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03-27-2003, 11:00 PM

I'll try to tackle all of your questions:

Q. So it's bad for the clutch or engine to have it in neutral?

A. Well it really depends on the situation. For example if your on a offramp going 50, and you have plenty of time to brake then use the engine braking plus the brakes. Don't even bother putting in the clutch because once you put it into nuetral or put in the clutch you taking away from the helping hand of engine braking thus making your brakes do all the work.

But, on the other hand if your in rush hour traffic for example your rpm's are so limited that using the clutch and braking to a stop or to a very low rpm situation is a must. Lets talk about that offramp again. So you've used engine braking to come to lets say 15 mph, you might as well put the clutch in and use the brakes because at this slow speed engine braking isn't really a issue.

Q.Huh? what? engine braking? can you explain what that is?

A. The easiest way to explain engine braking is...imagine you had 3 gears[as a human]. 1st gear you wore boots with a lot of traction but didn't allow you to do any fast movements. 2nd gear was dress shoes. 3rd gear were track shoes on your feet, you could in these babies. And finally you had nuetral, in which you rode a skateboard.

So you start off in 1st gear and go to second, and then finally 3rd. Your sprinting!. Now if you were running hard and you needed to stop from smacking into a wall which is about 10 feet from you, you would slow down by you trying to stop, and by the limited ability of your shoes which would slow you down more because of its limited ability to keep a forward momentum w/o you putting in running power.

Now pretend instead of just slowing down you decided to throw the skateboard underneath you and use your shoes to slow you down (somehow you can pull this off while in mid run). Problem is that you skateboard has almost no limitation of which it could keep going forward even w/o you propelling it further. Doesn't sound very efficient does it?

Basically you can subsitute that idea for gears. Each gear has a limitation of how much it will spin your wheels when no gas is applied. If you want to feel engine braking magnified get into your car and speed up to 15mph in first gear and let off on all the gas. I bet you'll feel the effect of engine braking. But if you were to excellerate to 15 mph in first gear and switch to nuetral you'll roll for quite a time assuming its a flat we are talking about. Try to brake and you'll be using all brakes, you'll little diskies trying to hold back couple thousand pounds. Why not give your car a brake and use engine braking too. BTW realistically at 15mph you'd put in the clutch because of the HARSH engine braking that will occur.

Hope that helps.

03-27-2003, 11:00 PM	#29
Zanza Posts: n/a	I'll try to tackle all of your questions: Q. So it's bad for the clutch or engine to have it in neutral? A. Well it really depends on the situation. For example if your on a offramp going 50, and you have plenty of time to brake then use the engine braking plus the brakes. Don't even bother putting in the clutch because once you put it into nuetral or put in the clutch you taking away from the helping hand of engine braking thus making your brakes do all the work. But, on the other hand if your in rush hour traffic for example your rpm's are so limited that using the clutch and braking to a stop or to a very low rpm situation is a must. Lets talk about that offramp again. So you've used engine braking to come to lets say 15 mph, you might as well put the clutch in and use the brakes because at this slow speed engine braking isn't really a issue. Q.Huh? what? engine braking? can you explain what that is? A. The easiest way to explain engine braking is...imagine you had 3 gears[as a human]. 1st gear you wore boots with a lot of traction but didn't allow you to do any fast movements. 2nd gear was dress shoes. 3rd gear were track shoes on your feet, you could in these babies. And finally you had nuetral, in which you rode a skateboard. So you start off in 1st gear and go to second, and then finally 3rd. Your sprinting!. Now if you were running hard and you needed to stop from smacking into a wall which is about 10 feet from you, you would slow down by you trying to stop, and by the limited ability of your shoes which would slow you down more because of its limited ability to keep a forward momentum w/o you putting in running power. Now pretend instead of just slowing down you decided to throw the skateboard underneath you and use your shoes to slow you down (somehow you can pull this off while in mid run). Problem is that you skateboard has almost no limitation of which it could keep going forward even w/o you propelling it further. Doesn't sound very efficient does it? Basically you can subsitute that idea for gears. Each gear has a limitation of how much it will spin your wheels when no gas is applied. If you want to feel engine braking magnified get into your car and speed up to 15mph in first gear and let off on all the gas. I bet you'll feel the effect of engine braking. But if you were to excellerate to 15 mph in first gear and switch to nuetral you'll roll for quite a time assuming its a flat we are talking about. Try to brake and you'll be using all brakes, you'll little diskies trying to hold back couple thousand pounds. Why not give your car a brake and use engine braking too. BTW realistically at 15mph you'd put in the clutch because of the HARSH engine braking that will occur. Hope that helps.