[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by Redex

True "rev matching" is changing gear, up or down, without using the clutch. Takes a lot of practice. Easiest to do if you keep the engine speed low..

Actually this was great fun to do on the Yezdi CL II and D250 Classic (Ideal Jawa) bikes in the 1980’s when I first learned to ride. The gear lever was on the left and the system was 1 down and 2 up. So on an incline it was fun to allow the exhaust to over run at lower revs and knock 3rd down into 2nd. (Learned all these lightly naughty tricks too…but walked away from motorbikes in the 1990’s after one too many foolish ‘Prangs’)

My friend (an accomplished rider) used to do this all the time on his Rajdoot Yamaha RD 350. And several times after breaking the clutch cable, has ridden back home changing gears only by rev matching.

And then we re-applied all this knowledge to the Mahindra CL550 Jeep which had 3 forward gears same as the original Willys Jeeps; between third and second and vice versa. Could never do it for 1st because you actually needed to be at a dead halt to engage 1st.

In the Maruti. Gypsy ( Suzuki Samurai) it was nice and rendered a little easier because it had a fully synchromesh gear box, 2nd,3rd and 4th. And it was especially fun to do this from 4th to 3rd and then to 2nd, on a nice straight section before approaching a curve or an incline.

But if you missed a beat and ended up ‘clashing the gears’ and ‘grinding the cogs’ it was a horrid ‘butt-clenching and wince, cringe moment and merely a matter of time before the ‘synchromesh cones’ wore out.

Ive spoken to several accomplished Rallyists, all of whom used to rally in their Gypsys in the 1990’s. They have tales of how, when coming to a curve on those dirt rally trails, kicking up dust and badly needing traction, they used to smash the small transfer case lever into 4H just before hitting the curve, so that they did not side-slip and fish-tail outnof control. And those rally Gypsy gear boxes and transfer cases needs swapping out for every rally. The average life used to be 3 - 4 months during rally season I believe.

[dhanushs]

Revv matching while downshifting is mainly done in rallys and it is done to prevent the vehicle from breaking traction while downshifting, because of the huge engine braking developed on a high rpm downshift and to soften the blow.

For a regular driver, if you are on a particularly spirited run, downshifting from 6k and revv matching help and sound particularly good.

However, on a normal everyday drive where rpms stay in ~1.5-2.5k its not relevent at all!

[SH1N1G4MI]

As someone with a bit of a heavy right foot, I always revmatch my shifts. No reason not to honestly; shifts become so smooth, there is much lower wear on the clutch and driveline components. But the biggest benefit is how much less time it takes for a downshift, I can do a solid 4-3 or 3-2 downshift in just around 1 second where as if I were to slip the clutch it would take around 3. Also I drive a diesel so if I were to just dump the clutch on a 3-2 downshift without revmatching then my head would end up on the steering wheel.

[McQueen]

Originally Posted by GrandTourer

No expert here, but for 3, I don't think it would be of much use if you rev before the clutch-in.

I didn't mean to rev-match before pushing the clutch down (unless I'm misunderstanding what you tried to convey). I asked if we can rev-match in the following sequence: clutch in -> blip the throttle -> downshift -> release clutch. I explained the process over here.

Originally Posted by Redex

True "rev matching" is changing gear, up or down, without using the clutch. Takes a lot of practice. Easiest to do if you keep the engine speed low.

Yes, yes, that's right. I did that yesterday for no good reason and felt so happy afterwards haha.

[b16h22]

I rev match the downshifts religiously on all the motorcycles I ride. It is a skill I learned in two months of owning my first geared motorcycle, the 2013 Duke 390. If you don't rev match on that thing, get ready to have rear end slides in wet. It has really strong engine braking due to high compression. The downshifts are brutal if you don't rev match.

I feel it is a must have skill for a motorcycle enthusiast. Motorcycles have straight cut gears and no synchros like car GBs. So you are doing a big favor to the transmission and driveline components with rev matching. The downshifts become incredibly smooth and quick. You can drop multiple gears in a jiffy. The practice also allows you to have better control while riding. Lets you keep the revs up if you ride a bike with poor low end torque and allow smoother corner entry and exits. The rear end of the motorcycle is also way more settled while entering the corner after dropping a couple of gears. This is particularly important for spirited riding in the twisties. Modern bikes with slip and assist clutch mechanisms do improve things.

[RD410]

Car - never
Bike - always

My car is rarely driven above 3k rpm, so revv matching during downshifts is not really needed. In case of bikes, I ride them for fun and revv matching just adds to the fun quotient.

[ssjr0498]

I do blipping while changing gears to accelerate and rev-matching while downshifting regularly on all my cars and bike. My brain is wired to do this now automatically!

[r2212xx]

I mostly do it only when going down from 4th to 3rd since there is often some blank torque area between these two gears. Also, there is an overlap of speed range across these gears but with vast differences in torque. Thus, downshift rev-matching is helpful when you have to make quick overtakes or there is a change in the road's gradient (the road starts going uphill), but without the need to go all the way to the 2nd gear.

Contrary to the association of downshift rev-matching with sporty driving, I have found it most useful in mundane city driving conditions where the requirements for torque are too broad than in highway driving. Downshift rev-matching helps maintain momentum, close gaps quickly, and overtake smoothly.

I usually blip the throttle and then downshift. It gives some milliseconds for the RPM to stabilise rather than downshifting and then blipping the throttle since that, in my experience, comes across as jerky.

[nmenon]

I do a rev matched downshift on a bike by habit, it came from the Suzuki Max 100 I learnt to ride on, which would die if you let go of the throttle.
I started learning it on my Alto just before I sold it.
It has now become a habit on most cars I drive, but I don't do heel and toe as I don't feel comfortable with the way pedals are laid out in many cars.
I absolutely do this on the diesel cars I drive since something like the i20 with its 6 speeds needs it to keep the revs up when going into the ghats.
While I haven't perfected the technique yet, I feel it gives smoother downshifts and is fun to do.