I've been driving stick for quiet some time. Many diff cars and a lot of miles.

BUT, the Cobalt is the only one I have driven with such a strange setup. More specifically, 1st gear is super short. SUPER short. If I peg the gas I have a mere seconds to begin shifting to 2nd otherwise I'm hitting the rev limiter before I know it.

Next, shifting from 1st to 2nd.... First of all, if I shift at 6K from 1st to 2nd the vibration from the engine feeding through the clutch is much more than I have ever experienced. Furthurmore, I get off the gas as soon as I can when depressing the clutch as I shift between 1st and 2nd but the engine seems to hover at the same RPM for a moment before finally coming down. This is an issue because shifting to 2nd - the gear ratio dictates that I have to wait for the RPMs to drop to about 3K-4K before I can engage that gear otherwise I am burning the clutch and jolting the engine to the RPMs at the wheels for 2nd gear....so basically it forces me to 'granny shift' (i.e. allow the engine to come down in RPMs in between the two gears as I shift) to avoid undue stress on the engine and clutch/tranny.

Do you all have this issue?

 

Hi Enuff -

My Z06 revs as quickly in first, and much more quickly in second and third.

The Cobalt seems to have too tall a second gear - I find that the car falls out of it's power band when I run it up to redline in first and then hit 2nd.

I am hoping a stage kit will cure some of that feel - that is where a stock SRT4 pulls you in a stock SS/SC (at least the one that pulled on me did it in second on the low end.)

best regards -

mqqn

 

No such luck - I have to Stage 2 kit - same issue.

I mean don't get me wrong...I've seen videos of guys driving the SS SC hard with a camera on the Tach - and I see the rapid fall when engaging the clutch between 1st and 2nd after a hard accel. I just wish I didn't have to stress the engine/tranny so much while kicking her in the guts every so iften!

 

tranny will take all the abuse, its the clutch you have to worry about. Never heard of a tranny going bad because of an issue like this (stress). The only way you can actually destroy a stick is to grind the gears away. THen you got those shavings of whatever gear is history, that'll eventually do the same to the others.

 

I don't know about others, but i like it.

My stage 2 fixxed the issue of falling out of the power band in 2nd, It just pulls a lot earlier in 2nd now. 2nd gear is long and still puts you in your seat, making getting to highway speed fun. 1st gear is temper mental but if you just roll into it, its good for powerful burst of speed and scaring passengers.

Practice driving it smoothly and and rolling into the throttle, it will help.

 

Easy fix.

Lift off gass .5 seonds sooner then your used to and it works perfect. Thats what I do.

Later

 

I've found that you can shift 1-2 quickly, but you still need to ease of the clutch and roll into the gas much easier than any other gear. Let off the clutch quickly, just not all the way, and that will pull the engine back down. As long as you're not giving it a ton of gas at the same time, you're not going to hurt your clutch, and you can shift a lot quicker, a lot smoother. It's taken me about 6000 miles to figure this one out. (this is for regular traffic driving, of course)

 

I have heard of guys using HPTuners to fix the dreaded 1st to 2nd shift. Something with the fuel not a tranny calabration. Hopefuly one of them chime in.

 

I also heaed that the the tune the 2.4 guys been doing helps a bit,Ist gear sucks on our cars,but then again my vibe was the same way,which makes me believe there are more cars like this

 

My old olds with the quad 4 HO in it would go 53mph in 1st gear!!!!!

This car makes to much power to have such a short first gear.

Later

 

It saves on economy to have the short first gear. Because you don't need to eploy the supercharger to get started it helps keep from relying on it in later gears...

Unless you have a lead foot....


like me.

 

yeah with hp you can remove the torque reduction goin into 2nd (pulls boost) plus if you bump up the redline more (I"m runnin 7400) it stays nice in the power band....

 

1st gear in the SS/SC is a DREAM compared to my 5spd '85 Fiero SE. Redline was 4800!!!! Yes, I said 4800!!!! I could only get to a hair above 20km/h in first before having to shift. The Fiero had an equally tall 2nd as the Cobalt but it only offered 92hp (at the crank) to get you through it. I love our 6500rpm revlimiter and can't wait for the bump to 7000, at least we can turn an entire corner without shifting - sadly I could not in my Fiero.