VidPro

That would have been great. I get all George Costanza at times like that. I could have told hime the jerk store called too.

5.M0NSTER

I have $0.02 contribution here:

$0.01: the auto (or sequential rather) shifts faster, and when half a second is a difference between 1st and 4th you take all the advantage you can. BUT... all the guys (and gals) who race those cars learned to drive on a manual. Rev matching, engine braking, heal-and-toe, left foot brake. You don't control any of in an auto, which is why manual car teaches you more. Racing isn't about who pushes buttons better.

$0.02: so you're not a fan of dropping the clutch or chirping your 1-2 or 2-3 shift. Hmm, or does your autotragic magically do that too? Do you really think pulling a paddle is a experience which somehow connects you to the road?

Enjoy the first 25s of this:

SpectreH

MY auto can break the tires loose when it shifts, even at 90 MPH. Of course the supercharger might have something to do with it.

mhazelwd

I will let you know. This is my first automatic and it was a dog until I changed it with my tuner. This is some advice I have found:
Replacing a Mustang's stock rear gears with a higher ratio will give you quicker acceleration, greatly improving your 60 foot times--depending on what ratio you choose
A ratio of 3.55 will get you down the drag strip quicker than most stock ratios, but 3.73s or 4.10s are an even greater improvement and so on
Going with too extreme a gear ratio can result in lost traction and reduced top speeds, depending on your overall setup
For a street car that might also see the track, 3.55s, 3.73s and 4.10s gears are recommended, with 4.10s being the gear of choice for automatic transmissions

On a stock car or mildly modified late model Mustang with common bolt-ons I personally recommend 4.10 gears. 4.10s will give your car more pep, with negligible impact on your vehicle's drivability. Another popular choice is 3.73 gears, but the significant performance increase of the 4.10 gears far outweighs the minute gas tank penalty.

Also, my 460 rwhp supercharged Mach1 had 4:10 gears. That was not over-geared, it was "just right" .

mhazelwd

That there is very funny

TripleBlack14

5.M0NSTER

I think you said what most of us are thinking. Drop the mike!

berzerk_1980

Brutal!

LQQK

I'm guessing you meant, Custom Tune...If not, how do I do this to my car?

Every forum I'm on or visit, the Auto VS Manual discussion always results in the "Fan-Boy-Self-Justification & Only way to drive is with a Manual, Auto is for Sissies", even when not asked about Manual, like the OP didn't ask about in this thread.

(Self-Justification-Alert)--> I've driven Stick most of my life (Started with 3-On-A-Tree)...My last Manual, 12 BOSS...Fun factor 9.5...Current Toy, 15 LE AT...Fun Factor 9.0...I'm more than Satisfied/Happy with the AT as an ALL-AROUND Fun to drive in most every situation, as opposed to a manual.

I'm Flame Suited!

SplitSecond

Eh, thats not the way I would go at it. I am not a fan of moving the rev limiter at all (I like my engines to last, and to me its not worth it). Instead of you doing a tune by yourself, I would have someone build a complete tune for me. They can adjust shift points, shift firmness, ect and change the way the auto works as well as improve engine performance.

Just to add fuel to the fire of the thread, I have the manual in my Roush and I wouldnt have it any other way. To be fair though my Trans Am had a built auto and that was plenty of fun. I just wish I had a proper stall on it which would of made it more fun.

LQQK

I'm with ya...I'm curious if it can be changed with a setting (Sport/Sport+/Track/Etc) I'm not aware of that is Ford Approved, not a custom Tune...I'm sure he meant Custom Tune, but I had to ask.

IMO-->For pure FUN, Manual is the only way to go, for all around DD, AT is the choice.

SpectreH

One of my cars is stick, the other auto. I never understood why there is such butthurt between the auto and manual folks. Buy what you want and enjoy!


In the tune department, before I went FI, the tuner (SCT3) I had allowed me to adjust parameters such as shift firmness. I think I went 5 or 10 percent firmer.

mhazelwd

Funny you should mention that This TA has a built auto with 3800 stall. It is also street legal. After riding in it I was convinced automatics are the way to go for racing.

mhazelwd

I didn't change my red line, but I did bump all my shifts +25 (maximum allowed) using mt SCT4 tuner. The BAMA race tune changes the shift points and also keeps it from shifting all the way up to #6 when I am cruising in town. It shifts a lot like you would shift a manual.

ohlang

Auto's can do that you know and mine does. And is this experience thing something manual drivers teach each to say to justify buying manuals knowing you lose a lot of races (I speak to wannabe race car drivers who like to put down automatic owners). I suppose Indy car drivers are less than drivers because they don't deal with a manual clutch and joystick. Even with my paddles, I get bored of using it because I like the way the car performs and sounds when it's in the right gear at whatever speed and to constantly have to manually downshift and upshift to produce that, can get tedious and boring really fast. Imagining having to do this with a manual clutch is disgusting.

Racing is about knowing how the car performs and how to control it on the pavement and to do it better than your opponent, whether it's pushing buttons or stepping on a clutch with your foot. I can drive a manual, hopefully you can drive it better, but all other things being equal (vehicle hp/torque, suspension, etc), my automatic driving will best your manual driving.

it's a custom tune, performance shop tuned it on a dyno, adjusted the shift points and so forth but left some options for me to play with. The most important part of the tune is adjusting the air/fuel settings which he did. I opted to sharpen my shifts and raise the rev limiter to make manual shifting with the paddles useful otherwise you'd bounce off the limiter often trying to optimize your shifts and would be better off using full automatic mode (at WOT shifts perfectly at 7000RPMs) but you'd sacrifice the ability to hold a gear, so your launches, especially, during rolls would suffer.

5.M0NSTER

I don't have a problem with people driving autos. I have a problem with people driving autos and thinking that just because it shifts faster it's automatically (pun intended) better, and downplaying the driver skill involved in performance driving of a manual car, as well as the advantages the it has for motorsports. It's the driver who wins or looses the race, not the car. And this is especially true in tightly regulated motorsports like Indy. Somehow you seem to totally miss this major point in a surprisingly consistent manner.

Hard to say where to even start here, we clearly don't have the same view of what car/motorsports enthusiasm means. There is only one thing I agree with you on

- Would be bored of using a paddle too. Straight up boring, no doubt.

Now for the rest

- Your auto can't do a clutch drop. Brake standing is NOT the same thing, and if you know how to drive a manual even you know this so stop pretending. Try doing a clutch drop from 2nd to 3rd in your car at 40mph.... oh wait... you can't
- You can't skip shift (up or down). And I'd love to see a video of your car chirping a 2-3 shift.
- Name 1 Indy car driver who didn't race manual cars prior to making it to Indy..... yup... didn't think so. It's easy to make a transition to Auto or sequential. It's not easy to make a tradition to manual. It requires actual skill.

- I can probably drive your auto as well as you since pulling a lever requires hardly any skill (just knowing the power/tq curve and shift duration), but I venture you can't drive my manual as well as me since the ides of using a clutch is "disgusting" as you put it. So as far as drivers go ... well .. I rest my case.
- Your automatic driving will likely beat my manual driving in a straight line. But I hardly see any autos at the road courses, and I bet at our level your auto driving will not beat mine. I may have to work a little harder, but no way your auto is faster on a road course. That's why the newest Camaro 1LE (the Track Pack) only comes with a manual, and so does the GT350.

And not that I'm that great of a driver or anything, far from it, but here is my "manual driving" against some other cars at the track.

berzerk_1980

Guys please stop arguing, it's clearly just a matter of preference.

Autos shift faster than an expert shifting a manual transmission. That's about the only fact that's been presented.

Since racing generally involves a lot more than just shifting, the difference the speed of the shift provides varies between applications. In many cases it will not make up for driver deficiencies.

I was not going to answer the original question since my Mustang is a manual. But I'm going to anyway now since OP got almost no real answers.

In the automatic cars that I have owned and currently own, I don't mess with the shifter unless I am parking, unparking, changing direction, or ascending/descending a steep hill. Everything else I do with the accelerator pedal, because I bought an automatic for a reason in those cars.

5.M0NSTER

We all agree on the first point.

And the second point is exactly what I want the OP to admit, which has been acutely bothersome

LQQK

ohlang

First of all you're a real douche. I called you a wanna be racer. Making fun of automatic transmissions is not ribbing, it's being a *****. Unless you're a professional race car driver you haven't earn to right to do it. I've done nothing but respect manual drivers for their skills if worthy of praise. My mention of Indy car drivers is that they don't work a clutch and they are racers. Go bash them for simplifying their sport. The only reason I can think of, is for that amount of speed and turns, it's only possible to do it with a manual clutch. If that's the case then I ask you what form of transmission in it's ultimate form is superior. I never gave the impression that I was better than you with a manual, if fact I assumed you were (read my last post again), so why you would make the related comments you did is beyond me. I was confused about clutch dropping, so you got me there, maybe I I'm confused about making the car chirp when shifting from 1-2, 2-3, or so forth, but every up-shift begins with a lot more pull and significant amount of tire spin, so if that doesn't produce chirping I don't know what does and I wouldn't know the point of it in racing. Paddles don't get boring, it's the manual aspect of it, I thought I was abundantly clear when I added that if you added a manual clutch, it would suck even worse for me. I gave my answer to the GT350 and Camaro track edition cars, because to put in a better automatic transmission would be too expensive and Mustang owners and so called car enthusiast like to track and prefer manuals anyways, it would be a marketing disaster to produce them with anything else but a manual although there will be probably just as many people who would buy an automatic version. About a road course, I don't know, my auto could take you in a manual. Remember, I didn't fire the first shot, you wanna be racers did. If you keep replying and making more down putting remarks, then I'll just keep firing back, because once more you're ****** and douches. Just say you prefer manuals over automatics and we're live peaceably together. And thanks to those who did and/or provided input to my initial question.