stick vs. automatic, what's better?

[XTurboAcuraX]

stick vs. automatic

ok, here's a good question. for a long time i have heard that a stickshift car is faster than an automatic. all racers use stick shift and so on. now there's someone who swears that automatic will beat stick in a race any day. he also says that racecars have an auto transmission. i think stick is faster. gimme your thoughts, thanks.

 

[ca86108]

yea of COURSE stick is faster whoever dont think thhat is a dumbass. reason being stick is faster is cuz u can shift wen u want, in auto it shifts automatically at a set rpM. STICK U CAN REDLINE OR SHIFT AT THE RPM U WANT.

 

[94tegT3 turbo]

yea of COURSE stick is faster whoever dont think thhat is a dumbass. reason being stick is faster is cuz u can shift wen u want, in auto it shifts automatically at a set rpM. STICK U CAN REDLINE OR SHIFT AT THE RPM U WANT.

Totally agree with that one. If you take the same exact car, one with stick and one with automatic, and race there's no doubt that the stick will win.

 

[TegSox]

Yep, its a proven fact that manuals are faster than automatics. In a manual tranny, you have less loss of hp to make the transmission function. You've heard of flywheel horsepower vs. horsepower "at the wheels", right? An automatic tranny requires more use of the engines HP to function, where as a manual, you're doing some of the work. The work you're performing requires less demand from the engine to make the tranny function, and you wil put more HP "to the ground" vs. an automatic. Not to mention what ca86108 said, you can shift when you want rather then when the car feels like shifting.

 

[~:LSTEG:~]

stick is going to be faster... you shift when you want to shift

 

[Baldy201]

The reason a stick is faster is NOT because you can shift when you want. It is because of gear ratios and parasidic loss. Parasidic loss was explaned above, loss through the transmission. The gear ratios ar shorter in a stick because there is more gear to go through and better for performance.

LS, RS SE, GS LS, RS, GS, SE
(5-speed) (4- Speed)
1st 3.230 2.722
2nd 1.900 1.468
3rd 1.269 0.975
4th 0.966 0.638
5th 0.714 -----
Final Drive 4.266 4.357
Reverse 3.00 1.954


As you can see there is a big diffrence in gear ratios. To get final torque you take
TQ X g/r X Final drive= Final torque

Torque is what drives the car forward. So if you do the math you can see that the mamual has a lot more torque than the auto.

 

[Prez]

Stick -
Pros : Your own shift points, your trans wont blow up on you when you boost, you have more choices for parts due to no torque converter holding you back
Cons : Traffic is a bitch, you have to master shifting when your drag racing, Heel-Toe manuevers is must to know.

Auto -
Pros : You dont have to shift, its just mash the gas and go, dont have to worry about mis-shifts, Traffic isnt a bitch...
Cons : you'll get owned by your torque converter, you cant rev outside of Neutral, you have the possiblity of being blowned up under high acceleration with boost.

 

[DownShift96GSR]

Yes, with our street cars a stick shift is going to be so much better than an automatic because of faster shifting, downshifting, redlining, blahdy blahdy blah.

On the contrary, it has been said that in the high horsepower drag cars, you know the ones that run like 6's and lower, they use the automatic transmission. Reason being is because at that high of speed and horsepower the automatic actually shifts faster. Plus I think they also use the automatic tranny because its suppose to be a smaller risk of blowing the tranny do to mis shifting in a manny tranny.

I don't know if this is entirely true, but it makes a little sense. I mean if your hauling ass down the 1320 doing 150-160 MPH, both my hands would be on the steering wheel as my head sinks farther back into my helmet.

 

[XTurboAcuraX]

yeah i figured stick is faster overall. the guy said that auto is faster because auto shifts faster than stick. he said it takes longer for a person to shift.

 

[hadjie85]

yeah i figured stick is faster overall. the guy said that auto is faster because auto shifts faster than stick. he said it takes longer for a person to shift.

not if ur good...

kudos baldy, that was some scientific crap man, but you explained it really well. a good example of parasidic loss is found on mid-90's altimas. one of my friends had an altima, and he ended up blowing the motor on it. it was a manual. well, he went to get a new motor, and he found out that if he dropped in a motor from an automatic, he'd gain 15 horsepower over the engine built for the manny tranny. nissan obviously was compensating for this parasidic loss tegsox and baldy referred to. how much all of that really relates to this discussion, im not sure, because if nissan compensated for the power loss, im sure the two altimas (mt vs at) would be fairly close in performance.

regardless, i think we all agree that the guy you talked to was wrong turboacura, so -- as long as he is not an authority figure -- slap him for us!!! :twisted:

 

[FANATTIC8228]

Stick -
Pros : Your own shift points, your trans wont blow up on you when you boost, you have more choices for parts due to no torque converter holding you back
Cons : Traffic is a bitch, you have to master shifting when your drag racing, Heel-Toe manuevers is must to know.

Auto -
Pros : You dont have to shift, its just mash the gas and go, dont have to worry about mis-shifts, Traffic isnt a bitch...
Cons : you'll get owned by your torque converter, you cant rev outside of Neutral, you have the possiblity of being blowned up under high acceleration with boost.

Stick>Auto

I think when it comes to imports, it's gotta be a stick, but old muscle cars you can go either way, most of those cars are auto.

 

[Scratchin]

Seen some Supras with autotranny in JGTC
,most GT race cars in japan they use tc-traany (up and down)
not only for goin fast stright even turning and braking
you gotta control your gears, autotranny cars never turn,stop faster than sticks
maybe far furture....maybe

 

[hadjie85]

dude is that a poem or what? :shock:

and a good racer is gonna be able to control his car thru corners by downshifting and double-clutching (kudos to baldy for explaining that to me ) in a car with a stick. faster cars i can see having autos, or slapshifters. F1 cars have slapshifters mounted on the wheel.

and would you mind explaining how a car with an auto stops faster than the same car with a manny tranny? cuz i have driven an automatic for the past three years and they dont stop any different than a manual. i mean, they both have brakes, right? unless you mean downshifting to slow down. try doing that in an automatic. its possible, but much more difficult and basically worthless.

 

[Dc2 Powered]

acually. most drags cars ARE AUTOMATIC. and i dont mean a drag civic or anything i mean REAL DRAG CARS they are all automatic and have basicaly the same engine it all depends on timing of the launch and who builds a better motor

of corse a stickshift would be faster on our cars seeing how u could redline and most autos will shift earlier but on a acually drag cars their automatic.. such as funny cars etc those are all build as automatics