L8 apexr wrote:
I was really taking about the dual lever set-up driven posted,that looks like a lot of effort for no gains other than awkwardness.
As for the clutch on the shifter,I think it would quite alot of practice to get the timing right on the downshifts to be smooth enough(slow shifts for a street car sure,not for the rapid fire downshifts I prefer).Left leg would be doing nothing anyways and the right hand would be doing two things at once,I'm a guy so I'm not supposed to be able to do two things with the same limb at once.
Each of us is certainly entitled to our own opinions, and when success is achieved with one method it becomes natural to resist change.
I personally would challenge that, like learning any other "muscle memory" motion, with just a little practice a hand clutch on the shifter actually requires
less physical coordination than the timing we all hard to learn trying to accomplish the same single fluid task with two separate limbs. I would also challenge that, again with just a little practice, it is more ideal to have two feet operating two pedals rather than three. With a push/pull cable operated shifter, the mechanism can even be mounted on which ever side is more comfortable for the driver...Although a direct solid linkage for the shifter does seem to provide a more 'positive' feel most of the time.
I would also not be surprised if with a little practice to gain familiarity, the intimidating
looking shifter pictured above is probably the least awkward of them all, as there is now one less function to operate individually allowing the driver to focus that much more on the driving. There is also probably a pretty good reason or two that one of the best established and most successful FSAE programs in the country continue to run it, year after year.
Does operating part of a vehicle in a newish way take some getting used to? Absolutely. But so did the learning to drive a car, or ride a motorcycle, or to heel-toe downshift. Now I'm certainly not saying it would be the favorite solution for everybody who tries it, but it does have its potential advantages on the sequential dog box in a BEC for some of those willing to try it for themselves.