6 steps to make the most of your manual transmission

Robert
By Robert Bowen
Sep 9, 2023 | transmission | Posted in Drivetrain | From the Oct. 2006 issue | Never miss an article

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Manual transmissions are crude, simple devices. Most of the internal parts are big, heavy and made from steel alloy, which makes them tough. The basic technology—helical gears and sleeve synchronizers—has been around for more than 100 years. This is good, because we enthusiasts tend to ignore our gearboxes until something goes wrong—like when nasty noises appear or the shifting becomes hard.

Some transmissions are better than others, of course, but very few stock manual gearboxes are truly flawed. Most are plenty strong for weekend track and autocross use. Full-time racing is even possible with an unmodified box in a light, low-powered car.

While hard use is unlikely to result in catastrophic failures, it does put more stress and wear on the all-important gearbox than street driving does. This doesn’t mean you’re doomed to suffer shifting problems and transmission failure, however, as there are a few simple things you can do to keep your transmission swapping cogs like new. In fact, here are six tips that should reward you with a trouble-free transmission.

Step 1: Learn to Shift

The No. 1 thing you can do to keep your transmission alive—and the one thing that people commonly ignore—is to treat your gearbox with respect. Learn to shift with some mechanical sympathy, whether you’re driving on the street or at the track.

With a modern, production car gearbox, the easier you make the synchronizers’ jobs, the better. To extend the life of your synchronizers, push in the clutch all the way with each shift and change gears firmly but gently—don’t bang into the stops. The synchronization process takes a fraction of a second to complete, and forcing a shift before the synchronizers are finished is a recipe for hard shifting down the line.

It isn’t necessary to double-clutch with every downshift, but a quick tap on the throttle pedal while the clutch is in can go a long way toward reducing the speed differential between gears. This matching of revs takes some practice, but the payoff in transmission life is worth it.

The subject of downshifting to use engine braking on the street is somewhat controversial: Modern cars have plenty of braking power, so it isn’t really needed. Also, would you rather place wear and tear on your clutch or the brake pads?

Drag racing and standing start launches, of course, are hard on transmissions. This is especially true for rear-drive cars fitted with lightweight transmissions. The shock loads from a dumped clutch can be high enough to rip the teeth right off the gears. Even a transmission strong enough to survive thousands of miles of road racing (assuming flying starts) will be much too light for drag racing with any kind of reliability.

Some modern cars—the Lancer Evo comes to mind—actually have transmission protection built into the clutch hydraulic system. A small-diameter restrictor in the clutch line slows the rate that hydraulic fluid returns to the master cylinder, delaying the release of the slave cylinder and clutch fork.

Since the clutch cannot release quickly, it slips slightly and acts as a fuse, dissipating some of the power that might otherwise shock the transmission. Of course this reduces clutch service life somewhat, but clutch plates are cheaper than transmission gears and driveshafts. Take a lesson from the Mitsubishi engineers: A slipped-clutch start is less dramatic, but it will keep your transmission alive much longer.

Step 2: Use the Right Lube

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The most important internal part of a manual transmission—the lubricating oil—is probably the least considered and certainly the least understood component. Lubricant not only keeps the gears wear-free and cool, but it also impacts noise, temperature, transmission life, synchronizer performance and power-handling ability.

Although at one time it was almost universal, these days not all manual transmissions are filled with gear oil. Factory fill in a modern gearbox can be anything, from automatic transmission fluid to gear oil, engine oil or a specially formulated lubricant. Unless you have a good reason for doing so, don’t stray from the manufacturer’s recommended lubricant type. Lubrication needs vary depending on the unit’s internal design, synchronizer material and intended use—delivery truck transmissions require stronger lubricant than car transmissions, for example.

Choosing an oil for a street application is fairly simple. OEM gears have fine, small teeth that have lots of load sharing and low contact pressures, and most street driving will never heat the transmission enough to stress the oil significantly. For most stock applications, the best lubricant will be a high-quality synthetic oil in the manufacturer’s recommended viscosity and API (American Petroleum Institute) rating.

The EHL (elastohydrodynamic lubricant) film thickness of synthetic oil tends to be more stable than that of mineral oil. That makes synthetic oil a very good choice for any high-performance application. A thinner oil can be used with less power loss and fewer detrimental effects on the gears, or a thicker oil can be run to provide a thick EHL film even at high temperatures in a heavily stressed transmission.

If you want to experiment with different oils in a stock transmission, make sure you understand the alternatives and choose based on sound principles. If any problems develop, however, be ready to swap back to the recommended fill as soon as possible.

If the transmission specifies automatic transmission fluid, stick with it since the synchronizer blocking rings may be damaged by anything else. Unless the transmission specifies API GL-5 lubricants only, GL-4 oil will most likely be a better choice since it has a lower percentage of EP (extreme pressure) additives that reduce synchronizer efficiency.

Step 3: Adjust the Clutch

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A clutch that does not release completely is one of the most frequent causes of excessive wear and bad transmission performance. If the clutch doesn’t release, the synchronizers have to fight the drag and will wear much faster, if they can work at all. Therefore, always check clutch adjustment when you have the transmission out of the car, or when you suspect a problem.

If everything looks okay, you can perform a simple test to check for a dragging clutch. While the engine is running and the parking brake is set, disengage the clutch and put the transmission into any gear. Keeping the clutch pedal down, pull the lever out of gear, and then immediately push it back into the same gear. If it grinds on the second attempt to shift into gear, the clutch is probably not completely releasing.

This test works for transmissions both with and without synchronizers. A clutch that fails the drag test could have one of several problems, but the most likely are a worn or badly adjusted linkage, sticking input shaft splines or a failed pilot bearing.

Incidentally, give your motor mounts a once-over at the same time you check the clutch. A broken or sagging mount can sometimes cause the shift or clutch linkage to bind up.

Step 4: Tighten the Shifter

None

If your car has vague, notchy shifting even after the clutch, fluid and driver are in perfect condition, first make sure the factory linkage has new, tight bushings and is adjusted properly.

If this doesn’t help things, try using a weighted shift knob. Weighted knobs improve shift feel because they add inertia to the shift lever—the initial push to get the lever into gear requires a bit more force, and the inertia of the knob helps snap the lever more positively into gear on each shift. Due to the differences between shift linkages and transmission detent designs, there is no one knob that will work for all transmissions. Plan on trying a few before you find one that gives the results you’re after.

While not a “must-have” part, short-throw shifters top the list of aftermarket transmission modifications. A short-throw shifter—often simply called a short shifter—is a linkage modification that reduces the distance the shift knob must travel to engage each gear, allowing for faster shifts (at least in theory). They are inexpensive, generally easy to install, and can be effective.

Unfortunately, the shortened throw of an aftermarket shifter on a synchromesh transmission does not really reduce the time it takes to make each shift. The synchronizer assemblies determine the delay, as they must take time to accelerate the next gear on an upshift, and decelerate it on a downshift. In fact, forcing the shift before the synchronizer allows it can result in a bent shift fork or damaged synchronizers.

That’s not to say that short shifters are worthless. On a non-synchronized transmission, precise, quick shifts are an absolute necessity, and the shortest, tightest shifter available should be used. Any slop or delay in the shifting process can severely damage the dogs and sliders.

For synchronized transmissions, the biggest advantage to a short shifter is an improvement in shift feel that comes from replacing the factory rubber bushings and reducing play in the linkage. This can improve transmission life by allowing more precise, accurate shifts. Some short-throw shifters (like many of those for the Tremec T-5) are an improvement because they incorporate adjustable stops into the shifter mechanism, preventing shift linkage over-travel and damage.

Short-throw shifters vary greatly in quality, and some of the cheaper ones cannot stand up to even normal usage. A broken shifter can result in bent linkage, tweaked shift forks and synchronizer damage, so it pays to investigate your options carefully.

Step 5: Time to Rebuild

If you still have problems with the transmission despite meticulous care, you can either replace it with a different transmission or rebuild your existing box to handle more power. The first choice varies in difficulty, but it might give you a stronger gearbox with a smaller cash outlay.

The second choice is usually the only one, and it’s not a bad way to go if your current gearbox isn’t drastically weak. The first stage of transmission modification is simple: a careful rebuild, using quality bearings and new synchro rings. This will solve failures caused by running worn-out parts, but it won’t do much to strengthen the transmission.

If you spend a bit more time and money during the rebuild, you can end up with a much stronger gearbox. Start by deburring and shot-peening all the internal parts. Then do your homework to find out what updating and backdating options are available. For example, manufacturers often update to better synchronizers and bearings as a transmission’s production life progresses.

During a rebuild, choose only the best parts you can find, including bearings and seals from a reputable manufacturer. As you assemble the shafts, set them up on the tight end of the manufacturer’s specifications. Most bearings should be assembled “tight,” with a bit more than recommended preload. The bearing outer races are held in the aluminum case, and therefore move further apart, while the inner races (mounted to the steel shaft) stay relatively stable. This causes the initial preload to become looser as the transmission gets hotter.

Step 6: Shed Your Synchros

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If you’re building a true race car, don’t bother with a synchronized transmission if you can avoid it. If you are stuck with a production-based transmission and are allowed by your rules and budget, eliminate the synchronizers and convert it to a dog ring box.

The conversion can be performed in one of three ways: The existing gears and synchronizers can be replaced with gears and sliders machined as a unit with the dog ring; the existing gears can be modified by welding and machine work and mated to new sliders; or the existing gears and sliders can be modified to create a kind of pseudo dog ring transmission with some of the benefits of a full conversion.

The easiest and best way to convert a transmission to dog ring shifting is to replace the entire gear and synchronizer stack. If you have one of the dozens of transmissions with strong aftermarket support, this should be no more difficult than calling your favorite speed shop and ordering the gear set. The gears in these conversion sets are usually wider and stronger than the original pieces to take advantage of the space gained by removal of the synchronizer cones and blocking rings.

Replacement gear sets with dog rings are designed from the start with racing in mind, so they also have the benefit of closer, higher ratios and better gear design for high-performance use. Most are cut with lower helical tooth angles (or even straight teeth) to reduce heat and friction buildup, which also improves bearings and case life.

If your transmission does not have a good selection of alternative gear sets with dog ring shifting, the existing gears can be modified to provide the same benefits. To turn them into dog ring gears, several companies can machine off the original synchronizer cones and dog rings. They will then weld on new dog rings. The gear hubs are then honed to the proper size, and the sliders are modified by removing teeth until the spaces between the internal splines are the same width as the gear dogs.

Liberty’s Gears in Michigan is the best-known shop for this kind of work, and their Pro-Shift conversions are very popular in some drag racing classes. They are surprisingly inexpensive—about $75 per gear—and a good way to get fast shifting on a budget. Of course, all of these modifications are for racing use only—if you need more strength in your street car, look into a transmission swap or start driving gingerly.

Get Shifty

When it comes to transmission life, it’s all about respect. Respect means developing your shifting technique and avoiding standing starts. Don’t neglect gearbox maintenance, either, if you want to avoid the fun of an unplanned rebuild.

And when the time comes for a rebuild, don’t forget that a few little tricks can increase both performance and transmission life.

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Comments
jdoc90
jdoc90 New Reader
1/5/18 7:51 p.m.

Of course none of this will help an alfa romeo 5 speed transmission 2nd gear downshifts .The grunch was added to the dna and cannot be overcome even by stem cell transplant .lol  So the 4% of Americans who can use a manual transmission can now keep the 1% of cars still running with one going longer until they are outlawed and replaced by a toaster with wheels ! viva la manuale !

mad_machine
mad_machine GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
1/5/18 9:45 p.m.

Both of my manual equipped cars come with fragile transmissions. Both are flawed from the factory simply because they were designed for lower power levels than the engines they are bolted to. The Fiat Box is not a bad one, but it's biggest flaw is that it uses springs to hold it in gear instead of springs to push it out like most modern boxes.

The saab 900 box was never designed to hold the 185hp the turbo engine puts out. Combine that with the heat of the turbo next to it and the temeratures of the engine oil that uses the side of the box as the sump, and you are looking at a transmission doomed to an early death.

Empathy will go a long way. When I was much younger I destroyed a rebuilt fiat box in the course of a summer by doing reverse to forward burnouts. Reversing the power through the gears quickly shredded that transmission. Older and hopefully wiser now, and with many years driving big commercial trucks with manuals, I have no urge to powershift or rush a shift.

Vigo
Vigo UltimaDork
1/5/18 11:03 p.m.

I disagree with the statement that rev matching without double clutching will do anything to ease the job of the synchros. IF the clutch is working properly, there will be almost no power transferred while the clutch pedal is pressed, so the speed difference between the mating gears will not be substantially reduced. If you have an unsynchronized reverse gear, it's pretty easy to tell whether your clutch imparts any rpm to the input shaft and all of its meshed gears by simply slowly shifting into reverse while the clutch pedal is pressed. Most (maybe all?) unsynchronized reverse transmissions use an idler gear that slides back and forth to engage. If the gears being meshed by the sliding idler gear are not at a stop, the 'clash/grinding' of the gears can be heard or at least felt through the shifter. If your reverse idler doesnt 'clash' trying to engage reverse while revving the engine with the clutch pressed, that means that all those gears are stopped and that by extension revving the engine while the clutch pedal is pressed is not going to do anything for your synchros because it doesnt transfer enough torque to overcome the friction of all the parts and actually impart rpm to the input shaft.

What rev-matching without double-clutching will do for a racer is reduce the shockload to the drive tires when you release the clutch. If you downshift the trans without rev-matching, you are asking the tires' contact patch to transfer energy from the movement of the car to spin up every component upstream of the synchro you just engaged by probably thousands of rpm. The input shaft, all of the gearsets, the clutch disc, pressure plate, flywheel, crankshaft, rods, pistons, timing parts, cams, everything on the belt drive, yadda yadda yadda. Spin that 100+ lbs of crap up by a couple thousand rpm in a fraction of a second. That's a pretty huge load, sometimes enough to break the tires' traction even while coasting in a straight line. If you happen to be already using 90% of your available traction turning around a racetrack, that additional load on the tire will cause you to break traction and depending on which wheels are driven you'll either oversteer or understeer.    

 

 Cliffnotes: rev-matched 'single-clutched' downshifts are less likely to cause you to lose control while turning hard on a racetrack. Rev-matched 'double-clutched' downshifts do that AND reduce wear on your synchros both on the track and on the street.

 

mad_machine
mad_machine GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
1/6/18 7:50 a.m.

In reply to Vigo :

rev matching also reduces the "reverse" load on the clutch, transmission, and differential as those units now have to deal with torque coming FROM the drive wheels back to the engine rather than the other way around. If you can bring the revs up to where they would be, it is a softer transition to the entire drivetrain

Knurled.
Knurled. GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
1/6/18 9:29 a.m.

In reply to mad_machine :

Depends on if your transmission has weak synchros or weak mechanicals.

 

Of course the real fix is to not use the clutch at all, no synchros = no problem!

jerel77494
jerel77494 New Reader
12/7/21 3:05 p.m.

Check the online forums, too.  Sometimes you'll find info that can help.  I replaced the gearbox oil in my NB Miata with the "forever" oil Ford uses in their Mustangs and it shifts even smoother now.  Plus it's a synthetic, so the box runs cooler.

KozyB
KozyB GRM+ Memberand New Reader
9/9/23 3:19 p.m.

Another vote for double-clutching with rev matching!  Practice it, make it a habit.  Your transmission will thank you, and your work-a-day drives become opportunities to be smoother and more one with your car. 

Pete. (l33t FS)
Pete. (l33t FS) GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
9/10/23 3:11 p.m.

In reply to KozyB :

Like everything, there is a lot of gray area.  The ratio and therefore speed change makes a big difference.  5-4 downshift in a Miata trans at highway speeds?  You're not going to affect much by allowing the synchro to speed up the geartrain.  Trying to downshift most transmissions to 1st gear at anything but walking speed?  Give it a double declutch to rev up the geartrain.  Something in the middle?  Big fat load of "it depends"... the larger the ratio gap, the heavier the transmissions' rotating assembly, the more the transmission will appreciate it.

 

This is one really nice thing about transverse units, the shifted gears are usually on the input shaft, so a shift only has to change the speed of the input shaft and the clutch disk.  Rear drive transmissions usually have the shifted gears on the output shaft, so a shift has to change the speed of the (rather heavy) countershaft, and all of the driven gears (which are slaved to the countershaft), and the input shaft, and the clutch disk... basically ALL of the rotating mass that is not the output shaft.

 

It would be amazing if someone made a RWD transmission that was "backwards".  I am 95% sure that Honda S2000 transmissions are.

weedburner
weedburner Reader
9/10/23 6:35 p.m.

There is a seventh step to maximizing a manual transmission's potential that most seem not to be aware of- optimizing the clutch's engagement rate. Excessive clutch torque capacity makes it possible for sudden engagement of the clutch to send huge spikes of energy back and forth between the engine/transmission/drivetrain/tires. Those spikes occur not only during launch, but can also occur after the shifts. Sure an accomplished driver can minimize the effects manually, but the more excess clutch torque capacity there is, the narrower the driver's margin for error will be. If you have a weak transmission, it may not take much of a driver error to break it.

Here's a link to one of my webpages with background info on how the clutch can greatly intensify the energy spikes sent thru the transmission. The page is aimed at drag racing, but the same general forces have the potential to wreak havoc on your transmission and tire contact patches any time the clutch is engaging... https://grannys.tripod.com/clutchtameruniversity.html

In an ideal world, the proper way to minimize the problem would be to install a clutch that is ideally suited to the application. The problem with that solution is that the steps between different levels of clutch capacity are fairly large, usually forcing you to choose a clutch with too much torque capacity just to make sure you have enough. Fortunately if you must choose a clutch that has excess torque capacity, there are external devices that can make an overkill clutch a better match to it's application.

Many oem's actually use a "clutch delay valve", basically a one-way restriction to slow clutch engagement for the purpose of protecting the drivetrain. There's also lots of u-tube videos out there dedicated to removing those clutch delay valves. You can get away with small amounts of simple in-line fluid restriction without much trouble, but when you restrict fluid return from the slave to the master in quick successive strokes like racer's do, the master cylinder's internal return spring causes additional fluid from the reservoir to be drawn past a collapsing cup style piston seal. This is not a problem during casual driving, as the additional fluid drawn past the seal has time to return to the reservoir before the next shift. But when clutch pedal cycles come in quick succession, that excess fluid does not have time to return thru that small compensation hole which in-turn causes an increasing pump-up effect that messes with driver coordination. In the end the driver thinks he missed a shift, but what actually happened was the pump-up effect caused over-stroking of the slave, which in turn produced an rpm flare caused a delay in the clutch grabbing after the shift.

Here are some examples of aftermarket flow restriction valves that function much like the factory delay valves, except these aftermarket versions are adjustable...
...Tilton Flow Control Valve is a flow restriction device that allows you to adjust your clutch's engagement rate. You can read about it as well as the reasons that you might want one here... https://tiltonracing.com/product/flow-control-valve/
...Clutch Masters Flow Control Valve does basically the same thing as the Tilton, you can read about it here... https://clutchmasters.com/i-30500576-flow-control-valve.html
...Magnus Launch Control Device eliminates the pump-up effect by adding a solenoid bypass parallel to the in-line fluid restriction, making the restriction path active only during launch. You can read about it here... https://www.magnusmotorsports.com/product/magnus-launch-control-device/

While flow restriction devices are effective for reducing impacts to the transmission, a common problem with all the flow restriction devices is that they all restrict fluid return flow during the entire pedal release cycle- including the deadband area before the clutch actually begins to engage. This can be a big deal if you are a drag racer, as delayed travel thru the clutch pedal's deadband area during launch also adds to your car's reaction time. The typical "fix" for the resulting slow reaction time is to pre-load the clutch against a hand brake prior to launch, which serves to miminimize the clutch pedal's deadband travel. The problem with that in a drag race scenario is that that pre-loading the clutch causes it to heat up. If the opposing racer knows you are pre-loading the clutch prior to launch, they will likely delay their staging to put additional heat in your clutch, which will likely cause your pre-loaded clutch to pull thru the beams pre-maturely resulting in a red-lite.

The ClutchTamer is a clutch engagement control device that is unique in that it controls pedal return rate instead of fluid return rate. It does this by acting directly against the pedal itself, which completely eliminates the problem of drawing additional fluid past the master cylinder's piston seal. Also because the 'tamer does not become active until after the pedal has passed thru it's deadband area, reaction time of the car does not get delayed. The need to pre-load the clutch to improve reaction time is completely eliminated. You can read about my ClutchTamer device here... https://grannys.tripod.com/clutchtamer.html

In addition to the ClutchTamer, I also make the Hitmaster 2-stage clutch control device for drag racers. My ClutchTamer device I linked above is a better fit for the typical Grassroots guy.

Grant

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