Coldmale

In the heat of the moment on the track, i habitually change from 2nd to 5th, then spend another few seconds trying to find 3rd

Does anyone make a lock-out that I could set in place on race day. I never use 5th gear.

On a Mini I had years back, the lockout was to protect changes into reverse and there was a plate that could be physically move to let you into reverse when required

Something like that for 5th would be ideal

John

rsmith1944

Ranger our foremost drag racer on the forum says the way to keep transmission out of the 5th & 6th gear gate is to push the shifter forward with an open hand (no sideways movement) and it will be headed to 3rd gear as that is the centering gate of the transmission. Same thing for downshifting from 4th to 3rd. Practice makes perfect. Hope I explained this so it can be understood.

Coldmale

Yes, I have read Ranger and he is correct and yes practice makes perfect

But I'm not perfect, so would still like mechanical assistance

Cheers

John

Bill Dearborn

A few minutes of practice and you can do just what Ranger says.

The only way you can increase the effort into the 5/6 gate is to install an aftermarket shifter that has springs forcing the shifter into the 3/4 gate. Those same springs make it harder to get the shifter into the 1/2 gate as well. On some road courses where you have to drop down to second gear that can be a real PIA. It isn't about speed shifting into the next gear but a lazy push into it.

Practice using your fingertips and the heel of your hand to shift and you will find out how easy it is to shift a C5/C6. I can pretty much shift my 08Z with flicks of the hand and very little movement of my arm.

Bill

longdaddy

Try adjusting your seating position. I found that if I move my seat too far forward, I will keep hitting 5th instead of 3rd in certain spots on the track. Don't ask me how this works....

BEZ06

What tracks are you running? Do they have real slow corners - something below 30 mph?

I've got an MGW shifter and have absolutely no problem with any of the gears, but as mentioned, the 2->3 shift is just a straight ahead push with the palm of your hand - don't make any attemp to actually move the shifter over to the right.

I ran Sebring last year, and at first was downshifting to 2nd for of a couple of the slower turns, but the Z06 has so much low end grunt that I decided that it pulled out of the corners just about as good in 3rd and I saved a lot of time not needing to do the downshift into the corner and the upshift tracking out. It was also harder to manage the throttle to keep the tires hooked when in 2nd, so it just wasn't worth it to do the downshift to 2nd.

So......unless you've got some real slow speed corners you might just try leaving it in 3rd.

As far as the 5th gear lock out, you sure don't want that!!! 4th only gets you to about 160 mph, so you NEED 5th to go faster than 160!

Bob