AUTO vs. MANUAL for racing
 

I have an auto, is it realy that much slower than a manual or could I still keep up with them? what are pro`s and con`s for both?

THANX

i cant remember who siad this but whoever did im stealing it

you STEER a automatic.....and you DRIVE a 5 speed.....it should be a song:dj:

Well for an Auto in most cases you have to play catch up. So you pretty much have to make your car go faster. If you can get more torque than the car your racing against. Then you don't have to play catch up. I power shift. Put it in Low then in 2 and then drive with o/d off then o/d on. But you can ruin a transmission doing that. Which i already have. But doing that allows you to go to redline each gear. But like i said, you can ruin a (auto) transmission doing that. (unless you have a sportmatic which allows you to do so.)

What kind of racing?

In an autocross, there isn't much difference because you can just put it in 2nd and leave it there. In any other kind of racing I can think of, it will severely slow you down :(

What is the hold bottin on the shifter do? What is it's purpose? I never used it before.

i rather the stick , but auto is 10X better when you have that hot date in your car and your hands are busy
Bruce

Is is bad if I use it alot while driving or will it mess up the trans?

A friend of mine Autox a 97 SL2 with an auto he can do ok with it but the thing is always shifting up when he doesn't want it to. he finishes in the middle of the pack most of the time.

I think it takes a different kind of driver to drive an auto. The autos are slower but with good driving skills you can minimize the handicap. You should manually shift the transmission so you can be in you power band of you car, the auto trans has a tendency to shift when you dont want it to so to minimise that you should just shift it manually but be carefull not to break anything.

Well an automatic camaro z28 is totally different than any import 4-banger. You can get away with racing a Camaro Auto because 1. it's a good automatic transmission- and you've got plenty of power.
With any 4 cylinder car- auto's aren't built as well for 1. Plus they steal hp, and don't launch very well.

However, with autocross, there is quite a learning curve, and a good driver could easily be competitive with an automatic. In the long run, when you are really trying to win and shave tenths of a second, I would prefer a 5 speed.
You could learn to race an auto- then move to a stick if that's what you want to do- most people don't race the same car for more than a couple years anyway.

Don't let this keep you from racing a Auto if you can drive and figure out how to squeese the most power from your motor then you will be succesful no matter what trans you have.

I think general driving/auto cross a stick will always be better. But built right a automatic can do some serious damage in a drag race. My Mustang was an auto, but 3:73 gears, B&M transpack and 2100 stall convertor fixed that. (still sucked in the twisties though)

Don

Thanx for explaining that stuff to me