Gear Shifting in a Stick Shift Car

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Jumi Kim
Co-founder, President, CEO, Capital Dream Cars
www.capitaldreamcars.com  
703-785-9357

Jumi is a founding member, president and CEO of Capital Dream Cars— Washington, DC’s premier exotic car rental company as featured in The Washington Post, Goss’ Garage, and SpeedTV.com. The business was inspired by a hobby and a need. Apart from owning her own exotic cars, Jumi would travel to Formula One races with friends and family—to Montreal twice for the Canadian Grand Prix and to Indianapolis for the United States Grand Prix—but when she looked to rent a Ferrari locally, her search came up dry. So, after much pioneering determination, she and two business partners launched Capital Dream Cars in March 2006 to fulfill the “dream car” dreams of Capital Area car enthusiasts like them. Growing up, Jumi always enjoyed driving, but it wasn’t until she learned to drive stick about 15 years ago and bought her first stick vehicle—a little green Acura Integra GS-R that still takes up a spot in her garage (and still runs great at nearly 200k miles!)—that she understood driving on a whole different level, not just as a way of getting from here to there. And perhaps it was her own small way of rebelling against the gender stereotype that girls can’t drive, let alone drive stick. Although she doesn’t presume to be a great technical driver, she enjoys driving fun cars and sharing her enthusiasm with others, which is, after all, what car enthusiasm is all about.

Gear Shifting in a Stick Shift Car

This video will show how to gear shift in a manual transmission car.

This series: 727,392 views

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Transcripts

Hi, I am Jumi of Capital Dream Cars and I have been showing you how to drive a manual transmission car. Now, I am going to discuss the basic principles of gear shifting. It's helpful to think of the relationship between the accelerator and the clutch as moving in opposite directions or being in an inverse relationship. So, for example, the more gas you give the less clutch you need and vice versa. The key to smooth movement is the right timing of giving just enough gas while letting out the clutch. Too much gas and you waste fuel and wear down on the clutch. Too little gas, you will solve the engine which puts considerable stress on it.

Each car's clutch and accelerator will have different personalities. So, shifting gears will feel slightly different in one stick vehicle versus another. Some clutches are hard, some accelerators are very sensitive. So, it's a just a matter of figuring out the right combination for the smoothest transition. Now, that I have gone over the basic principles of gear shifting, let's actual get moving and shift some gears in our manual transmission car.

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