For All Those With Sportshift Tranny

[purewhitep5]

I WAS WONDERING WHAT TECHNIQUE DO YOU USE TO EXTRACT ALL THE PERFORMANCE POSSIBLE? AND WHAT I SHOULD BEWARE OF, LIKE DAMAGING THE TRANNY? JUST NEED THE INFO TO BETTER UNDERSTAND MY CAR WITHOUT HAVING TO PUT IT THROUGH THE TEST MYSELF. ANY INFO IS APPRECIATED

Bronx, NY's ONLY 2002.5 Pure White P5

 

[purewhitep5]

hello, is anyone here? i see people viewing but noone is replying, anyway, someone said that releasing the gas, shifting, then stepping back on the gas, will bring you the most performance... is this true?

 

[ph0enixrising]

Sometimes I release my foot, just because I am used to having to do that when shifting. I don't think it makes the car faster though. I'm sure it's just as fast if you keep your foot on the gas.

 

[purewhitep5]

damn you guys must be antisocial, is it b/c i'm from nyc? or b/c i'm a newbie?

j/k

 

[Rogue_Biker]

Don't overev the motor, which I don't think is possible in the auto. Don't rev the motor then slam it into gear. Don't leave it in high gear and lug the engine. Don't tow anything.

All the above will alleviate any abuse on your tranny. How do you extract "maximum" performance? The only way is to manually shift it. Unfortunately, the P5 does its best work when coupled to the excellent 5-speed manual.

 

[eeveyl]

Here's my take on it:

Floor it. If you floor it, whether you are on Manual or Auto you will redline. Personally, I switch to manual when I want to race. I floor it and shift when I redline 6.5k. I took the car past redline once (I wasn't paying attention to my RPM's) and at about 7.5k the rev limiter kicked in. I wouldn't recommend doing that...

I don't think you will "hurt" your transmission by rev'ing so much, but you will definately make your engine work alot harder than if you drive "normal". Consequently, that may put you at "high risk" for blowing out your engine.

As far as the tranny goes... one way you can damage this is by downshifting incorrectly. I usually downshift when I take a turn. Asuming I'm at a light and switched to manual mode, I floor it and redline through all the gears. Once I'm at 3rd or 4th and I'm approaching a turn, I brake and downshift to 2nd, then floor it again (watch the rpm's).

That's basically it. Having a sportshift is okay, but you will loose to a manual. If you had two drivers with the same driving skills race an auto (sportshift) and manual, it wouldn't be a match. For starters the manual has 5 gears as opposed to our 5, and our cars are heavier as a result of having the auto tranny.

If you were to take the same scenario and race a sport-shift with a standard auto, you might have an edge on turns, but other than that it would be a pretty even match.

That's my $.02

 

[Rogue_Biker]

The only place the auto has an edge on the manual is during the stop and go commute. The auto shifts up much quicker even when you're just taking it easy so a P5 with auto will get up to speed quicker during NORMAL acceleration. The biggest drawback of the auto is that it sucks up horsepower because there is no direct connection between the engine & tranny. Instead, you have a fluid coupling. The fluid being the auto trans fluid in the torque converter. In addition, the auto has only 4 gears and they need to be widely spaced apart. So, the engine takes a bit longer to keep itself spinning up as you go through the gears. The latter is the biggest detriment to acceleration, and with the P5's motor needing lots of revs, it makes it a bit worse as opposed to a bigger motor that needs less revs to make good power. I think if Mazda fitted the P5 with a 5-speed auto, you won't notice too much of a difference and in fact, might work a bit better in many situations.

 

[purewhitep5]

eeveyl-now we're talking thats how i would do it also

im glad that people are responding now, i still would like to hear more opinions

thanks

l8rz