto
your drivetrain and so the best-case
scenario if you do it too quickly is
that you just spin your tires the worst
case scenario is you actually break
something within your drivetrain so you
don't want to do it too fast but you
also don't want to do it too slow either
so if you do it too slow what happens is
this just starts spinning you start
burning up your clutch and you're not
putting that power down on to the ground
so a nice smooth but fairly quickly
release that so you have a nice easy
pressure engage onto that clutch disc it
brings it up to speed and then you start
accelerating okay so that was step
number three smoothly but quickly
releasing your clutch and this leads us
on to number four which is as we're
releasing that clutch
as it starts to grab you want to start
to ease into the throttle so as you go
into the release the clutch you're
easing into the throttle so that you're
accelerating once that clutch starts to
grab now there's a couple things that
can happen here so let's say you have
wheel spin well it means you're either
using too much rpm initially when you're
holding the throttle or you're getting
into that throttle too quick when you
start to release the clutch or for
example you're releasing that clutch too
quickly and so any three of those can
cause it the wheels to spin now on the
other side let's say you release the
clutch you don't get any wheel spin at
all well it's probably possible to get a
slightly faster lunge and so you're
going to want to give it a little bit
more throttle
not only at Holden at a higher rpm but
give it throttle quickly as you start to
release that clutch and make sure you're
releasing the clutch quick enough so
you're not just burning up the clutch
and instead you're putting that power to
the ground okay well let's say you give
it plenty of throttle and you release
that clutch fairly slowly if you see
high rpms but you're not actually
accelerating so your rpms are way up
you've let the clutch out completely and
your speed isn't really moving much
what's happening is you're just burning
up your clutch and so you don't want to
be doing that you want to make sure that
you're actually accelerating rather than
just burning up your clutch so in that
scenario you're going to want to use
less throttle initially and you're
probably going to want for your clutch
to cool off so it can actually grab okay
so now we've worked through the first
four steps in order to get the vehicle
moving we've pressed in the clutch we've
applied throttle and held that at a set
rpm we've released the clutch smoothly
but quickly and then we've modulated the
throttle after releasing that clutch in
order to control wheel spin and get the
vehicle going so now we need to move on
to step number five what comes next well
we need to change gears so for the gear
shift you know it will depend basically
on the mapping of the engine the torque
curve then itself is a topic for a whole
different video a good rule of thumb
that you can go with is to just carry it
out all the way to redline and then
shift gears so why do I say carry it out
all the way to redline
well you have to look at the torque
characteristics of the transmission and
the engine and with most vehicles you're
put at a huge gearing disadvantage each
time you step a gear down so when you go
from first to second you lose torque
through gearing so your wheel torque is
going to be less now in the Volkswagen
Golf R which we're in there's a
60% difference in the gear ratio between
first and second gear so that means 60%
less wheel torque once we go down the
second gear from first and so even if
the engine tapers off quite a bit at the
end of its torque curve and the higher
rpm as long as it doesn't drop between
beneath 60% less then we're still at an
advantage being in first gear rather
than dropping down the second gear and
for example this Golf R it carries peak
torque it's actually pretty amazing from
1800 rpm to 5500 rpm with red line at
about 6500 rpm and so that means in 1000
rpm you need to lose 60% of the torque
which I don't believe will be happening
and so because of that you know it's
beneficial to just shift from first to
second go all the way to red line go to
red line again in second and then shift
to third and so on you know depending on
how much distance you have how long your
straight is whether you're doing a
quarter-mile or whatever and so from a
gearing standpoint typically it's always
going to be beneficial in a manual
transmission to just take it all the way
out to red line okay so we'll get a zero
to sixty launch in I've got the traction
control off so that that won't interfere
at all will come to a stop hold the
clutch down rpm up to about 5,000 a
little past 5,000 rpm
let the clutch out
there's 61 so I might have been able to
let the clutch out a little bit quicker
other than that it seemed to do pretty
well and I shifted a little late on the
end of second gear there ran it out a
bit too far but it looks like it did
pretty well and the reason why I left it
in 2nd up until redline 2nd gear
actually takes it past 60 so you saw at
the end there red 61 so I wanted to see
maximum acceleration to 60 so I left it
in 2nd gear there but overall I think
that was pretty good a little tweaking
with the start and a little tweaking
with a shift and it be slightly quicker
bring the revs a little over 2000
okay let's get a nice highway pull in
here
now getting the launch perfect will
probably take several attempts because
not only do you have to adjust for how
your specific car behaves but you also
have to adjust for ambient conditions so
you may have to try several times in
order to get it down just right and for
those of you curious to know how much of
an effect this downhill on-ramp has on
the 0 to 60 time I have created a
separate video to demonstrate and test
how much of an effect that downhill
grade has and certainly worth mentioning
if you don't want bad stuff to happen to
your transmission and your drivetrain
then you probably should never launch
your vehicle as it's very easy for it to
cause damage you're going to have a lot
of clutch wear and you could easily
damage your transmission components if
you don't actually have the wheel slip
or the clutch slip and they take the
brute of that force and so have fun
enjoy yourself be safe and thank you all
for watching if you have any questions
or comments feel free to leave them
below and welcome in this video we're
going to be talking about heel and toe
downshifting what it is and why it's
done so first we're going to talk about
the process itself how it's done and
then we're going to look inside your
transmission and talk about why this is
done and really this is used to
downshift while you're on the brakes so
let's say you're coming into a corner
you're on the brakes you want a
downshift so you can exit that corner
