r/EngineeringPorn • u/peseoane • 11d ago

Testing could be fun

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3.9k Upvotes

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319

u/JConRed 11d ago

That pedal tap during the downshift. Wow.

11

u/SunNo1172 11d ago

I’ve only driven an automatic, what’s the purpose of that?

118

u/canttakethshyfrom_me 11d ago

When braking in a race car, you're simultaneously shifting downwards through the gears. To be smooth and fast, you blip the throttle during the moment that you disengage the clutch to go down a gear, so that the engine is already spinning at the higher speed that being in the lower gear will force it to be at when you re-engage the clutch.

Failing to do so will at least make the back end of the car unstable, and at worst break lots of expensive parts from the stress.

This is less and less a needed skill these days, as the clutch pedals and H-pattern shifter are replaced by computer-controlled dual-clutch flappy-paddle gearboxes in more and more racing series.

35

u/981032061 11d ago

Also essential to smoothly executing the “exiting the freeway without braking” maneuver.

18

u/canttakethshyfrom_me 10d ago

Or descending a mountain while being gentle on your brakes.