What does upshifting and downshifting in a car mean if I want to accelerate?
In: Engineering
If under 3-4k rpms – downshift to accelerate. And really, you should be able to feel what you need to do. If not, practice driving more.
By selecting different gears you are able to engage the power of an engine for different speeds via the transmission. Low gears are generally for low speed, high for high speed.
What kind of output you get is dependant on the cars setup and how much input you give the throttle between each gear change.
You only down shift to slow down and put it in a lower gear with more torque.
When you accelerate you start in the lower gears and shift to the higher gears as you increase speed. Less torque but higher top in speed in the higher gears.
A gearbox allows you to trade torque (pushing force) for speed. If you are in a high gear you may not have enough torque or “push” to increase your speed so you down shift to a lower gear with more torque.
Additionally, the engine works best when spinning at certain speeds. At certain RPM the engine will have more torque than at higher or lower values so you also have to know this to determine when you will have enough torque or are allowed to downshift.
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