Quote:
Originally Posted by kach22i
I'm willing to admit that I have no idea how to do this either. Please try to step by step me through this process.
Bent vales and burnt clutches, just say no to engine braking on some cars (like vintage 911's).
You must drive one of those fancy modern cars less than 25 years old. 
Vintage does have it's drawbacks, but makes life more interesting too. |
Engine braking is quite simple really, downshift when rpm goes near 1000-1500 depending how fast you wish to slow down, blip throttle push clutch in and change gear at same time, if done properly you don't need even a clutch, or just tiny push, there will be no any jerks and ride is smooth, key is rev matching, but that is key when driving manual in any situation where gear shifting is done.
They are doing it wrong if valves are bend and clutch are burning, most of my cars are from 80's.
There are however issue with older carbed cars, they draw fuel like thursty camel when you lift off throttle and engine brake (it really does not need anything else to engine brake, just lift off), before they started to put cutoff solenoids closed throttle caused vacuum and next easier way to get relief of vacuum was to such gasoline, which of course is not good for mileage.
So that is true reason why you don't engine brake with vintage cars as it is more economical to let it idle and use brakes instead.
2nd reason not to engine brake vintage cars is that some tend to eat oil bit more than modern cars when engine braking, all engines are consuming oil when engine braking at high rpm (I guess more than 3000rpm).
With Probe however we can't say that it would classify to any of these, it is too modern to have issues like such, so lifting off and shifting when closing to 1000rpm is good way to slow down if one needs slowing down.
Surely it is easy to destroy engine by shifting to too low gear, but driver should know how to operate vehicle he is driving and if he does know, then he should know how much engine rpm rises with each shift, also max speeds for each gear at least to level where driver is not attempting of shifting 1st gear at 70mph
Semi drivers are using engine braking a lot, they have also jake brake which closes off exhaust to increase engine braking effect, which makes that rather loud sound too, especially with 2 stroke DD it can be epic level of loud, what little I know of them as here in Europe we rarely see any of such, but with my another hobby I have studied quite a bit of mechanics etc of bigger and smaller american vehicles.