FORWARD TO REVERSE 180

[LHOswald]

i honestly think your best bet is to do it at a low speed and try to rev match it slowly. since your reverse gear is pretty close to your 1st gear, just think of trying to rev match 1st and it should be somewhat similar for reverse. otherwise, your gonna have to just jam it into reverse as hard as possible to avoid the teeth missing

[07_Mustang V6]

I really wanna try 180's but I'm somewhat scared to since I've only been driving for a year now. My friend from Germany used to race professionally and he said he would teach me some things when he came over again but that may not be for another year. So any suggestions where or if I should give 180's a shot?

[gizmo]

i can't, in good conscience, recommend a course of action outside of a closed course. i would like to think, that given ample safety precautions, most people would view these manuevers as an attempt to better control one's car. there may come a time when one loses control, and i think manuevers like these will better prepare one for those moments.

the only recommendation i might have for you, is to put a piece of tape at the top center of your wheel, so you're constantly aware of the direction of travel. a common rookie mistake would be overcorrection, and in an attempt to counter a slide, and you might cause an effect antithetical to your goal.

truth is: don't lose control of your car. don't drive beyond your headlights. don't drive beyond the limits of an IV line (invisibility line). and when in snow, which is the real reason to learn these manuevers for me, you just can't be sure that when you request a change in direction that that change in direction will be honored, regardless of speed, and in that you should choose wisely whether to drive in those conditions in the first place.

i just had an incident on a race track the other day, where i accidently did a 180; i had just taken the checkered flag lap, ahead of the rest of the field, and i decided to take the "pinch turn" sideways just so see what would happen. the first thing i did was move to the inside of that turn and "hide", because i was beyond the IV line, and people coming around that turn would've crashed into me if i handn't moved into the only place they would never be. it required driving backwards on the track. i know my explnation doesn't do the manuever justice, but i thought it pretty smart at the time, totally avoided what could've been an ugly wreck, since no one really worries about track conditions after the checkered comes out.

[theholycow]

truth is: don't lose control of your car. don't drive beyond your headlights. don't drive beyond the limits of an IV line (invisibility line). and when in snow, which is the real reason to learn these manuevers for me, you just can't be sure that when you request a change in direction that that change in direction will be honored, regardless of speed, and in that you should choose wisely whether to drive in those conditions in the first place.

Sage advice.

To elaborate on one piece of that..."don't drive beyond your headlights" means this: If you see something come into your headlights illumination area and need to stop, will you be able to stop? If not, you need to go slower.

The same applies to coming up over a hill; if you can't see what's over the hill, you need to be able to stop/avoid anything that's on the other side between the time you first see it and the time you hit it.

[gizmo]

good question, paul34, here's my conjecture/answer:

neglecting the reason for the spinout, humor this line of thought: say one loses control of the car, say the car begin sliding sideways into the oncoming traffic lane, due to mid-turn understeer, one could initiate the j-turn, engage reverse, and maneuver the car out of the "danger" zone, whether that be back into the original lane or off the road somehow.

in other words, this maneuver just might offer a chance to regain control of the car -- or at the very least avoid a serious accident -- when no other remedies exist.

(meaning, there are many times where this might be unnecessary, impractical, or impossible, and in those cases the driver could just accept the impending crash, and as such, aim for a crash zone that will cause the least amount of damage to the car, preferably sustaining no damage to the driver himself/herself and surround motorists/pedistriants/etc.)

[theholycow]

say one loses control of the car, say the car begin sliding sideways into the oncoming traffic lane, due to mid-turn understeer, one could initiate the j-turn, engage reverse, and maneuver the car out of the "danger" zone

That explains the J-turn, which is reverse-to-forward....but in what situation would you want to switch from facing forward to facing reverse while continuing to move in what becomes reverse direction?

[gizmo]

right lane driving. right turn. ice. understeer/oversteer -- take your pick.

in one of those two cases, a problem might be averted by converting a cockeyed forward direction of travel into reverse and adjusting accordingly.

honestly, i see no statistical chance of this ever happening, and even less chance of it being executed properly, but i would think at the very least the skills one would develop mastering this technique should carry over and possibly aid situations that would be more probable.

i just figure, considering i drive forwards most of the time, that there will come a time where forwards motion may need to be converted into backwards motion.

reverse --> forwards seems like more a time sensitive technique; a quick alternative to the 3 point turn.
forwards --> reverse, in addition to my previous point, would also be a quick alternative to the 3 point turn if one needed to negiotiate a string of turns tailored to rear wheel steering; i think we can all agree rear wheel steering is designed to maneuver around in tight spaces?

in either case, time is being gained at the expense of rubber.

[theholycow]

I can definitely agree that the practice required to master it may help with some other, different situation.

[Roymond]

Still I believe that this original question is not answered. Why does shifting in reverse when the car is rolling grind the gear regardless of whether or not the clutch is in?

I've noticed sometimes that my clutch will be fully in, the car will be completely stopped and in neutral and i shift into reverse and it grinds the gear a little, which geeks me out a little bit.

[mad_finn]

I have never had the feeling to put in reverse, when I have done 180 to reverse... because I have allways continued with 180 to foward after couple of hundred feets or then just turned the car around when I have expected bigges crash, so the the damage would be in the rear end of the car, leaving expensive parts (radiator, the engine itself etc.) out of damage. Allways managed to stop before I have crashed though.

And afterall... if there will be accident I rather have full bodyweight slammed to my seat, than few srings...

[theholycow]

Good point! Much rather have a rear impact than a front impact, for my safety and for cost of repair.

[Bawked]

Still I believe that this original question is not answered. Why does shifting in reverse when the car is rolling grind the gear regardless of whether or not the clutch is in?

I've noticed sometimes that my clutch will be fully in, the car will be completely stopped and in neutral and i shift into reverse and it grinds the gear a little, which geeks me out a little bit.

because the gears on the shafts are still spinning, reverse doesn't have a synchro.... (usually).... the teeth holes are small, revs need to be close for the collar to engage, close meaning closer to zero reverse will spin the output shaft..... the OTHER way.

you can't engage reverse by rev-matching!! why mr bawkmoto? answer: because you need the revmatch the output shaft the wrong way!!! guess what!! What?! only reverse does that!!!! OMG mr bawkmoto we thank you!!! so you need to lock the wheels, spose clutch in with the car in gear would do as that would stop the input and output shafts spinning then you could engage reverse and yea drop the clutch, unlock the wheels and see what happens

haha i won't be trying this in my car anytime soon. Hope this helps deter you from trying unless you have a beater go hard

[LHOswald]

you can't do it because of the idler gear that has to be pushed in as well

[gizmo]

Damn. How did the guy in the video catch reverse ( I posted it eArlier). I hate tutorials that skip essential details purposely.

[fa22raptorf22]

Ready.......steady.......GO!

These moves are so fun to do.

The easist way ive found for a forward to reverse is to be moving forward at some speed, flick the car one way and go the other for the weight transfer to upset the car, and give a little pull on the handbrake to throw the car around. Then floor the brakes and clutch and pull to reverse. As you let the clutch back up to nail reverse, take note at the speed you are already traveling backwards and give the necessary amount of throttle to boot, and drop the clutch, then nail reverse!

The opposite maneuver for reverse to forwards is the just the same except for one little thing. You need to flick the car in the same manner but nail the front brakes to skid instead of the rear. And this maneuver is easier because you dont have to lock the fronts to get into gear because you now have sychros in the forward gears!!!

I would advise learning in the snow first as its much safer and easier to learn without breaking anything.

ENJOY!