Gears, Glorious Gears

September 29, 2016 7:12 AM

The Fast & Furious movies are, of course, cinema's crowning achievement. But what is the very best part of cinema's crowning achievement? Amazingly, it is not The Rock -- it's that sexy, sexy, gear shifting. So if you think you can stand two and a half minutes of pure, undiluted awesomeness, go ahead and watch all 236 shifts from all seven movies.
posted by Etrigan (48 comments total)

No, it's The Rock. And family. But mostly The Rock.
posted by amarynth at 7:14 AM on September 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

That was fun!
posted by rtha at 7:20 AM on September 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm loving a few shots from low with the background barely visible out the window moving quite rather slowly.

(Oh and shifting into high gear with a background in reverse)
posted by sammyo at 7:22 AM on September 29, 2016

Sure, but in Bullitt Steve McQueen upshifted sizteen times and never downshifted even once.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:25 AM on September 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

Totally not phallic. Not at all.
posted by darkstar at 7:28 AM on September 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

As George Carlin would say, "You don't have to be Fellini to figure that one out."
posted by Walleye at 7:41 AM on September 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

No, it's The Rock. And family. But mostly The Rock.

And Corona.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:43 AM on September 29, 2016

No matter how hard they do it, nobody will ever look cool shifting an automatic.
posted by mattamatic at 7:46 AM on September 29, 2016 [7 favorites]

The actually improved the quality of 2 Fast, 2 Furious

(the rest are all genius, obviously)
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:48 AM on September 29, 2016

The Fast & Furious movies are, of course, cinema's crowning achievement.

Take that Citizen Kane!
posted by Splunge at 8:14 AM on September 29, 2016

Nassim Taleb has a medium thing on The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority which contains tedium but one of his examples is automatic versus manual transmission. (I swear that should be a counter example but the way he worded it at my speed of reading him I am pretty sure it was one of his examples). My favorite manual transmission trivia:

a. manuals are less-frequently stolen supposedly because a lot of car thieves never learned how to use a manual;

b. automatic adds 200 precious pounds to a subaru wrx.
posted by bukvich at 8:17 AM on September 29, 2016

I do not enjoy people, even in movies, that grab and yank the shifter like they wanted to punish it for non-existent misdeeds.

I'm not a tough guy. I'm not a race car driver. I'm not in a movie. I'm not playing a tough guy in a movie about wannabe racecar drivers. I know, I know.

But damnit... If you can't shift with a gentle movement using 2 fingers then you're not doing it right.

I love my manual vehicles. I hate the feeling that they're going away despite, admitted, improvements in automatics (love the idea/execution of Subaru's CVT for daily drivers as an example). I feel like my concern is mostly going to be moot since EVs are going to take over the roads in the coming years (not decades, years) anyway.

/getoffmylawnmoment
posted by RolandOfEld at 8:21 AM on September 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

I never understood supercuts until now.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:24 AM on September 29, 2016

Do they ever find the right gear? The suspense was killing me.
posted by srboisvert at 8:28 AM on September 29, 2016 [8 favorites]

automatic adds 200 precious pounds

And something like $1000, plus much higher repair costs later.

grab and yank the shifter like they wanted to punish it

I guess that's action cinema for you, like holding a gun sideways. Here's a NASCAR driver shifting, for comparison.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:39 AM on September 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

My kid drives a '50's era pickup that was rebuilt from the ground up by the same guys that do most of the cars for the F&F movies. His shifting is not this dramatic.
posted by HuronBob at 8:41 AM on September 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

My kid drives a '50's era pickup that was rebuilt from the ground up by the same guys that do most of the cars for the F&F movies.

Not linking to a photo is just as big a crime against humanity as talking about your pupper and not linking to a photo.

It is known.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:02 AM on September 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

"If you can't shift with a gentle movement using 2 fingers then you're not doing it right."

That works fine in your daily driver on a run to CVS. Install an aftermarket short shift kit and do some autocross and get back to me.
posted by HighLife at 9:03 AM on September 29, 2016

That works fine in your daily driver on a run to CVS. Install an aftermarket short shift kit and do some autocross and get back to me.

Not as glamorous, but I used to drive semi-trucks. If you couldn't run all 10 gears double clutching while using two fingers and the heel of your palm, you were a shitty driver. Hell, get familiar enough with the vehicle and you don't even need to clutch. Then again, you were moving 40 tons, the first five gears got you up to 25 mph, and it took forever to reach highway speeds.
posted by Badgermann at 9:57 AM on September 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

If you couldn't run all 10 gears double clutching while using two fingers and the heel of your palm, you were a shitty driver. Hell, get familiar enough with the vehicle and you don't even need to clutch.

Sure, and race drivers can do all that too, when they aren't trying to shave tenths off of their lap time. Different techniques for different goals.
posted by HighLife at 10:25 AM on September 29, 2016

"Your tone is quasi-facetious but you do not realize that The Fast & Furious was the only movie to survive the franchise wars."

"So..?"

"So... now all movies are The Fast & The Furious."
posted by glonous keming at 10:28 AM on September 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

nobody will ever look cool shifting an automatic

Unless it's a pushbutton automatic
posted by gyusan at 10:39 AM on September 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

According to this video formula one racers might change gears 3,100 times in a race. (I love the crazy complex steering wheel and the subtile motion of the fingers to shift here.)

I'm also pretty sure that the fast and furious movies are more about being really fun and a little goofy. Comparing them to skilled realistic driving is like taking a historian to Medieval Times Restaurant.
posted by poe at 10:42 AM on September 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ex street racer here; in drag racing - street or strip - we never lifted our feet off the throttle at all and threw the (short throw Hurst) lots faster than these guys do. The issue in a 2 or 3 block run isn't tenths it's hundredths of a second.
I blew several rear diffs from the driveline impact and one tranny, but I didn't lose either.
posted by Alter Cocker at 10:58 AM on September 29, 2016 [7 favorites]

Ayrton Senna doing it right.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:26 AM on September 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

No matter how hard they do it, nobody will ever look cool shifting an automatic.

They do with a ratchet shifter. Jam it and slam it and let the Hydromatic do the talking.
posted by Slap*Happy at 11:34 AM on September 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

Ayrton Senna doing it right.

Gorgeous technique for a road race, way too slow for a drag race.
This is how it's done.
Dragstrip automatics do the same; a Torqueflite with a B&M shift kit shifts with a BANG.
Things break sooner - so no good for the long haul - but happen quicker. For a 10 second or less race, quicker beats faster every time.
Always thought it should have been "The quick and the furious".
posted by Alter Cocker at 11:40 AM on September 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yeah, but I don't care about drag racing! I do agree, though, that there's definitely a difference in technique. I've done the power-shifting thing on motorcycles, back in the day, which was a pretty exhilarating experience.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:17 PM on September 29, 2016

Different techniques for different goals.

Paging Brockles, Brockles to the car discussion aisle please.
posted by RolandOfEld at 1:37 PM on September 29, 2016

That works fine in your daily driver on a run to CVS. Install an aftermarket short shift kit and do some autocross and get back to me.

Does a factory short throw kit on a 2016 Subaru WRX STI count? Honest question and all that, as I don't profess to be an expert on racing, doubly so for autocross, but I've pulled fast and hard shifts with that one very recently and had no issue with having to wring the knob's neck or grunt while doing so. I've even heard, again not an expert, that the WRX clutch/syncro setup is known to be a bit iffy/jerky.

So, yea until I hear more from folks I trust, like Brockles for instance, my experience with a few decades of driving everything from a midlife crisis friend's mom Miata to beater Toyota/Nissan 4WD hunting trucks* to a 3 on the tree vintage vehicle** to a 6 cylinder vintage Mustang to to elderly farm tractors to our current vehicles, both manual (a '07 Yaris and a '62 Beetle) has led me to be pretty firmly in the camp of '2 fingers can do it or you need to seriously look into your vehicle's heart and soul cuz something might be wrong'. Except the tractors that is, because those dual gearbox monstrosities have long handles for a good damn reason...

Again, I'm not saying shifting in those situations you mention (autocross, short throw, whatever) might not be intense and require more strength than a say that Miata I mentioned but I am saying that I'd be surprised if you *had* to grunt and white knuckle them to compete or set world records or whatever. I am also, very clearly, not saying that racing is easy or lacks a physical component.

*Including limping home one time without a clutch whatsoever when it failed 1 hour from home, sure I ground a few gears that day and had to get'er rolling from a stop at the *few* red lights I couldn't avoid with the starter while she was in first, but by God I made it.

**That sucker had 5 pedals in the floorboard. Want to name them? I'll spoil it for the younger generation: Gas, Brake, Clutch... those are easy......... Parking brake, also easy for most..... and Dimmer Switch! Interesting stuff to accidentally turn on your brights when reaching for an unfamiliar clutch.
posted by RolandOfEld at 1:53 PM on September 29, 2016

As I mentioned the tractors above, figured I'd citation that comment a bit as well with what I suspected being true: they had straight cut gears, whereas it's likely the rest of my examples were fancier in the transmission area. Noisier and harder to get into and all that, but strong like ox, at least for the time.
posted by RolandOfEld at 2:02 PM on September 29, 2016

wring the knob's neck or grunt while doing so

That's not at all what I'm talking about. There's a big difference between "white knuckle" and "2-finger" feather-light grip. It's not about requiring a huge amount of effort so much as ensuring that you have control over the shifter while trying to move your hand very quickly, and not have your hand slip.

Take a look at both the video of Senna and the NASCAR driver above. Do you see either of them shifting with two fingers?
posted by HighLife at 3:03 PM on September 29, 2016

Except the tractors that is, because those dual gearbox monstrosities have long handles for a good damn reason

Also spent a few years in a Peterbilt with two sticks and tractor handles. I could and did shift with one finger. No synchros means never having to touch the clutch except from a dead stop and we avoided those with precision slow downs. Several thousand shifts a day every day is strong motivation to learn that skill set.
posted by Alter Cocker at 3:14 PM on September 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

No mention of granny shifting?
I just got a manual for the first time in a while (2016 Impreza) and was looking for more detailed/ noob-technical info on best usage on YT and found a lengthy video that took Vin Diesel's dictum about granny shifting totally seriously (well, could've been Poe's Law, too, but who can tell the difference anymore) and demonstrated double-clutching, with lots of discussion of synchros. Never having heard of the distinction before, I had a moment of panic before I realized it was pretty much nothing more than some cool-sounding dialogue, and my "granny shifting" would not, in fact, result in the transmission simply dropping out of the car.
posted by queseyo at 4:42 PM on September 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

My favorite part of that Vin Diesel speech is when he admonishes Walker's character for "not double-clutching when you should."

Dude, you were drag racing, why on earth would you be double-clutching?!?!
posted by HighLife at 4:57 PM on September 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

Paging Brockles, Brockles to the car discussion aisle please.

Sorry for the late arrival - I didn't recognise it as a car thread because it was about Fast (although not actually) and Furious (more like mildly perturbed).

Gorgeous technique for a road race, way too slow for a drag race.
It is a very fast technique for that gearbox, just not a good example for racing at all. Although that is very, very slow for a race box, and very slow for Senna's race driving. The NSX has a standard syncromesh box which is The Box That Shall Not Be Rushed. Actual race shifts are far faster. You can't flat shift a lot of race cars without an electronic but or a slight tweak of the toe, but you don't need the clutch at all for full race gear boxes.

Gorgeous technique for a road race, way too slow for a drag race.
This is how it's done.
That's pretty slow. This is a video of a Porsche 997 GT3 Cup car on track. The upshifts are very fast, but are clutchless with an electronic cut, but it is the DOWNshifts that show the speed of a race box. He downshifts much the style as that video, and it is a faster shift than the one in the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I75xBdQ17d0

The 997 is out of date now - the latest car is full paddle shift and the vast majority of race cars now are. But all race car sequential (pull and push only, no side to side) can be shifted clutchlessly, up or down. It's just smoother in a big heavy car like a Porsche to use the clutch. Well, smoother and a LOT cheaper, which gearbox rebuilds being around $45K, every 30 hours.
posted by Brockles at 5:15 PM on September 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

splitpeasoup: ". Here's a NASCAR driver shifting, for comparison."

He's just rolling out of the pits to do laps, not actually racing.
posted by Mitheral at 6:33 PM on September 29, 2016

Dude, you were drag racing, why on earth would you be double-clutching?!?!

He was driving an interwar Bugatti or Alpha?
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:56 PM on September 29, 2016

Hey, Brockles! In the spirit of the thread, here's a JDM R33 Godzilla with the dual-clutch butchered for a bang-shifter! I know, right?
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:10 PM on September 29, 2016

Wow. What a horrible system, pointless system. Not least because the action of the shift is in the wrong direction.Back should be up, and forward should be down the gears. But it is not fully 'manualised' ('sic' and 'punch in the face for the use of that word) unless it has over ridden the logic from the auto box. It was hard to tell from that video (filmed on a potato, by the look of it) if that was the case, because the shifts were all within the normal shifting range of the car.

It may be different later, but I got very, very bored of watching.
posted by Brockles at 7:15 PM on September 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh, they were very clear at the beginning of the video they went through great expense to do Bad Things to the transmission via software to make this "work."
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:19 PM on September 29, 2016

It's not about requiring a huge amount of effort so much as ensuring that you have control over the shifter while trying to move your hand very quickly, and not have your hand slip.

Agree with this. People tend to over-do the dramatics with the quick hand movements, and this becomes laughable if your hand is stationary at the end of the shift for an appreciable length of time before the clutch comes up. BUT if you're trying to do a fast shift (ie letting the clutch up at a predetermined interval, because it is too fast to aim to complete the stick movement before deciding to lift your leg off the clutch) then two-fingers is inadvisable. I have missed a TON of shifts as a young lad trying to look suave and cool while also driving fast, and soon learnt that the firm full hand grab was necessary if I was driving spiritedly if I didn't want to make some truly horrible noises and end up with a surprise neutral at a bad time.
posted by Brockles at 7:22 PM on September 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

People tend to over-do the dramatics with the quick hand movements, and this becomes laughable if your hand is stationary at the end of the shift for an appreciable length of time before the clutch comes up. BUT if you're trying to do a fast shift (ie letting the clutch up at a predetermined interval, because it is too fast to aim to complete the stick movement before deciding to lift your leg off the clutch) then two-fingers is inadvisable.

Right, maybe this still aligns with what I was saying with my 'grab and yank' paired with 'if you can't' (new emphasis mine) original comment. I mean, are (non-ratcheting, didn't even know that term) gear boxes in sports cars, hell even racecars, that much stiffer than, the only example I have first hand experience with, the factory/dealer short throw shifter in my cuz's WRX? I assumed no, but am ready to be wrong if that's not the case.

Sure, a full hand grip has the capability to give more control and prevent someone slipping, I don't dispute that at all, but the difference between that and having to do the same grip each time due to force requirements in the linkage chain of the shifter itself seems ludicrous and and additional burden on the driver that would be avoided as much as possible, if only to facilitate the faster shifts that seem to be desirable across the board, up to and including these fancy electronic shifting and ratchet mechanisms that take it to a whole 'nother level with racing anyway.
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:35 PM on September 29, 2016

I have missed a TON of shifts as a young lad trying to look suave and cool while also driving fast, and soon learnt that the firm full hand grab was necessary if I was driving spiritedly if I didn't want to make some truly horrible noises and end up with a surprise neutral at a bad time.

In hindsight, and after re reading this portion of your comment (love the verbiage by the way, seriously), I think you may have already spoken to what I was aiming at in my last comment. Maybe the answer is something akin to 'it doesn't matter because you shift as hard as the situation dictates and as fast as your clutch engagement type (and skill with the same) allows'.
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:39 PM on September 29, 2016

are (non-ratcheting, didn't even know that term) gear boxes in sports cars, hell even racecars, that much stiffer than, the only example I have first hand experience with, the factory/dealer short throw shifter in my cuz's WRX

Yes, they are. In a race car, the throw is much shorter and so the forces much higher. It is not uncommon for new drivers to get blisters on their palms and other parts of their hands until they get used to it. Especially if they mistime their downshifts. The throw in a race car is miniscule compared to a road car, yet the forces at the gearbox end are the same, hence the force required to move the same gearbox end is higher at the stick.

having to do the same grip each time due to force requirements in the linkage chain of the shifter itself seems ludicrous and and additional burden on the driver that would be avoided as much as possible

First point - ignore the ratchet things. They are a pointless pile of crap. Zero worth, in my opinion. But *having* to do the same grip all the time is part of the consistency of driving fast effectively. You use the grip that produces the most reliable shifting, and you make it a muscle memory. It is no effort to grasp the lever with your full hand if you ALWAYS do that. It just feels that way to you because it is *not* what you always do. With a consistent technique, you can easily chop time out of it reliably. With an unreliable or inconsistent technique, like the two finger approach, you have to add redundancy (in terms of self checking pauses and conscious 'is the gear in' decisions before raising the clutch. Ideally you want to make the 'clutch down, lever across, clutch up' motion one fast 'down-shift-up' motion. You can't speed it up as much if you need to be able to correct for your fingers falling off the lever.
posted by Brockles at 7:58 PM on September 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

First point - ignore the ratchet things. They are a pointless pile of crap.

American-style drag racing. Tho Top Fuel and similar track-queens have a locked transmission mated to the mother of all clutches, rather than the beefy bang-shifters found in streetable rods.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:11 PM on September 29, 2016

So they are more of a hand clutch operation device than a gear selector then? That makes more sense (although not in the context of the original video).
posted by Brockles at 8:12 PM on September 29, 2016

The interactive version...
posted by pinothefrog at 10:21 AM on October 2, 2016