Now that is good thinking! A 911 6/7 MT and a F430 Scud with paddle shifters. The stuff of dreams!

 

Agreed.

 

Yes...IMO meaningless as far as the cases YOU selected.

IMO there are differences in driving skills between the two trannies. I can't quantify drastic.

Never drive a manual and you never learn to heel-toe, rev match, shift smoothly. All skills that take time and effort to learn properly if you want to drive the car as fast as you possible can.

If your not interested in these skills buy a PDK and one can leave it up to the computer to do it for them.

 

Sounds good to me, I wish I never had to learn to heel-toe, even as a kid I hated it. It was fun to master a skill, but after that, the challenge was gone, so it was a chore, not a fun task.

 

Agreed, though I wonder if 7 gears might not be too many with manual?

 

Been there done that. Have had 3 manual Porsche's. Starting with an 86 3.2 Carrera, a 90 964 and my 40th anniversary 996. Then had a manual M3. This is my second non manual. Only reason, I'd go back is if I go old.

 

As I understand the Porsche video on the new 911 with either the manual or PDK (I'll post the link if I can find it), 7th is a very tall gear to be used only when cruising for long distances.

I would never use it here on the Island.

 

thats why it's great to have a choice.

 

I use 6th for that purpose, and am often in 5th (sometimes even 4th) on the highway if I need/want extra torque for passing.

I think 7 gears is fine for PDK, but may be too much of a shifting burden with manual (assuming use of at least 1st to 6th most of the time). For the same reason, I'd give serious consideration to PDK in a 911 Turbo. But with my mere 997 C2S, I still like the 6MT.

 

After spending last week doing 500k in the german black forest with PDK cars, I'm sold. I was able to experience it in a Cayman, C4, S, and Panamera - all flawless. This tranny is a technical marvel and totally worth the money.

 

Hurts to hear that. Now I really wish I had both manual and PDK.

 

I got a manual in my latest p-car because I truly feel that they are a dying breed. I would not be surprised if, in the near future, all Porsches came with a PDK by default and there was an option for a "clutch by wire" pedal and an electronic stick just to make the die hard happy. It would be just like playing an extra level of a video game while driving.

My thinking about PDK went like this:

From a performance perspective, I think I am a decent shifter but, if Walter Rohrl can't make the ring faster in a manual than a PDK, I have no chance in hell...

From an engineering perspective I would think that the strain on the drivetrain during a shift is consistently less when a computer is matching revs than when a human is so the reliability should be good as soon as the PDK by itself is good. It is a more complex piece of hardware than a classic manual but again, it cannot suffer the same operator mistakes. So it will all come down to software at some point. And isn't the current generation PDK essentially running 1st gen software? Just imagine how good it will be after a couple of generations...

All that is left is the emotional aspect of it. I feel that I personally invested a lot of time in learning to shift properly and that this work has given me somewhat of an advantage on the track (I am probably deluding myself but bear with me here...) so, to have a technology like PDK come along and reset all the counters is unnerving me a little bit but, like someone said in an earlier post, that will only mean that I will now have more time seeing the line and braking properly when coming into a corner, so how bad can it be? Learning something new is what is making this thing fun in the first place isn't it?

Just my 0.02,

T.

P.S.: Isn't the SpeedMerchants team based out of Canada?

 

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Based on the promo vid, the 7th gear is something you'd only ever use in a highway cruise situation. Gears 1-6 are packed nice and tight for perf(haven't seen the ratios but I presume so anyway) and the 7th gear an overdrive for maxing fuel eco. So, I wouldn't let the 7 gears turn you off -- you won't be seeing it much except on highway trips, etc.

 

As a big fan of analogies, I would point out the flaws above thusly, IMHO, of course:

For the golf to tranny, it is more accurteto say that the advances in clubs is analogous to Porsches advances ini MT, from 901(?), to 915, to G50, to the current, then 991 MT.

Going from MT to PDK is like attending a golf event in person (required long ago, now an 'option') vs watching on TV.

Some would say that The TV experience is superior as you get to see all the key players and best shots. Some would argue that it's better to be there in person...