i've heard this term used before but i dont exactly know what it is. can someone explain to me when its used and when. thanx

Please try and search on this topic cause it's been posted more times than we'd like to remember :-) And if you don't find any info for some strange reason w/ the board, just forget about it, it's useless anyway unless you drive a semi truck

Thats why we have synchros.

This is double clutching. You are driving along in gear, you put the clutch in and put the car in neutral. Next, let the clutch out. Then you bring the car's rpms to what they should be if you were in the next gear and hold it there (either up OR down, you can double clutch while either upshifting or downshifting). Next, you put the clutch in again, then put the car in gear, let up the clutch.

And, you should bring the rpms up BEFORE you put the clutch in and move the shifter into the gate. I forget exactly why, but this is how you are supposed to do it.

Now, the reason there is a such thing as double clutching is because very old cars did not have synchros in their trannies. Without synchros the gears would grind when you shift. Double clutching allows the tranny and engine to spin at the same speed so the gears will not grind when engaging.

It is, of course, totally unnecessary today since our cars have synchros. You can still do it if you really want to save on synchro wear, but with normal driving you shouldn't have to worry much about synchro wear anyway.

Or, you can double clutch if you are bored when driving around like I am sometimes :) Hey, when I'm not racing normal driving, even with a manual, can get kind of dull at times.

it can help save your syncros if you do alot of hard downshifting. so they don't have to work so hard to bring the tranny up to the right speed with the rest of the drivetrain.

Only thing I don't get is using them when upshifting. Using it when downshifting would help save synchro wear if ur a hard downshifter. But the up thing??? I think it takes more time to do this. I dunno...